Prakhar Chaturvedi
etched his name into the record books – yet, not sure, how many noticed his
feat ! Remember buying Sportstar in
1988 that had on its Greame Hick – reading
: - Hick, Hick, Hick, Hick !! – decipher what ?
We have been
engrossed in International Cricket – the ICC World Cup 2023 followed by some
matches and yesterday there was this enthralling 22 over match at Bengaluru
against Afghanistan.
.. .. .. and in the
melee, not many would have been following Ranji trophy itself, then how to think of Prakhar Chathurvedi’s
feat ! This 2023-24 Ranji Season, Bihar
has been in news for wrong reason - two cricket teams in Bihar. One of them
official. In the first round of the
2023-24 Ranji Trophy, it was two teams
(almost) turning up for the same game and the match being played in a stadium
in complete disrepair. Such was - or is - the state of the stadium, that fans
who made their way to the game were greeted by "no entry" signs.
The Kamata Kingdom emerged in western Kamarupa probably when
Sandhya, a ruler of Kamarupanagara, moved his capital west to Kamatapur
sometime after 1257 CE. Only die-hard fans of domestic Cricket know about
Cooch-Behar Trophy !
Cooch Behar, was a princely state in India during the
British Raj. The state was placed under
the Bengal States Agency, part of the Eastern States Agency of the Bengal
Presidency. It is located south of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, in
present-day West Bengal.
Cooch Behar State was
formed when the Kamata Kingdom under the Koch dynasty split following the death
of Nara Narayan in 1586. The eastern portion, Koch Hajo, was soon absorbed by
Ahom. The western portion, Koch Bihar, formed a separate unit that came under
direct challenge by the Mughal Empire. After weathering the Mughal threat, a
new foe emerged in the form of an expansionist Bhutanese kingdom. After a
series of wars with the Bhutanese and Tibetans, the Northern threat was pushed
back but not before a Bhutanese regent was installed in the royal court. The
Koch Bihar court decided to invite British intervention. When the British colonial rule was finally
terminated in India, the Koch Bihar state immediately acceded to and merged
with India in 1949 and became a part of West Bengal. The district, Cooch Behar
District, is named after this erstwhile kingdom.
The Cooch Behar
Trophy is India's national four-day cricket tournament for under-19 players. It
has been held annually since the 1945–46 season. It is run by the Board of
Control for Cricket in India. The trophy was donated by, and named after, the
family of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar. From 1945–46 to 1986–87 the Cooch Behar
Trophy was a schools competition but was later changed to an under-19
competition in 1987–88. All the Ranji
Trophy teams field sides, except for Railways and Services. The sides are
divided into four groups, each of which plays a round-robin. After the group
matches are completed, quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final are held.
Opening the innings
for Karnataka in its chase of Mumbai’s first innings score of 280, Prakhar Chaturvedi
remained unbeaten on 404 off 638 balls when the match was declared drawn, with
Karnataka taking the first innings lead.
Prakhar Chaturvedi
etched his name into the record books by scoring the first quadruple century in
the final of the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy, against Mumbai in Shimoga on
Sunday. Along the way, he surpassed Yuvraj Singh's 24-year-old record of 358,
the previous highest individual score in the tournament final. Overall, he
slotted in at No. 2 on the list of highest individual scores in the tournament,
after Vijay Zol's 451 not out for Maharashtra against Assam in the 2011-12
season.
Opening the innings,
Chaturvedi made 404 not out as Karnataka batted Mumbai out of the game and won
on the basis of a first-innings lead. Karnataka posted 890 for 8 after 223
overs of batting in response to Mumbai's 380 all out on the second day. Chaturvedi
faced 638 balls in all, hitting 46 fours and three sixes in his knock. It
marked a spectacular turnaround in fortunes for Chaturvedi, who wasn't picked
in the Under-19 squad for the season to begin with, but now elicits the
prospect of making his senior team debut for Karnataka in the Ranji Trophy, in
the same season where he also missed the India Under-19 World Cup bus.
Chaturvedi's knock is
bound to attract significant interest from the senior state selectors given
Karnataka suffered a crushing six-run loss to Gujarat in the Ranji Trophy
earlier on Monday, after they lost 10 for 53 to crash out in a chase of 110.
Graeme Ashley Hick MBE is a Zimbabwean-born former England cricketer who
played 65 Test matches and 120 One Day Internationals for England. He was born
in Rhodesia, and as a young man played international cricket for Zimbabwe. He
played English county cricket for Worcestershire for his entire English
domestic career, a period of well over twenty years, and in 2008 surpassed
Graham Gooch's record for the most matches in all forms of the game combined. He scored more than 40,000 first-class runs
In May 1988, against
Somerset he set a County Championship record by scoring 405 runs in a single
innings. The, then 21-year-old Zimbabwe
batsman had a run haul of 410, including a double century against
Lancashire at Old Trafford. Worcestershire were 132 for five at one stage with
Botham walking for seven but Hick single-handedly saw them to victory with his
405 not out. In 555 minutes, he hit 11 sixes and 35 fours from 469 balls as
Worcestershire declared on 628 for seven.
400 is big in any
form of Cricket – remains to be seen whether Prakhar ends big in his career.
With regards -S Sampathkumar
18.1.2024
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