Beyond Another Boundary

It worked well and his left-arm spin took him far; so far he became the most celebrated cricketer 8212; 8220;the first great Indian cricketer8221;. In his stride he took things like not being allowed to eat/drink/sit with upper-caste Hindu Brahmins within his own team; but for how long? He had made a sure move and as the years rolled by, and as Baloo kept rolling his tweakers, Guha recounts how Ranjitsinhji 8212; blue-blood and all that 8212; once played under Baloo. Both extremes of the spectrum were thus clearly occupied.

Thanks to Baloo, who never got a chance to play in official Tests India8217;s first Test was contested in 1932, the Palwankars were truly the First Family of Indian cricket as his three brothers earned their fame in cricket too.

Baloo8217;s was also a social case study. Largely due to his on-field exploits, he bridged the gap within Hindu society. Once a hero for Bhimrao Ambedkar, a student then, Baloo did finally contest and lose a close election to the Bombay Legislative Assembly against his protege.

A Corner of a Foreign Field is about more than Baloo. This is no run-of-the-mill narrative full of mere scoresheets and anecdotes; Guha has cleverly blended history with sociology and cricket literature in tracing the origin of cricket 8212; 8220;a very British game8221; 8212; in India. Cleverer still, Guha8217;s book moves ahead with the times, historically and socially. There is a reference to a Mahatma Gandhi here and a Jawaharlal Nehru there, a Balgangadhar Tilak here and a Mohammad Ali Jinnah there.

He examines how cricket was 8212; and has remained 8212; such an integral part of life for Indians. In the late 19th century and and early 20th century 8220;cricket was an escape from the colonial reality8221;. We have a superstar in Sachin Tendulkar today but those times were no different. Col C.K. Nayadu8217;s exploits with the bat made him the first genuine icon and Guha admits his fascination for him. Nayadu marked, he says, Indian cricket8217;s moment of arrival.

Cricket also evoked strong feelings then, as it does now. In 1890, with Bombay as a setting cricket originated and spread from Bombay, a Parsi team beat the Europeans and regarded the 8220;cricket result a blow to the prestige of Empire8221;. A Zoroastrian, in reference to the defeat of Parsis by Arabs in a battle in 641 AD, suggested: 8220;Nahavand has been avenged!8221;

The reaction could go otherwise too. Circa 2001, when six Indians including Sachin Tendulkar got punishments from English match referee Mike Denness for ball tampering/excessive appealing, etc, in South Africa, effigies were burned and the Indian Parliament was disrupted. When India were on the verge of losing their 1996 World Cup semifinal against Sri Lanka, spectators at Calcutta8217;s Eden Gardens gave vent to their disappointment, as they did again when India looked all doomed in an Asian Test Championship match against Pakistan in 1999. Guha reasons thus: 8220;India ranks 150th in the World Development Report8230; it is cricketers alone who are asked to redeem these failures.8221;