The first section of the book introduces the key figures, clubs and contests which shaped the history of the sport in India, opening up before the reader a history hitherto little known. In describing the struggle between polo and cricket in colonial Bombay, Guha demonstrates how the exigencies of colonial politics often resulted in a sport’s appropriation and indigenisation, with cricket emerging as an arena for the articulation of a very Indian brand of nationalism. Turning the colonial ideology on its head, resistance and subversion were often dominant in the second phase of the histories of British games in the colonies, particularly cricket and soccer.
In arguably the best section of the book, Caste, Guha traces the career of Palwankar Baloo, the best-known Dalit cricketer of colonial India. Baloo has never before been dealt with in such great detail. That Baloo could take on Babasaheb Ambedkar in an electoral struggle is a telling comment on cricket’s potential in pre-partition India as a ladder for social mobility. Further, his portrayal of Harris, the governor of Bombay from 1890 to 1895, is absorbing, bringing to light the complexities that governed the imperial administrative machinery. Most existing studies have looked upon Harris as a messiah for Indian cricket, who had done much for the development of the game in Bombay.
On the issue of cricket and religion, Guha, like earlier authors, tries to analyse the movement against the Bombay Pentangular in terms of the overarching concerns of Indian history-writing—nationalism and communalism. But this bias has led him to ignore crucial episodes of the story. Guha does not mention the series of meetings convened by the Board between January and March 1942 to ban the Pentangular, steps which had almost resulted in a parting of ways between the Bombay Cricket Association and the Board. This leaves the analysis incomplete.
The book also sports a few factual errors, omissions of important sources and simplistic analyses. The Calcutta Cricket Club, the premier cricket club in colonial India, is mentioned to have been established in 1792. But Hickey’s Bengal Gazette, India’s first newspaper, mentions the club on Saturday, 16 December 1780. Guha makes much of Baloo dismissing the great Ranji for 20, while playing for the Maharaja of Natore’s team in 1910. In this match Ranji was 24 not out in the first innings and did not bat in the second.
Furthermore, Guha asserts that not many Dalits have followed the Palwankars in post-colonial India because they "have preferred to be doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats or professors rather than sportsmen". But he ignores the fact that the principal obstacle to Dalits and other economically underprivileged Indians from following the Palwankars was the costly nature of the game, which prevented it from being adopted by relatively modest educational institutions. These institutions shifted towards promoting less costly games like soccer or hockey, and the assumption that cricket was the game of the elite, while football and hockey were to be played by the common man, gathered strength.
But in the final analysis, despite drawbacks, Guha’s book is a stepping stone for the future and the author deserves due credit for this well-researched narrative of Indian cricket and a pioneering contribution to the study of sports history in India.
