Karnataka's contribution to Sports:
In order Prakash Padukone, Venkatesh Prasad, Javagal Srinath, Anil Kumble, The Wall Rahul Dravid, B. S. Chandrasekhar, Gundappa Viswanath, Syed Kirmani,Arjun Halappa (Hockey), Rohan Bopanna, Mahesh Bhupathi, Pankaj Advani(Billiards), Ashwini Ponnappa, Vikas Gowda (Discus throw) , M. R. Poovamma(athletics) and
Girisha Nagarajegowda (Paralympic silver medalist).
Team 1 (70's, 80's): The veterans
The old timers - G Vishwanath, BS Chandrasekhar & EAS Prasanna(Two of the famous spin-quartet), Brijesh Patel, Roger Binny & Kirmani (part of the WC-83 team)
From 1973-83 Karnataka won
thrice in 6 appearances in Ranji Trophy.
(You can see Gundappa Vishwanath, BS Chandrashekhar, EAS Prasanna, and Kirmani )
Team 2(90's): Just retired (well .... feels as if they were playing just yesterday
)
Rahul Dravid, Javagal 'Mysore Express' Srinath, Anil Kumble, Sunil Joshi, Venkatesh Prasad, Vijay Bharadwaj, Dodda Ganesh
There are times when 5-6 Karnataka players used to be in the Indian team. As expected, Karnataka
won Thrice from 1995-2000 in Ranji Trophy
(Dravid, Srinath, Kumble, Prasad and Joshi - a constant fixture in the 90's)
Team 3 (2008-15) : Young turks
Vinay Kumar, Robin Uthappa, Stuart Binny, Mithun, KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, Karun Nair, CM Gautham, Ganesh Satish, Amit Verma
We are sure to see most of them in Indian Colours soon. Karnataka has won twice in 3 finals from 2009-15. Karnataka also created a record by winning all 3 major national tournaments for two years, consecutively !!
(The current champions- Vinay, Uthappa, Rahul, Binny, Pandey, Nair etc. can be seen)
Special Mention
Shekhar Naik -
Indian blind cricket team captain, led India to a
T-20 and a ODI world cup victory!
B. Field Hockey
Kodagu in Karnataka has a annual hockey festival which has a world record as the
largest field hockey tournament in the world with
255 teams this year!
There are always 3-4 players from Karnataka in the Indian team, with ~10 players in the core probables. Players like M. P. Ganesh (Olympic medallist), Sommayya Maneypande, goalkeeper Ashish Ballal, Arjun Halappa, VR Raghunath, SV Sunil(considered the fastest in the world), Nikkin Thimmaiah, Uthappa etc hail from Karnataka.
(Drag flicker VR Raghunath)
C. Others
A. Badminton:
The legendary Prakash Padukone (Yes, yes, Deepikas father) was a great Badminton player, the first Indian to win All England Championship.
Ashwini Ponnappa
F. Discus Throw: Vikas Gowda, One of India's Olympic medal hopes