Karnataka became a force to reckon with in the 1960s thanks to the exploits of EAS Prasanna and BS Chandrashekhar. Cricket in the state is indebted to VV Subramanium, our captain in the latter half of the 1960s, who did for Karnataka what Tiger Pataudi did for India at around the same time. He sowed the seeds of a cracking outfit, which excelled in the years to come.

Our main drawback in the late 1960s was the absence of batsmen who would give Prasanna and Chandrasekhar runs to bowl with on a consistent basis. All that changed with the arrival of Gundappa Viswanath. Our batting got better and better with him as the bulwark. There was a settled look to our team by the time we took on Bombay in the semi-final of the 1973-74 season.

I was doing well with the bat, as was Sudhakar Rao. Vishy was the leading batsman in the land, and Syed Kirmani was consistent both in front of the wicket and behind them.

That semi-final will live forever in the minds of every Karnataka supporter who watched it. We batted first and scored 385 runs off the Bombay bowlers. Vishy scored 162 and I got 106. Prasanna, our skipper, then threw himself headlong into the task of thwarting Bombay’s redoubtable batsmen. The delivery that he dished out to bowl Sunil Gavaskar was a gem. It drifted away and then turned in to evade Sunil’s defensive blade. The middle-stump was disturbed and we were elated. We maintained the pressure and kept striking at regular intervals. Prasanna bowled 63 overs and took five wickets while Chandra bowled 44 and scalped four batsmen. We took the first innings lead and made our way to Jaipur to play Rajasthan in the final.

We played the final on a poor wicket, which appeared to have been prepared to suit Salim Durani, the great all-rounder. Obviously, what was good for Durani was great for Prasanna and Chandrashekhar. Vishy and I failed but Vijaykrishna and AV Jayaprakash, who went on to become a Test umpire, made up with fighting fifties. Prasanna bowled superbly to pick a total of nine wickets in the game. Rajasthan paid the price for over-depending on Durani. We won by 185 runs and our joy knew no bounds. Our celebrations, which began in Jaipur, continued for days after we returned home.

Bombay came back to win the title thrice on the trot, but there was no question of their monopolising the Ranji Trophy like before. We were a force to reckon with, as was Delhi. Bishan Bedi was at the helm of a team that comprised the likes of Chetan Chauhan, Madan Lal, and the Amarnath brothers. Most of the members of the Delhi sides had started their first-class careers representing other states. Bishan, who was himself invited to play for Delhi after representing Punjab, convinced most of these cricketers to shift to Delhi.

We beat them in the semi-final of the 1977-‘78 edition and took on Uttar Pradesh in the final at Mohan Nagar. The wicket turned out to be as spin-friendly as the one on which we had played the 1973-‘74 final. We won the toss and put UP in. The batsmen soon found themselves being subjected to a gruelling examination by Prasanna and Chandrashekhar. They had no response to the wiles of the deadly duo and were bowled out for 129.

Vishy then got a double hundred. I scored a round ton and Jayaprakash got 56. Rajinder Singh Hans bowled well for UP, taking nine wickets, but he had little or no support. Chandra then bowled them out in the second innings to give us victory by an innings and 193 runs. He finished with twelve wickets in the match.

The next few seasons witnessed a triangular tussle between Bombay, Karnataka and Delhi. Bedi’s team won in 1978-‘79 and 1979-‘80 and Bombay came back in 1980-‘81. The 1981-‘82 final was an eventful and marathon game of cricket.

We were thrilled to score 705 but the Delhi batsmen gave as good as they got. They overhauled our total with two wickets in hand, that too on the sixth day, which became a necessity, as the first innings of both sides could not be completed within the stipulated five days. Some umpiring decisions went against us but we should have fielded and caught better.

I had the privilege of leading Karnataka to victory in the 1982-‘83 final against Bombay, in Bombay. They batted first and scored 534, a potentially winning score. However, Sadanand Vishwanath, Jayaprakash and Roger Binny set us off in pursuit. There was tremendous tension when our ninth wicket fell at 526, but our last pair of Vijaykrishna and Raghuram Bhatt held their nerve to take us past Bombay’s total.

The hosts then went for quick runs in the second innings, and set us 197 to win in 70 overs. I opted to put down the shutters, much to the annoyance of the Bombay players and media people. Not that we cared. We had gained the first innings lead, and I had played enough cricket in Bombay to know what they could have done had they got an opening. In any case, it wasn’t that a team got two trophies for winning outright!

The Karnataka team experienced a dip in consistency in the second half of the 1980s. Happy days returned in the mid 1990s with the advent of Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Javagal Srinath, Venkatesh Prasad, Sunil Joshi and others. It was an illustration of cricket’s cyclical nature. It appears that it is now Mumbai’s turn to undergo a transitory phase with the selectors struggling to find successors for Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan. Their efforts may bear fruit soon.

Brijesh Patel was a member of the Karnataka team that won the Ranji Trophy in 1973-‘74 and 1977-‘78, and captain of the side that won in 1982-‘83.