KARACHI, April 2: Hosting a triangular series and honouring the Test and ODI stars who had done the city proud, are the two main features of the Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA), formerly Karachi Cricket Association (KCA), centenary celebrations which will take place some time this year.
In fact, the KCCA has planned to stage the week-long centenary celebration tri-series involving Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka besides Pakistan in 2003-2004 but that could not materialize for one reason or the other and later a day and night against Sri Lanka was on card but cancelled due to tsunami tragedy.
Today the KCCA stands tall as it has completed an innings of 100 — (1904-2004) and for that, it deserves kudos. The KCCA has come a long way by overcoming a number of hurdles one after the other that came their way. Efforts were made by people time and again in connivance with the establishment to put a dent in the body but in vain.
Founded by late Mr. G. W. Wilson, the first president of the body, KCCA is, perhaps, the only sports association of the city that already existed at the time of independence. The Parsi community who were natives of the city during pre independence era, played a key role in promoting the game and founding of the then KCA. The body was renamed as KCCA in 1979-1980 The office of KCCA remained housed in Muslim Gymkhana for a long time before moving to the National Stadium.
Considered as the biggest nursery of of cricket in the country, KCCA is proud of producing tens and thousands of First Class cricketers and a large number of Test cricketers after independence. The fraternity of the game will never forget the heroics of Mohammed brothers Hanif, Mushtaq, Sadiq, Wazir, Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Asif Iqbal, Wasim Bari, Intikhab Alam, Saeed Anwar, Rashid Latif, Moin Khan and Shahid Afridi to name a few. The names of Basit Ali, Hasan Raza, Shadab Kabir, Danish Kaneria and Muhammad Sami who are products of KCCA talent hunt scheme have also entered into the annals of cricket.
It was because of their shining performance that the KCCA annexed the prestigious Quaid-i-Azam Trophy 17 times besides being runners-up on 10 occasions. They had six Patron’s Trophy titles under their belt in addition to 12 national under-19 titles.
The KCCA is comprised of seven zones with as many as 320 registered clubs under its fold. There are around 20 turf wickets in the city which are extensively used throughout the year. Presently, 180 teams are competing in an Inter-club cricket tournament which is part of centenary celebrations. The KCCA had also organized a quadrangular tournament in this connection, final of which will be played later.
October 20, 2003, was a red letter day in the history of KCCA when Sindh Governor, Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan, formally inaugurated the KCCA stadium. Built on a land leased by the city government to the KCCA in Block N, North Nazimabad, it costs the association little over 5.0m rupees which was raised from their own resources.
Based on the design of PCB pavilions all over the country, the beautiful building provides facilities of players’ dressing rooms, seating arrangements for VVIP and media, dining lobby, kitchen, players’ lockers, conference room, KCCA secretariat and a radio and TV commentary booth. KCCA plans to install floodlights at the stadium in future, which will serve as a venue for First Class matches.
‘It’s an auspicious occasion for me to be associated with the country’s premier cricket association at this juncture when it is commemorating centenary celebrations’, Sirajul Islam Bukhari, secretary KCCA said.
Bukhari and his predecessor the late Essa E H Jaffer have equally shared fifty of the 100 years in the KCCA office after independence. This is not a new phenomenon in Pakistan sports.
What can be a better occasion for Pakistan Post Office then this to issue a ‘First Day Cover’ on KCCA Centenary Celebrations?
It is time that those who were groomed into Test stars by playing for Karachi should repay the debt in whatever way they can so that the process of producing more and more players for the country continues without lapse.
