Hyderabad, September 24: The Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) members reportedly got a shock of their life when the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup was valued at a little over Rs 1 lakh at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Thursday.
There was more startling revelation to come when the valuer from the State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) informed them that the cup was not made of of pure gold but a gold plated one.
The question which now arises is whether the cup is the original one or has it been duplicated? According to PR Man Singh, the former secretary, the last time when Jayawant Rao, the then president of HCA who was incidentally then an SBH officer, valued it in 1968, it was worth Rs 2.75 lakh, at the rate of Rs 100 per tola. As the present value of gold is nearly Rs 19,000 per tola, the price of the cup comes to around to Rs 4 crore.
The Gold Cup was donated by Nawab Moin-ud-Dowla in the early 1930s. Started in around 1912, the Gold Cup has a rich history and tradition. After it started in 1912, there was no tournament for 16 years before it resumed in 1928.
The Maharaja of Vizianagaram won the Gold Cup for three successive years and refused to return it. The HCA was then forced to manufacture a second Gold Cup, which was then worth Rs 7,000.
From being a local tournament in the 1930s, it became an all-India invitational tournament from 1962. It was part of first-class cricket till the 90s before it became an A-list tournament.
All these years, the original Cup and a replica was brought to the venue. The winners were given the replica.
However, HCA secretary D S Chalapathi dismissed the charges, saying there was no tampering of the Gold Cup. “It is the original Cup,’’ he asserted.
-Agencies