Lost Histories of Indian Cricket studies the personalities and controversies that have shaped Indian cricket over the years and brings to life the intensity surrounding India's national game. It may be true that that cricket today arouses more passions in India than in any other cricket playing country in the world. Yet, when it comes to writing on the history of the game, Indians have been reticent and much of the past has been obscured and lost. Majumdar here recovers this history and restores it to its rightful place in India's rich sporting heritage.
Do you know that in the years before World War II, India had a fast bowler who sent shivers down the spine of opposition batsmen? Or that an Indian wicket keeper once sledged none other than the great Sir Donald Bradman when he came out to bat? You would be amazed to know that once, a lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army drove down nearly 500 km from his post in Dharamshala to lead the Indian team for a test match in Delhi. Or this other time, when Indias famed spin trio was unable to make a breakthrough, the vice-captain suggested a left arm pacer to bowl spin and the latter ended up taking five wickets! There was an Indian spinner who once bowled 131 consecutive dot balls. Another tail-ender once had his jaw fractured while batting but refused to come off in the interest of the team. These and many such fantastic stories embellish the glorious journey of Indian cricket. And like any story, the tale of Indian cricket also has magnificent characters many of whom you know about. But also, many whose tales are less told and have been lost in the sands of time. Read on for more such fascinating tales and know about The Forgotten Sons of Indian cricket.
A Corner of a Foreign Field seamlessly interweaves biography with history, the lives of famous or forgotten cricketers with wider processes of social change. C. K. Nayudu and Sachin Tendulkar naturally figure in this book but so, too, in unexpected ways, do B. R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Gandhi, and M. A. Jinnah. The Indian careers of those great British cricketers, Lord Harris and D. R. Jardine, provide a window into the operations of Empire. The remarkable life of India’s first great slow bowler, Palwankar Baloo, provides an arresting new perspective on the struggle against caste discrimination. Later chapters explore the competition between Hindu and Muslim cricketers in colonial India and the destructive passions now provoked when India plays Pakistan. For this new edition, Ramachandra Guha has added a fresh introduction as well as a long new chapter, bringing the story up to date to cover, among other things, the advent of the Indian Premier League and the Indian team’s victory in the World Cup of 2011, these linked to social and economic transformations in contemporary India. A pioneering work, essential for anyone interested in either of those vast themes, cricket and India, A Corner of a Foreign Field is also a beautifully written meditation on the ramifications of sport in society at large.
Practiced and watched by billions, sport is a global phenomenon. Sport history is a burgeoning sub-field that explores sport in all forms to help answer fundamental questions that scholars examine. This volume provides a reference for sport scholars and an accessible introduction to those who are new to the sub-field.
This multivolume set is much more than a collection of essays on sports and sporting cultures from around the world: it also details how and why sports are played wherever they exist, and examines key charismatic athletes from around the world who have transcended their sports. Sports Around the World: History, Culture, and Practice provides a unique, global overview of sports and sports cultures. Unlike most works of this type, this book provides both essays that examine general topics, such as globalization and sport, international relations and sport, and tourism and sport, as well as essays on sports history, culture, and practice in world regions—for example, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and Oceania—in order to provide a more global perspective. These essays are followed by entries on specific sports, world athletes, stadiums and arenas, famous games and matches, and major controversies. Spanning topics as varied as modern professional cycling to the fictional movie Rocky to the deadly ball game of the ancient Mayans, the first three volumes contain overview essays and entries for specific sports that have been and are currently practiced around the world. The fourth volume provides a compendium of information on the winners of major sporting competitions from around the world. Readers will gain invaluable insights into how sports have been enjoyed throughout all of human culture, and more fully comprehend their cultural contexts. The entries provide suggestions for further reading on each topic—helpful to general readers, students with school projects, university students and academics alike. Additionally, the four-volume Sports Around the World spotlights key charismatic athletes who have changed a sport or become more than just an outstanding player.
This is an exacting social history of Indian cricket between 1780 and 1947. It considers cricket as a derivative sport, creatively adapted to suit modern Indian socio-cultural needs, fulfil political imperatives and satisfy economic aspirations. Majumdar argues that cricket was a means to cross class barriers and had a healthy following even outside the aristocracy and upper middle classes well over a century ago. Indeed, in some ways, the democratization of the sport anticipated the democratization of the Indian polity itself. Boria Majumdar reveals the appropriation, assimilation and subversion of cricketing ideals in colonial and post-colonial India for nationalist ends. He exposes a sport rooted in the contingencies of the colonial and post-colonial context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India. Cricket, to put it simply, is much more than a ‘game’ for Indians. This study describes how the genealogy of their intense engagement with cricket stretches back over a century. It is concerned not only with the game but also with the end of cricket as a mere sport, with Indian cricket’s commercial revolution in the 1930s, with ideals and idealism and their relative unimportance, with the decline of morality for reasons of realpolitik, and with the denunciation, once and for all, of the view that sport and politics do not mix. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport
The extraordinary story of the first 'All India' national cricket tour of Great Britain and Ireland - and how the idea of India as a nation took shape on the cricket pitch.
-- The 2017 ICC Women's Cricket World Cup saw the Indian team make it to the finals, and although it lost the game, the tournament marked an unprecedented high for viewership for women's cricket in India. The ensuing euphoria that followed, including the announcement of two film-deals with the team's leading stars, ensured that the only direction where Indian women's cricket could go from there was up.Free Hit is the untold story of how women's cricket in India got here, and casts light on the gender-based pay gaps, sponsorship challenges, and the sheer indifference of cricketing officials it faced along the way. Focusing on Mithali Raj, the world's greatest female batsman, and Jhulan Goswami, the leading wicket taker in women's cricket, author Suprita Das takes us into the lives of the spirited bunch of women who, across the years, just like their male counterparts, also brought home laurels that are worth celebrating.
