Great Domestic Sides - Mumbai, The Hague Cricket Club and more to come!

[Bevab]

Top Order?

There is no shortage of number three players for an all-time Mumbai XI. Almost every one of them have international pedigree and would be a star in most domestic teams. A few of these players have also played in other positions due to the sheer competition for that coveted spot!

First up is one of India's most influential cricket writers who was unfortunate to not play more international cricket in Rusi Modi (batting average: 79.94). Modi's career started off very brightly with seven consecutive hundreds after a forgettable debut for Bombay. He impressed further in the unofficial tests and later on the official ones whilst being a pillar of strength domestically. It was very unfortunate that circumstances in his personal life started limiting his appearances (he had already pulled out of a tour to Australia previously) and his batting had visibly declined to the observers. He only received two more chances internationally after the West Indies games and failed in both. However, he was Bombay's second batsman next to only Vijay Merchant in the 40s and 50s and was the first to score over a thousand runs in a single season. A relentless accumulator who loved to play elegant shots versus the spinners, he shall be the perfect number three.

The other number three will be a batsman who was one of the finest India have ever produced. Dilip Vengsarkar (batting average: 69.56) was at one point in the 80s the best batsman in the world. A man marked to become an absolute star right from his teenage days, it took him a couple of years to truly shine but there was no stopping him once he settled in. Equally fearless versus both the most fearsome pace attacks and the most dangerous spinners, Vengsarkar thrived when he was challenged and was for many years a larger than life personality in the Bombay side who is unfortunately not talked about as much by Indian fans these days. Vengsarkar is most famous for starring in India's first victory at Lord's with a magnificent hundred which was his third consecutive century at the famous ground, the only non-Englishman to do so.

Mumbai A

1. Vijay Merchant
2. Wasim Jaffer
3. Rusi Modi

Mumbai B

1. Sunil Gavaskar
2. Ravi Shastri
3. Dilip Vengsarkar

 

[Paranoid Kendroid]

@Bevab any chance that this could be revived?

 

[Bevab]

@Bevab any chance that this could be revived?

If you've got ideas then I'd be more than welcome to have you post your sides here too.

From my side, I had a document with a few teams worked out in it. Gotta see if that document survived the purge of my laptop a year ago.

EDIT - The document seems to be alive and well. I've got the Mumbai side fully up in there but I assume I stopped posting because of resuming classes back then and then work taking time away from the posts. I'll see if I can make a small post for the rest of the Mumbai team at least.

 

[Paranoid Kendroid]

If you've got ideas then I'd be more than welcome to have you post your sides here too.

I would love to but I am neither a good writer nor have as extensive knowledge of cricket as you.

 

[Bevab]

I would love to but I am neither a good writer nor have as extensive knowledge of cricket as you.

Most of my knowledge is just scouring the internet for different viewpoints and reading a bunch of articles honestly.

Some of the information I got was via cricketcountry who seem to have purged most if not all of their old good articles and historical pieces. A real shame to see the site devolve into the current mess it is.

 

[Bevab]

@liveinasociety feel free to make any form of domestic side post here too. I had ideas for posting an all-time XI for each IPL side and a few sides for each decade or just a specific point in time (some of the 1996 Sheffield Shield sides were good enough to have played international cricket). None of these have any similarity to another but all run along a similar theme of domestic side oriented.