Sports
Cricket is by far the most popular sport in the city, as it is in the rest of the country (except Goa). Cricket is more popular amongst the youth who usually spend their evenings playing Street cricket. However, the interest in basketball, football, field hockey, volleyball, table tennis and tennis is much greater than the average Indian city. Local tournaments are held regularly in all these sports.
Not only Vadodara has its own first-class cricket team that competes at the national level, but it also boasts of the oldest cricket ground in Asia, called Moti Baug (The same ground on which Mohammad Azharuddin had scored a record fastest century off 62 balls, now broken). Apart, from that there is also a private cricket ground owned by Reliance, which also hosts ODIs. Prominent cricketers from Vadodara include Atul Bedade, Vijay Hazare, Chandu Borde, Kiran More, Nayan Mongia, Anshuman Gaekwad (former coach of the Indian cricket team), Jitendra Patel and more recently, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Pinal Shah, Jacob Martin, Ajitesh Argal, and Connor Williams. Cricketers like Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel who are part of the Indian cricket team, started to play on domestic level from Baroda Cricket Association. The Baroda cricket team has been a consistently good performer at the national domestic Ranji Trophy championship and has won it 6 times. At schools a huge range of sports tend to be played. Vadodara has a rich tradition in which various schools compete against each other in various inter-school sporting competitions.
Vadodara also has a couple of large-sized swimming pools at Lal Baug and Sardar Baug which have become learning centers of swimming for lots of students from different schools in and around the city.
Vadodara has one of Gujarat's most beautiful golf courses that engulfs the magnificent Laxmi Vilas Palace.
Vadodara Marathon is an AIMS recognised international marathon organised every year. It became the first non-metro city of India to have held a marathon of such a large scale and success. In 2012, Vadodara Marathon was granted a National Half marathon status with over 41,500 Participants.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his Neighbour.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“Falling in love is the right adventure for those who dislike sports and travel.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)