Tripunithura's cricketing legacy finds a place in Wisden magazine

Tripunithura Cricket Club
Members of the Tripunithura Cricket Club, who won the Pooja Cricket tournament in 1951. Kelappan Thampuran, third from front row. Photo: Manorama Archives

Tripunithura: Tripunithura, which boasts a rich and storied cricketing history, has featured in the latest edition of 'The Nightwatchman', a quarterly collection of essays from Wisden Cricket, often labelled the 'Bible of cricket'. 

Titled 'The Real Story of One-Day Cricket', the article explores the rich tapestry of cricketing history at the Palace Oval Ground, which hosts the All-India Pooja Cricket, considered to be the oldest limited-over tournament in the country and perhaps even the world.

The write-up is part of a compilation of articles that take a peek into the origin and history of the shorter format of the game that stretches back a century. 

The write-up recalls the contributions of K V Kelappan Thampuran, who was at the forefront of that innovative experiment, the founding members of the Tripunithura Cricket Club as well as its skipper Goda Varma Raja. The magazine also carries the photographs of Kelappan Thampuran and the teams that participated in the inaugural Pooja tournament. 

Palace Oval Ground
The Palace Oval Ground, which hosts the All-India Pooja Cricket tournament. Photo: Manorama Archives

Although the quarterly 'Nightwatchman' has published various articles on Indian cricket in the past, it is the first write-up on a club based in Kerala.  'The Real Story of One-Day Cricket' is written by Vishnu Kumar, a native of Thiruvananthapuram and a former president of the Indonesian Cricket Association. 

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