“I have long been wanting to be associated with cricket and so, when an opportunity came in the form of the Lanka Premier League, I grabbed it. Jakati, incidentally, is now the director (cricket operations) of Mustafa's team Colombo Kings. The passion for the game was always there, and that's how I gradually befriended Suresh Raina and Shadab Jakati.” While former India international Raina is a Chennai Super Kings legend in the IPL, Jakati has represented Goa and has played for CSK, Royal Challengers Bangalore and now-defunct Gujarat Lions. “I used to play cricket a lot before I moved to business. So, it's in my blood!,” Mustafa told THE WEEK. “Thalassery and Kannur have always been connected to cricket. But he is as passionate about his hometown, which he visited every year during vacations, as he is about cricket. Though hailing from Kannur, Mustafa, 35, was raised in Dubai, where his father heads the Faza Group, and did his graduation in London. Dubai-based Malayali businessman Murfad Mustafa owns the Colombo Kings, which will play the opener against the Kandy Tuskers in Hambantota. But it is not because of any player hailing from the district, but the owner of one of the five teams in the T20 tournament, the inaugural season of which starts on November 26 in Sri Lanka. The latest name on everyone's lips is Sanju Samson, a promising wicketkeeper-batsman who has already donned the Indian colours in T20Is.Īnd now, after centuries, Kannur is back in cricketing limelight, thanks to the Lanka Premier League (LPL). Sreesanth made waves on the international cricket scene but was soon embroiled in the IPL match-fixing controversy. (Abey Kuruvilla, who represented India in the 1990s, was based in Mumbai though a Malayali, and never represented Kerala). The state was largely absent from the cricketing map of India, till, in the early 2000s, a tall and strapping young pacer Tinu Yohannan made the national team. The interest in the game blossomed thus and soon the Municipal Stadium and the Tellicherry Town Cricket Club came into being. On days when he did not have enough Englishmen to make the team, he would gather the locals and include them in the teams. In the 19 th century, Sir Arthur Wellesley is believed to have introduced the people of Thalassery, then Tellicherry, in Kannur district, to the 'gentleman's game'. For a state that is synonymous with football, Kerala's tryst with cricket in the British era might come as a surprise to many.
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