Dinesh Mongia (born 17 April 1977) is a former Indian

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er and politician. Mongia has appeared in limited over internationals for India. With India, Mongia was a member of the Indian team that was one of the joint-winners of the

2002 ICC Champions Trophy The 2002 ICC Champions Trophy was a cricket tournament held in Sri Lanka in 2002. It marked the third edition of the ICC Champions Trophy, with the previous two tournaments being known as the ICC Knock Out Tournaments. Originally scheduled to be ...

, which the title was also shared with Sri Lanka, and was a member of the team that were runners-up in the

2003 Cricket World Cup The 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup was the eighth Cricket World Cup, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya from 9 February to 23 March 2003. This edition of the World Cup was the ...

Domestic career

Mongia in domestic cricket career scored 8,100 runs at an average of just under 50 and his highest score being an unbeaten 308. In 2004, he signed for

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

as an overseas player when

Stuart Law Stuart Grant Law (born 18 October 1968) is an Australian-born cricket coach and former cricketer. He is the current head coach of Nepal National Cricket Team. He was a part of the Australian squad which finished as runners-up at the 1996 Crick ...

was injured. In 2005 he was signed by

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

on a full-time contract. Mongia plays for the

Lashings World XI The Lashings World XI is a cricket team captained by the former England, Lancashire and Surrey spin bowler Chris Schofield. It was formed in 1984 as a pub team but evolved into an international XI after signing Richie Richardson in 1996. Now a c ...

team. He also played for Chandigarh Lions in the now defunct

Indian Cricket League The Indian Cricket League (ICL) was a short-lived cricket league that ran from 2007 to 2009. It was sponsored by Zee Entertainment Enterprises, a media company. The ICL had two seasons, featuring four international teams and nine domestic teams ...

First Indian T20 cricketer

Mongia is the first Indian cricketer to play a T20 match, playing for

against

in the

2004 Twenty20 Cup The 2004 Twenty20 Cup was the second edition of what would later become the T20 Blast competition, England's premier domestic Twenty20 competition.. The finals day took place on 7 August at Edgbaston, Birmingham, and was won by the Leicestershi ...

. He played for Lancashire in the 2004 County Championship.

International career

He made his ODI debut in 2001 against Australia without much success. However, in his fifth match, he scored his first half-century (71 off 75 balls) against England. In 2002, almost a year after his debut, he picked up his first and only century (an unbeaten 159 off just 147 balls against

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

) to win the

Man of the Match In team sport, a player of the match award (also known as man of the match or woman of the match) is often given to the most outstanding player in a particular match. This can be a player from either team, although the player is generally chose ...

award. He was also named the Man of the Series in that tour. Suspicions remained, however, that kinks in his technique could be exposed on more challenging tracks abroad, and indifferent displays in England resulted in him being relegated to a bit-part role in the tours that followed. He forced his way back into the

squad, where India lost the final against Australia. But after a string of below-par performances, he was dropped from the Indian side in April 2005. He was again selected in the Indian team in 2006 for the Tri-Series in Sri Lanka. However, the tournament was affected by the pull out of the third team, South Africa, due to a bomb explosion in Colombo, and by incessant rain. Instead, Mongia got an opportunity in the September 2006 tri-series against Australia and West Indies in Malaysia, where he made an unbeaten 68 in the final group game against Australia, although India lost the game and were unable to reach the final.

Politics

Mongia joined

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's ...

in December 2021, ahead of the

2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election Legislative Assembly elections were held in Elections in Punjab, India, Punjab on 2022 elections in India, 20 February 2022 to elect the List of constituencies of the Punjab Legislative Assembly, 117 members of the Sixteenth Punjab Legislative ...

References

External links

* Indian cricketers India One Day International cricketers India Twenty20 International cricketers 21st-century Indian sportsmen 1977 births Living people Punjab, India cricketers Leicestershire cricketers Indian expatriate cricketers in England Lancashire cricketers North Zone cricketers Staffordshire cricketers India Blue cricketers Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Punjab {{India-cricket-bio-stub