Club to name one of its gates after yesteryear legend
Vijay Merchant. Pic/mid-day archives
Along with the Raj Singh Dungarpur Gate, the Cricket Club of India (CCI) will now also have an entrance named after Vijay Merchant, the late ex-India and Mumbai batsman. It is learnt that a gate on Dinshaw Vaccha Road at Churchgate will be inaugurated in the presence of prominent cricketing personalities on August 8.
The honour for Vijay Merchant is undoubtedly deserving from an on-field and off-field point of view. He scored 19 first-class centuries at the club's Brabourne Stadium turf and according to Vasant Raiji (India's oldest living first-class cricketer at 99) and departed ace statistician Anandji Dossa's 1987 book on the CCI and Brabourne Stadium, 4976 out of Merchant's 13,248 first-class runs were scored at India's second Test venue.
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The Vijay Merchant Gate will be inaugurated behind the Cricket Club of India club house
The gate in honour of Raj Singh — the former CCI and BCCI president — was inaugurated by Sachin Tendulkar in 2017. Merchant was also the club's president (1971 to 1985) during the infamous dispute over distribution of seats for affiliated clubs with the Bombay Cricket Association (BCA) in the early 1970s. It was this battle that led to BCA's then president and influential politician SK Wankhede building his association's new stadium that was named after him.
Also Read: Birth anniversary special: A tribute to Vijay Merchant from mid-day archive
The Wankhede Stadium hosted its first Test (India v West Indies) in the 1974-75 season, while the 1972-73 Test against Tony Lewis's Englishmen was CCI's last before they were awarded the India v Sri Lanka Test in 2009-10. Merchant passed away in 1987.
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