A marathon innings

Last month saw the playing out of the most recent cricketing controversy to underline India's importance in the world game, when Sourav Ganguly's two-match suspension by an ICC match referee was overturned by a subsequent ruling.

This volte-face understandably fostered resentment in some quarters; the ICC's long-winded, jargon-laced attempts to justify its move cut no ice with disgruntled Englishmen and Australians.

"That's absolute crap," snapped former England captain Michael Atherton, forsaking propah Britspeak for once, "The only explanation is India's power at the ICC table."

That power, according to Boria Majumdar in the prologue to his Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom, represents India's only crack at world domination.

"When we turn our attention to cricket, the narrative of 'backwardness', of 'catching up', of 'gloom' ceases. Cricket is the only realm where Indians can flex their muscle..."

Add administrative influence to the creditable on-field showings of Ganguly's team in the past two years, and now is as good a time as any to produce a comprehensive history of Indian cricket.

Hence Twenty-Two Yards ..., which traces the game's development from its earliest years in the country in the 18th century to the beginning of India's ascent to key-player status in the wake of the 1983 World Cup win.

Conscious of the huge task he's set himself (and his readers), Majumdar keeps the structure of the book simple. It's divided into four broad sections, the first of which, "Patronage", examines the reasons behind princely patronage of the game, the role of cricket as a social ladder and the gradual shift to the meritocracy that has allowed the likes of Virender Sehwag and Irfan Pathan to become stars today.

The other sections are: "Nationalism, Communalism, Commercialism", which traces the game's disparate growth trajectories in different parts of the country (not just that of Bombay cricket, which was long treated as synonymous with Indian cricket); "Backward Glance", which highlights player clashes and other controversies, and examines the iconic status of leading cricketers (this is, naturally, the most reader-friendly part of the book); and finally "Power Play", which centres on the BCCI's crucial telecasting deal with the UK-based company Trans World International in 1993, and the money games that followed.

The chapter divisions make for convenient reading and it's all extremely well-researched""almost too well-researched, it can be argued. Majumdar's list of sources and references is staggering, but it's sometimes annoying when the first two paragraphs of a brand-new chapter are both in quote-marks, with footnotes detailing the sources at the bottom of the page.

When the author does break away from "good journalist/researcher" mode to make strong assertions of his own, the results are mixed.

In his engrossing chapter on the Bombay Pentangular, he suggests that the popular tournament was dissolved not to counter communalism (as is widely touted) but because the more recently formed Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) felt monetarily threatened by its existence. This is an interesting bit of revisionism.

On the other hand, Majumdar's conclusion about Ranjitsinhji""that he opposed the independence movement not because he was an Anglophile but because he wanted to further the interests of his own state""seems neither here nor there.

Besides, the whole issue of whether and why Ranji was pro-British has been flogged to death in recent literature. It's much more interesting when Majumdar tries to disprove the perception that Ranji did nothing to promote cricket in India.

Is there anything in this heavy tome for the casual cricket follower? Well, yes, bits scattered here and there, though getting to them demands much skimming through academia.

Certain stories are always worth revisiting, or hearing about for the first time; in the light of recent, highly publicised controversies, it's useful to remember that India's Test history was built on sordid incidents like the Vizzy-Amarnath imbroglio (or: effete prince/cricketing incompetent versus rugged workman/hero of the masses).

Each story brings with it enlivening anecdotes""take the contents of Amarnath's letter refuting charges of being a womaniser on the tour: "I had gone to England to play cricket, which I liked much more than women."

There are other entertaining asides, the role sport played, for instance, in "combating the problem of the emasculation of the Bengali male" in the 19th century. And just by the by, did you know there was an S R Tendolkar in Indian cricket in the 1950s? (No? Turn to page 107.)

Majumdar's book has been at the centre of a slanging match between him and Ramachandra Guha, the details of which are still murky; apparently Guha was annoyed by Majumdar tapping many of the same sources as the former had for his A Corner of a Cricket Field (2002).

Whatever the case, Twenty-Two Yards... is at the least a valuable reference work for any student of India's cricketing history""even if you're bemused by Mihir Bose's sweeping pronouncement that "Indian cricket writing has finally come of age with this book".

The worst that can be said about Majumdar's endeavour is that in his attempt to put together a definitive, all-inclusive work, he may have bitten off more than we can chew: there's a little too much going on between these pages.

But in fairness Majumdar does, in the closing lines of his book, allow for future writing on the subject. Which is as it should be, for Indian cricket is rich and varied enough to accommodate more such literature""by Majumdar, Guha, Bose and others of their ilk. The authors might be bickering, but cricket-lovers have much to smile about.

Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom

Boria Majumdar
Penguin Books/Viking
Price: Rs 595
Pages: 483