The Indian Railways are in for a big surprise as the Vadodara railway division plans to commemorate 150 years of railways in the city. The division will hold a one-day cricket match between the Baroda Cricket Association (BCA) XI and the Indian Railway XI on Friday, 26th February, 2010.
The DRM (divisional railway manager) of Western Railways, AK Srivastava told the media on Wednesday, 24th February, 2010, “Railways had arrived in Vadodara 150 years ago on January 9, 1861. To celebrate this historic occasion, we have been organizing a number of programmes. Now, as part of our ongoing celebrations, we are organizing a cricket match, which will be played at Madhavrao Scindia Railway Cricket Ground at Pratapnagar on Friday from 9 am onwards.”
The former Indian team captain, Padma Bhushan Chandu Borde, who is also the chairman of the national selection team, has been invited to be the chief guest at the occasion and the guest of honor would be PB Pandey from ONGC. The match is to be held under the sponsorship of the Vadodara Division Sports Association (VDSA) and each team would be playing a 40-over innings. The one-dayer is expected to see some international players as well like CR Williams, Sanjay Bangar, Yere Gaud, Jacob Martin and JP Yadav among others. Borde is also said to be inaugurating the two recently re-modeled dressing rooms at the stadium. “Apart from Ranji matches, these teams will be facing each other for the first time,” reported Srivastava, while further adding that the stadium has been freshly equipped with an electronic score-board and commentator box.
VDSA is also planning to approach the Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) to help upgrade the existing Godhra cricket ground which they want to dedicate to Nari Contractor, a former captain. “Contractor himself was born in Godhra. We want to dedicate the ground in his name to mark his contributions. While we already have a ground in Godhra, we want to put up a proper turf there so that cricket tournaments can be held there. For this, we are requesting GCA to provide us their technical guidance,” Srivastava provided the input.