Annual first-class cricket match
The Madras Presidency Match was an annual first-class cricket fixture played in Madras (now Chennai) from the 1915–16 season to 1951–52 between teams called the Indians and the Europeans (i.e., Europeans who were living in India). The matches were played in the Chepauk Grounds (the present M. A. Chidambaram Stadium) usually in mid-January around the time of Pongal festival, and the fixture was sometimes called the Pongal match. Of the 37 matches played, 33 were first-class and the Indians won 15 of those, the Europeans eight and ten were drawn.
Background.
The Presidency Match was the idea of Buchi Babu Naidu of the Madras United Club (MUC) and Percival Partridge of the Madras Cricket Club (MCC). The MCC, at the time, was an exclusively white organisation and the MUC was founded by Buchi Babu as a similar cricket club for the Indians. Shortly before the first match Buchi Babu, who was to captain the Indian side, died of a heart attack. The match still went ahead, mainly because of the efforts of B. Subramaniam, an assistant of Buchi Babu. The Indian side was captained by B. S. Ramulu Naidu and the Europeans by Partridge. This "Presidency Hindus" and "Presidency Europeans" match was to have been played between 29 December 1908 and 1 January 1909, but it was abandoned because of rain without the first innings being completed.
Subramanian organised an annual "Buchi Babu Memorial Tournament" from 1909 and the Europeans v Indians series was not revived until the 1915–16 season. This match, which began on the last day of 1915, is considered the first Madras Presidency Match.
The matches.
The Indians generally dominated the series and it was 1920–21 before the Europeans scored their first victory. The length of the match was increased from two to three days in the third year and gates were introduced in 1921. The 1935 match was cancelled because of a dispute about sharing the profits from the previous year between the MCC and the Indian Cricket Federation.
The teams occasionally brought in players from outside the Madras Presidency. C. K. Nayudu, the Maharajkumar of Vizianagram, and Phiroze Palia all played for the Indians. In 1921, C. K. Nayudu hit 128 before lunch on the first day, an innings that included a famous hit which cleared "the boundary wall at the southern end of the MCC compound – to land near a coconut tree 50 yards from the MCC grounds. The hit was easily above 150 yards from the batting crease". In 1927, Humphrey Ward of the Europeans hit 173, setting a record for the highest score in the series. It was bettered the next day by M. C. Sivasankaran, who made 174 for the Indians.
Decline.
The Second World War caused the cancellation of the 1942 match and, from then, the series went into decline. By the late 1940s, with the exodus of the British after Partition, the Europeans struggled to raise a team. As a consequence, the number of spectators saw a steady decrease. No match was played in 1949 and 1950 and those for 1951 and 1952 were two-day affairs and not first-class. The match in the latter year was watched by a crowd of six people, four of whom were journalists. This was the last Madras Presidency match.
An attempt was made in 1956 to revive the competition and a match was played between Indian and European members of the Madras Cricket Club. The Indians won by an innings and the experiment was never repeated.
References.
Notes.
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