At the end of the book, Ramachandra Guha offers a very fascinating anecdote. Apparently, the great Indian socialist leader, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, had three pet hates – Jawaharlal Nehru, the English language and the game of cricket.
It’s the first week of December 1960 and India are playing against Pakistan. Pakistan won the toss and batted in-front of a packed Brabourne crowd. On the second morning, a large crowd matching the one inside the Brabourne stadium had gathered in an Irani restaurant outside. Dr Lohia was having a press conference. In the conference, Lohia blasted the game of cricket as a symbol of our continuing colonialism. He said, “throw out Nehru and we can happily start playing Kabbadi.” After the press conference ended, Lohia went to the nearest Betel shop and asked for a paan. While chewing it, he quietly asked the paanwallah, “Kya Hanif out ho gaya kya?” Guha subtly points out that in our cricket-mad country, every cricket-baiter succumbs to the charm of cricket one day or the other.
The book is filled with interesting anecdotes like the one above. But it isn’t just about interesting matches and stories and anecdotes. “A Corner of a Foreign Field” is in fact a study of the Indian society and its development through the lens of cricket. In fact, as Gideon Haigh points out about the book, it’s the cricket history of India rather than the history of Indian cricket. While reading this book you will inevitably come to the conclusion that in a diverse country like ours where everything from religion to language to caste to colour to cuisine to costumes and customs separates us, cricket is the only uniting factor. And therefore, cricket is our de-facto national game.
The book is divided into four sections –
- Race – Domesticating the game
- Caste – Up from the serfdom
- Religion – Riots minus the stabbing
- Nation – History’s residues
Each section is as exhilarating as the other and has been written with equal amount of zest and zeal. At no point in the book does the flow break and therefore, it always keeps you occupied. There is never a dull moment.
Guha starts off by talking about how the game of cricket came to India and how we made it our own. In Guha’s own words, the Englishmen posted here escaped the alienness of this land through sports and more specifically cricket. The natives soon started imitating their masters. The Parsis of Bombay were the first to take to cricket. The chapter follows on with stories of “Maidan” and the various cricket clubs that started mushrooming around maidan. A very interesting story is one of a dispute over the maidan between native cricketers and Englishmen playing polo.
And so the Asian game played by Europeans became the emblem of patrician power, and the English sport indulged in by natives, the mark of plebeian resistance.
Guha has carried out extensive research while writing the book which is pretty evident when he talks about the books “A Chronical of Cricket among Parsees” and “The Struggle: European Polo versus Native Cricket” written in 1897 by Shapoorjee Shorabjee, books that he found in an unused corner of the great library at Lord’s. He further talks about the spread of cricket in the country and about Lord Harris, the “Father of Indian cricket”.
The book then finds a hero in Palwankar Baloo. Baloo is indeed one of the forgotten heroes of Indian cricket and India in general. He is also the inspiration for this book. There aren’t many things in the Indian society which can transcend the great caste barrier but the game of cricket is certainly one. Cricket is a great leveller, not just inside the field but in life as well. Baloo was not just India’s first great cricketer but he was also the first Dalit icon of India and in fact one of the foremost heroes of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. This book traces down Baloo’s journey from the small village of Palwan on the Konkan coast to the annals of Indian history, cricket or otherwise. The story of Baloo and his brothers Shivram, Ganpat and Vithal is inspirational and spell-binding.
“Did ever a family establish such a record?” asked one chronicler. His answer: “Nowhere else does the history of cricket supply such a glorious page….One brother after another raising the Hindu cricket edifice higher and higher, spreading it’s brilliance all over and beyond.
The vivid description of the Bombay quadrangular and the Hindu-Muslim rivalry provides a great read. The book then goes on to chronicle the Indian fight for independence and the subsequent partition of India and Pakistan through the lens of cricket. India, as a nation, was changing and so was its cricket. But still, even in those dark days of partition, cricket always provided a healing touch. And it has always acted as a healer since then. The stories of the budding “Sibling Rivalry” between India and Pakistan are dealt with in detail and provide a nice insight into the relationship between the two nations after the partition and since then.
Cricket may not officially be India’s national game, but in our hearts we all know that cricket in India has no parallels in the world. It has not just remained a game but has become a religion. It may have been invented by the British and mastered by the Australians and the West Indians, but it will always remain an Indian sport at heart. As Ashis Nandy once famously remarked, “Cricket is an Indian game accidentally invented by the British.” And Guha, in his book, brings out all the emotions that are associated with cricket and that’s what makes this book a great read.
At the end, I would just like to say to all cricket-buffs to go and grab a copy of this book and I assure you those will be the best 300 odd-bucks you’ll ever spend. And for those who have already read this book, I would like them to share the part that they found was most riveting.
About the author: Ramachandra Guha is a prominent Indian historian and writer. Guha was born on 29th April, 1958 at Dehradun. Guha is an alumnus of the Doon School, University of Delhi and IIM, Calcutta. He has written many books on a variety of subjects including environment, history, politics and cricket history. A Padma Bhushan recipient in 2009, Guha went on to win the 2011 Sahitya Academy Award for “India After Gandhi”. “A Corner of a Foreign Field – The Indian History of a British Sport” was first published in 2001 and has been often referred as the best book on Indian cricket.
Follow IPL Auction 2025 Live Updates, News & Biddings at Sportskeeda. Get the fastest updates on Mega-Auction and cricket news