Binding: Hardcover
Description: Cricket is an Indian game accidentally invented by the English it has famously 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 is the story of the first All India cricket tour of Great Britain and Ireland. It is also the extraordinary tale of how the idea of India took shape on the cricket field in the high noon of empire. Conceived by an unlikely coalition of colonial and local elites it took twelve years and three failed attempts before an Indian cricket team made its debut on the playing fields of imperial Britain. This historic tour which took place against the backdrop of revolutionary politics in the Edwardian era featured an improbable cast of characters. The teams young captain was the newly enthroned ruler of a powerful Sikh state. The other cricketers were chosen on the basis of their religious identity. Remarkably for the day two of the players were Dalits. Over the course of the blazing Coronation summer of 1911, these Indians participated in a collective enterprise that epitomizes the way in which sport and above all cricket helped fashion the imagined communities of both empire and nation.
Title: Cricket Country An Indian Odyssey In The Age Of Empire
Author(s): Kidambi Prashant (Associate Professor In Colonial Urban History School Of History Politics And International Relations University Of Leicester)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Barcode: 9780198843139
Pages: 448 Pages, Black And White Illustrations
Publication Date: 10/1/2019
Category: Cricket