Meet Arunachal, undaunted despite crushing defeats | Cricket News

Last Christmas Eve, when Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Bihar made history in the Vijay Hazare Trophy against Arunachal Pradesh, one and all celebrated the feat. It was a mammoth score of 574/6 that they posted to surpass the previous mark of 506/2 and set a new List A world record.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Amid the noise, what one forgot to address was that while Bihar first started playing first-class cricket in 1935-36 while Arunachal Pradesh made their Ranji Trophy debut in the 2018-19 season.

It was only from 2003-04 till the 2017-18 season that Bihar didn’t play in the domestic tournaments following the formation of Jharkhand. But cricket continued to be played and followed in the state and many players from Bihar shifted to Jharkhand to continue their career including former India captain MS Dhoni.However, in Arunachal Pradesh, where football remains the first love, cricket came to be taken seriously only after the state was granted full member status in July 2018 following Lodha Committee recommendations and made their debut in domestic cricket that same year.One such cricketer was Nabam Abo. At 34 years of age, he made his first-class debut in 2022 and went on to play 13 matches for Arunachal, including List A and T20 games.

Abo, however, took up the sport only after Arunachal got the full member status. Before that he used to be a VFX artist.“Some of the kids used to train near my house, so I set up the nets and started playing with them and got quite good at it,” remembers Abo, “I participated in the panchayat and district level tournaments and later gave trials for the state team and got selected. Abo returned figures of 9 for 79 in his debut Ranji match against Bihar.Having retired last year, he has now turned his focus on producing budding cricketers and has set up an indoor training facility in state capital Itanagar called Academy for Cricketing Excellence.

“We bring coaches from other states to come and train the players here from Feb to Sept. Last year, we got Gautam Yadav from Bihar to train the 50-60 kids we have at the academy,” added the former Ranji bowler.While there are three such academies in the capital, the current players, including their star batter Techi Doria, prefer going to other states for professional training.“Last time I went to Gujarat to train under Monty Desai. Before that I had also gone to Lucknow and Bengaluru,” says Doria., one of the most successful players from Arunachal, who has two List A centuries and multiple first-class half centuries.Doria was in the team that went down to Bihar in that fateful match but rather than beating themselves over it, he wants to see it as a one-off incident. “We have beaten Bihar earlier in Ranji Trophy, too, but that day we dropped multiple catches. Also, the match took place at the Oval Ground in Ranchi where run scoring is easier,” adds the batter.It’s not the first time that Oval Ground has seen such records being made. Even when Arunachal Pradesh took on Railways in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy during the 2023-24 season, Railways batter Ashutosh Sharma scored a half-century off just 11 balls, the fastest T20 fifty by an Indian batter.Doria, however, wants to put that game behind him and focus on the future which he believes is bright. “We need to take the positives from the season and just work hard. This time we won one match, next time we can maybe win three matches and make it to the Elite group next season,” he says.However, for this to happen, a key requirement is the establishment of a dedicated cricket ground. “We have procured land for a cricket stadium and ground four years ago. We have also approached BCCI for funding to make this ground complete where we can conduct Ranji Trophy matches like in other states. But we are still waiting for the funding,” says Arunachal Cricket Association secretary Nabam Vivek.The biggest positive though is that the interest in cricket has grown among the people in Arunachal. Also, the number of registered players has risen from 210 in 2018-19 to 308 in 2025-26. And former player Abo believes it will continue to rise due to the career opportunities the sport provides.“The kids are aware that they have a future in cricket. Even for the women, there are so many tournaments nowadays. They at times doubt themselves because of the lack of their physical qualities but you don’t need that in cricket since it’s a technical game, and anyone can succeed if they work hard,” adds the former player.Those aspirations were on display at the Balo Dachak T20 tournament, a local competition held for the second year in a row in Jan, and Doria is hopeful it will help more talent break through ahead of the next domestic season.