Sanspareils Greenlands
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Industry | Sporting goods |
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Founded | 1931 |
Founder | Kedarnath Anand |
Headquarters | Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Kailash C. Anand (Chairman) Paras Anand (CEO) Trilok N Anand (Director) Puneet Anand (Director) |
Products | Cricket and sports Equipment |
Number of employees | c. More than 3,000 |
Parent | Sanspareils Greenlands Pvt. LTD. |
Subsidiaries | SG infrastructure SG sportswear |
Website | teamsg.in |
Sanspareils Greenlands, commonly known by the abbreviation SG, is an Indian cricket equipment manufacturer. Its balls are used in Test cricket and in the Ranji Trophy in India.[1][2] They have a more prominent seam and are closer together than the Kookaburra balls used for Test matches, used in rest of the world apart from England and West Indies (which use Dukes), resulting from the thicker thread used for stitching.[3] The balls are also completely hand-crafted.[4]
Brothers Kedarnath and Dwarakanath Anand established Sanspareils Co. in Sialkot in 1931. They were originally from Lahore where they apprenticed in their uncle's sports shop RICHIE Sports. In 1940 they established a company named Greenlands to facilitate export of their products. After the partition of India, the family moved to Agra and then settled in Meerut in 1950.[5] Its factory has been in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh since 1950.[6]
SG has been exporting bats manufactured in Meerut to the UK and Australia for most of the international cricket brands. The company has been the market leader in the world with legends like Sunil Gavaskar, Mohammad Azharuddin and Rahul Dravid endorsing the brand. In 2008, Virender Sehwag became an SG brand ambassador.
Since 1994, all every signal Test Match played in India have been played with SG balls.[6] SG Test balls are handmade[7] and are said to be 20% of the price of Kookaburra balls.[7]
Criticism[]
The SG Test Balls have come under severe criticism in recent times. Ravichandran Ashwin, who enjoyed a lot of success with the SG Ball which is considered arguably the best cricket ball, has been criticized by him over the quality of SG Test Balls used recently, saying "Right now, I say that the Kookaburra red ball is the best. Dukes is quite good. But I'm disappointed with the SG ball. It used to be top-notch when I started playing. The seam would be prominent even after 70 overs. It's not the same anymore". Kuldeep Yadav too shared his thoughts on the SG ball saying "Kookaburra red ball is good to grip. SG is okay at the moment".[8]
Indian Captain Virat Kohli, jumped on the bandwagon and said that Test cricket across the globe should be played with the England-made Duke balls, expressing his displeasure at the poor quality of the SG balls that India use at home and supported the issues raised by Ashwin, saying "I totally agree with him (Ashwin). To have a ball scuffed up in five overs is something that we haven't seen before. The quality of the SG ball used to be quite high before and I don't understand the reason why it's gone down" .[9]
Speedster Umesh Yadav, joined the growing list of Indian players who feel the SG Test ball was not ideal, complained that it is ineffective to bowl with the SG Test Balls in India. He says that after the ball wears out, it offers no pace or bounce on flat Indian tracks and makes it difficult to contain the lower-order batsmen of the opposition.[10]
Sponsorships[]
The following players have had endorsement deals with SG. This is not a comprehensive list.
Players[]
Jasprit Bumrah - Sunny Tonny
Ishan Kishan -IK ultimate/90 years anniversary
Hardik Pandya - HP 33/triple crown
KL Rahul - KLR 1/Sunny Tonny
Rishabh Pant - RP 17/Roar le
Krunal Pandya - players edition
Yashasvi Jaiswal - players edition
Sunil Gavaskar - Sunny Tonny
Suresh Raina - SR 210
Mohammad Azharuddin - Boundary LE
Virender Sehwag - VS 319
Gautham Gambhir - players edition
Cheteshwar Pujara - Sunny Legend
Rahul Dravid - King cobra
Rohit Sharma
Parthiv Patel - Players Edition
Shafali Verma - Players Edition
Deepti Sharma - VS 319
Mayank Agarwal - Players Edition
Sachin Tendulkar - Sunny Tonny
Arjun Tendulkar - player edition
Axar Patel - Players edition
Sanju Samson - Players Edition
Shane Watson - Watto Edition
Sam Curran - Sunny Legend
Jason Holder - Triple Crown
Brandon King - SunnyTonny/VS 319
Shane Dowrich - Triple Crown
Shakib Al Hasan - Players Edition
Liton Das - Sierra 350
Mominul Haque - Sierra 350
Dimuth Karunaratne - Player Edition
Chamika Karunaratne - Sunny Gold
Rashid Khan-Player Edition
References[]
- ^ "India opens door to Kookaburra balls in Tests". Daily Times. 10 March 2006. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
- ^ "Delhi and Haryana players disappointed with SG balls". India Today. 6 November 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
- ^ Rundell, Michael (2009). Wisden Dictionary of Cricket. A & C Black. p. 288. ISBN 9781408101612.
- ^ SGCricket Official (17 March 2017), How an SG Ball is Made, retrieved 27 July 2017
- ^ "sgcricket.com, about us". Retrieved 25 March 2018.
- ^ a b Rudraneil Sengupta (13 August 2012). "1931 Sanspareils Greenlands | A historic innings". Livemint. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
- ^ a b [1] Archived 2006-05-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "IND vs WI: Ravichandran Ashwin slams the SG ball after India's record-breaking win in Rajkot". Times Now Digital. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
- ^ "India vs West Indies: Virat Kohli wants Dukes to replace SG balls in Tests". PTI. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
- ^ "Difficult to contain lower-order with SG Test balls: Umesh Yadav". PTI. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
External links[]
- Sportswear brands
- Cricket equipment manufacturers
- Indian companies established in 1940
- Companies based in Uttar Pradesh
- Companies based in Meerut
- Manufacturing companies established in 1940