The Men behind the trophies: Tournaments and the cricketers they were named for

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KS Duleepsinhji, a nephew of Ranjitsinhji and an accomplished cricketer himself

The Ranji Trophy

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Kumar Ranjitsinhji

About the trophy

The first ever match in the Ranji Trophy was held at Chennai's prestigious M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, known to fans as Chepauk - the country's oldest cricket stadium.The most well-known and prestigious of India's regional tournaments, the Ranji Trophy was named for Maharaja Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar.

Instituted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 1934, a year after Ranjitsinhji's passing, the tournament is contested by state cricketing teams and first-class cricketing clubs.

The Ranji Trophy has seen drastic changes to its format in the past few years. Initially, this tournament saw teams grouped into zonal sections, where they played an intra-zonal, single-elimination format and saw five final teams compete round-robin to determine an eventual winner.

That changed to a tiered system, with teams grouped into each tier playing a round-robin format, then the top two from each of the main tiers - A and B, would contest the trophy.

Who was Ranjitsinhji?

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A regular on many 'Greatest of All Time' cricketing lists, Ranjitsinhji was born not directly into, but as a cousin of the noble family of Nawanagar in present-day Gujarat. The son of a farmer and one of his wives (polygamy was widely practised in that time), 'Ranji' as he came to be known, was related to the Nawanagar family through the patriarch of his own.

When the ruler's own son, who had been intended to be his heir, proved to have a propensity for violence, the king disinherited him, and replaced him at the time with Ranjitsinhji, who was adopted at age 5 by the Jam Sahib.

Although he began to play cricket at the age of 10, Ranjitsinhji was known to be more interested in tennis, and indeed when he went to the United Kingdom for further study, was hoping to be awarded a university Blue to play that sport for Cambridge.

At 18 and with some potential but not an effective way to channel it, Ranjitsinhji began working with first-class cricketer Daniel Hayward, who honed his skills. It was widely believed at the time that Ranji had eluded selection on more than one occasion due to race. Working with Hayward and constant practice at the nets meant that Ranji had improved by leaps and bounds, and he commenced his first-class cricketing career in 1893, aged 21, for Trinity College, Cambridge.

It was there where he earned the nickname Ranji, the primary reason being that his teammates could not pronounce 'Ranjitsinh'.

Ranji's transition from Trinity to county cricket was more out of compulsion after he failed the Bar exam, and although he received a call-up to Sussex, the arrangement made for the best amateurs in that day meant Ranji could not play anything barring exhibition or festival matches, thereby seriously restricting what he could do.

He impressed seriously over the next few years, becoming quite a crowd draw, and made his Test debut in 1896 for England, where he had established his home. He toured Australia with the team, and despite struggling with illness during some of that time, impressed fans.

'Ranji' took a break for the following year, looking to return to claim the throne of Nawanagar, putting forward negotiations with the British then - and having done this, returned to England a renewed man and with improved cricketing skills. It was during this time that Ranji hit his peak, making several of his top scores as he excelled for Sussex.

But the threat of bankruptcy had become real for the cricketer and he became dogged more and more consistently by troublesome finances. Despite leading Sussex, Ranjitsinhji found himself faltering and never really returned to his peak afterwards, although he did find some peaks in what was an increasingly middling career and poor health.

Ranji had a particularly rich purple patch of form in 1904, during which he scored 5 fifty-run scores and a staggering eight centuries. Those performances shot him yet again to the top of the batting averages, but soon after, a now ailing Ranji was unable to play with his initial form. He left for India at the end of 1904, and although he returned to England in the years after, he was largely based in India until his death in 1933.

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Edited by Anuradha Santhanam