‘Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English,’ it has been said. Today, the Indian cricket team is a powerful national symbol, a unifying force in a country riven by conflicts. But India was represented by a cricket team long before it became an independent nation.
Drawing on an unparalleled range of original archival sources, Cricket Country tells the extraordinary story of how the idea of India took shape on the cricket pitch in the age of empire. Conceived by an unlikely coalition of imperial and local elites, it took twelve years and three failed attempts before the first Indian cricket team made its debut on Britain’s playing fields in the Coronation summer of 1911.
This is a tale with an improbable cast of characters set against the backdrop of anti-colonial protest and revolutionary politics. The team’s captain was the embattled ruler of a powerful Sikh state. The other team members were chosen on the basis of their religious identity. Remarkably, two of the cricketers were Dalits. Over the course of their historic tour, these cricketers participated in a collective enterprise that highlights the role of sport in fashioning the imagined communities of empire and nation.
| ISBN: | 9780198843139 |
| Publication date: | 8th August 2019 |
| Author: | Prashant (Associate Professor in Colonial Urban History School of History, Politics and International Relations Univer Kidambi |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 448 pages |
| Primary Genre | History |
‘Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English,’ it has been said. Today, the Indian cricket team is a powerful national symbol, a unifying force in a country riven by conflicts. But India was represented by a cricket team long before it became an independent nation.
Drawing on an unparalleled range of original archival sources, Cricket Country tells the extraordinary story of how the idea of India took shape on the cricket pitch in the age of empire. Conceived by an unlikely coalition of imperial and local elites, it took twelve years and three failed attempts before the first Indian cricket team made its debut on Britain’s playing fields in the Coronation summer of 1911.
This is a tale with an improbable cast of characters set against the backdrop of anti-colonial protest and revolutionary politics. The team’s captain was the embattled ruler of a powerful Sikh state. The other team members were chosen on the basis of their religious identity. Remarkably, two of the cricketers were Dalits. Over the course of their historic tour, these cricketers participated in a collective enterprise that highlights the role of sport in fashioning the imagined communities of empire and nation.
Cricket Country features in the following genres: History, History and Archaeology
Cricket Country is available in Hardback
Cricket Country was written by Prashant (Associate Professor in Colonial Urban History School of History, Politics and International Relations Univer Kidambi and published by Oxford University Press
Cricket Country has 448 pages
