Jammu and Kashmir's long road to India cricketing glory

Srinagar, July 2025 — When the final wicket clattered and the Jammu and Kashmir players sprinted across the Chinnaswamy turf, they carried with them more than a trophy. The Ranji Trophy, first contested in 1934, had found a new custodian in a side that had waited 67 years to be called champions. In defeating eight-time titlists Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir completed a journey that began in 1959-60 when the state association was formed, and which had repeatedly stalled on the hard terrain of insurgency, administrative neglect and geographic isolation.

Cricket’s roots in the region run deep. Kashmir willow, renowned for its tensile strength, was shaping bats for sub-continent clubs long before television turned the game into a spectacle. Yet the valley’s political turbulence meant that progress on the field seldom matched the passion off it. A first Ranji victory did not arrive until 1982-83; international fixtures dried up after 1986 when Allan Border’s Australians played the last senior match in Srinagar amid hostile crowds. For the next three decades, Jammu and Kashmir were peripheral to Indian cricket’s power map, their players largely absent from national reckoning.

The turnaround gathered pace in three distinct surges. Between 2011 and 2013, former India captain Bishen Singh Bedi took over as coach, convincing a diffident squad it could trade punches with heavyweights. Pervez Rasool, later the region’s first India cap, flourished under that belief. The second surge came in 2018-19 when Irfan Pathan arrived as player-mentor, preaching unity across regional fault-lines and fast-tracking talents such as Abdul Samad and express bowler Umran Malik. The third inflection arrived five years ago: an Apex Council headed by ex-Delhi stalwart Mithun Manhas replaced the old association, professionalised the back-room, and appointed Ajay Sharma as coach. Scientific fitness modules, nutrition planning and mental-conditioning camps followed, dragging the set-up into the modern era.

Captain Paras Dogra, 41, was the on-field anchor. The prolific right-hander shepherded a squad whose depth was illustrated by Aquib Nabi, the tireless quick who claimed 60 wickets this season after 44 the previous year and an off-season IPL deal with Delhi Daredevils. Together they toppled Delhi in the group stage, ousted former champions Madhya Pradesh in the quarter-finals, subdued Bengal in the semi-finals, and ultimately out-thought Karnataka, a line-up studded with current India players KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Karun Nair and Prasidh Krishna.

The title resonates beyond scorecards. For a region stripped of statehood in 2019 and converted into two federally-administered territories, cricket has offered a rare bridge to the national mainstream. It also underlines India’s widening talent pool: if a side from the country’s northern rim can scale the summit, the sport’s centre of gravity has truly spread. Whether Nabi or any of his team-mates now graduate to the India cap that has so far eluded the region remains to be seen; what is certain is that Jammu and Kashmir’s long wait has ended, and with it Indian domestic cricket has gained one of its most uplifting chapters.

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