MRC1924-2024

The first league championship of Madras was instituted by the Indian Cricket Federation or ICF.  It can be seen that MRC competed in the league from day one. The teams to participate in the first season were: Triplicane Cricket Club Madras Emmanuel Club Mylapore Recreation Club Minerva Cricket Club Chepauk United Club Madras Eastern Club Nowroji-Gokhale Union Mambalam Cricket Club Madras Aryan Club Progressive Union City Central League Mars Union Trades Staff Club Royapettah Students Club Perambur Recreation Club Corporation Sports Club Post and RMS Recreation Club B&C Mills Athletic Association. It can be seen from above that MRC and TCC were up and playing in the Madras league as early as 1932, but archival material from The Hindu (dated 13 April 1949) reveals that MRC came into being even earlier—in April 1924, and in fact, celebrated its silver jubilee on the 12 th of that month.  Here is the report. JUBILEE OF MYLAPORE RECREATION CLUB April ...

Indian companies had by the 1930s replaced the maharajas and maharajkumars as patrons of the game. In Bombay, for example, the Tatas had shown the way by supporting cricket for a long time, building a strong team and winning the popular Times of India Shield a record number of times. Soon several other companies followed suit, and businesses like ACC, Burmah Shell, Mahindras, Mafatlal, Century Rayon, Kohinoor Mills, Lakshmi Vishnu Mills, Nirlon, BEST, and the JK group, hired cricketers to build teams through the decades. The public sector was not to be left behind. The armed forces and the railways were perhaps the first to recruit cricketers – and other sportsmen – followed years later by the Indian Airlines and other PSUs like Bharat Petroleum. The state-owned banks like Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India too started building cricket teams, and most of this drive began at Bombay, the commercial capital of the country. Some of the finest cricketers of India were employed by...

                                                            CHAPTER 1 The earliest patrons of cricket (and other modern sport) in India were the British army, with the soldiers eager to find a cure for homesickness in the games they pursued in the sun. In Madras, for instance, the Island Ground was the earliest home of cricket, dating from the late 18th century or the early 19th. Though initially inferior to the Englishman in the game, the native cricketer in time became skilful enough to beat him, especially in the annual Presidency Match (1915-1952) between Europeans and Indians in Madras, and the Triangular (which eventually grew into the Pentangular) in Bombay. In their efforts to popularise ...

  MRC IN 2022 The annexation of the Palayampatti title in June 2022 by Mylapore Recreation Club ‘A’ was celebrated as a first time triumph in the TNCA First Division cricket league by a team barely five years old in the senior division. The team has been portrayed as a kind of David that defeated such Goliaths of Tamil Nadu cricket as Vijay CC (promoted by India Cements) and Jolly Rovers CC (a Chemplast Sanmar outfit) in one of the most prestigious races of its kind in the country. It was certainly a most remarkable success story, but MRC were no minnows, captained as they were by India all rounder R Ashwin [when not doing India duty], and strengthened by the occasional presence of the stalwart batsman Cheteshwar Pujara and more regular duty by stars like Rishi Dhawan and Harsh Dubey, with NS Chaturved playing a stellar role with over 600 runs for the season. The team is also not without corporate support, backed as it has been since the 2015-16 season by the management consult...