Welcome to Murugan Cricket Club
Way back in the year 1967, strong desire to play cricket brought together a group of youngsters, then not yet into their teens, in the small piece of open space in front of the Lord Muruga temple at South Street. These youngsters were mostly from the Agraharams doting the Southern side of Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple. It did not take much time for these youngsters to realise one important aspect of cricket. That it is a useful vehicle to develop, nurture and expand friendship. So they got their kin and kith also involved in the game at the earliest. All these led to wider promotion of the game and these youngsters become a source of inspiration for many who wished to take up cricket.
A few elders who were closely following the spirited cricketing activities of these youngsters, encouraged them to form a club so that they can improve their game through regular and organised practice, and further horn their skills by competing with other teams. Heeding the advice of the well-wishers, the youngsters formed a cricket club, and named it Murugan Cricket Club, in respect and honour of the deity under whose graceful glance they were playing until then, mostly with soft balls. Soon they started playing matches with other teams and in a short span of time become the leading cricket club in their area. After a while, these youngsters decided to play the real cricket, with leather ball, and shifted their playing arena to the nearby Sree Chithira Thirunal Park.
In 1977, Murugan C C was affiliated with Thiruvananthapuram District Cricket association for taking part in league matches. The club rose to prominence very quickly and in the very next year became runner-up in the A division league. Players like Mani, Moorthy, Venkitesh, Raja, Sarathi, Hariharan and Sreenivasan made substantial contributions in the early years.
By this time, the club had gained enough reputation and recognition to be invited to various tournaments taking place in Southern Kerala, in places like Thiruvalla, Pandalam, Ettumanoor, Kanjirapally and Adoor. Most of the players of that era remained satisfied with club cricket and showed not much interest in selection process, and also kept shy off official echelons.
Right from its inception, the club inculcated and followed a culture of passionate pursuit of cricket, but with controlled aggression. Under all circumstances, the club played with its own players and never went for Guest Players. This, and the honesty and sportsman spirit displayed in cricket field earned a lot of fans and supporters for the club. Many a times, when the club played matches those days, the fans outnumbered the players.
In 1983, when permission was withdrawn for sporting activities in Sree Chithira Thirunal Park, the club’s activities were shifted to Central High school. This was also the occasion when a team comprising the second generation players was formed. Players like Kunjan, Shekhar, Pramod, Babu, Ganesh, Periambi, Sreeni, Manoj and Sathyan formed the core of that team.
During this period, the club performed consistently and won many tournaments competing with the best teams in the state. Players like Kunjan, Sekhar, Manoj, Sreeni and Ganesh got selected to district/zone/state teams.
In 1989, the club made its own arrangement for net practice for the first time at Valiyavila. Regular net practices during the weekend days raised the performance level of the club significantly.
The silver Jubilee year of the club was celebrated in 1992.
In the year 1995 the club started hosting the Celestial trophy Cricket Tournament, which to-day, after successful completion of 23 editions, is one of the most prestigious tournaments in the cricketing calendar of Kerala.
1997 marked another watershed year for the club when our long pending wish to have practice sessions in our locality was fulfilled. In that year, we started net-practice at Konchiravila. This practice hub has now become a renowned coaching centre, especially for budding youngsters, with state-of-the art facilities.
The 40th year of formation of the club was celebrated in a grand manner in 2007. The entire set of old and new generations participated to make it a memorable occasion. During the same year we started summer coaching camp in the Killippalam School Ground. We continued to have the camp there for a few more years before switching to Konchiravila.
The presence of S Babu who played Ranji Trophy for Services Cricket team became a boon to the club. Following him Jayakrishnan who also played Ranji trophy matches for Services joined the club and together with Babu concentrated on individual players, which made a marked difference in the mind-set of players resulting in overall standards of the club and approach to serious cricket.
During the period Mohammed Shanu played for state in under 23&25 categories, VInayak Moorthy played for under24 and 16 and Hemanth played for under 16.
Mohammed Shanu got recruited for AGs office by virtue of his performances under sports quata.
The team became runner-up in A division in 2006 ,Runner up in 2011 B division ,won the first ever St Mary’s trophy T 20 tournament at Vettukad. Team lost its place in A division in 2010 and 2016 as the others utilized the provisions to include as many as 5 players as guests under the dual registration rules which is not made use of by us as a matter of principle.
In 2017 the team bounced back with a 7 out of 7 victory to snatch the B division title and A division berth.
During last 12 years so many players represented the district in age catergory matches. They include Rajeev, Rameez, Kannan, Ananthu, Abhiram, Shabab and Deepu. Among current players Vijay S Viswanath has excelled for the state in the under 19 category. [label type=”default” url=”https://murugancricketclub.com/~muruganc/?page_id=8″]More[/label]
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Golden Jubilee Gallery
Celestial Trophy
Celestial trophy Cricket Tournament was introduced in 1995 when there were no tournaments in the least for the young talented cricketers in Trivandrum to prove their calibre. The tournament is being conducted successfully for the last 27 years and is rated one of the best all Kerala Tournaments.
The tournament offers prize money, with cash incentive from the quarterfinal stage. Being the only tournament conducted for the last 26 years in the capital city, the tournament is certain to receive wide media attention. Apart from the major dailies the tournament is covered by major TV channels and local cable networks.[/col] [col size=”1/2″]
Happenings – From Our Blog
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