The Great Tamasha

May 27, 2013
In this pensive work—at turns historical, sociological, and journalistic—the Economist’s South Asia bureau chief, British journalist Astill, examines the beloved game of cricket in India. Cricket was introduced there by British soldiers and sailors in the 18th century, and it was taken up by the growing Indian middle class as the very “caricature of Englishness,” especially by the Parsis of Gujarat, who made their fortunes in Bombay. Cricket clubs sprang up in the Victorian era, and tournaments were played with the British and also with incipient Muslim clubs. Astill looks at some of the legendary players, such as the late-Victorian batsman Ranji (the first great Indian cricketer to play for England), and he studies how the makeup of Indian teams began to reflect a changing India with the inclusion of Dalit and Muslim players. The World Cup victory in 1983 put Indian cricket in the spotlight, and the 1990s were an era of commercial explosion: players got rich and rivaled Bollywood stars, games were being fixed, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was challenged by the inventive upstart Indian Premier League (IPL). Yet in the end, as Astill graciously describes, cricket inspires in the poorest of India’s poor “a dream of advancement and leisure”—not to mention the marvelous entertainment it provides.

May 15, 2013
The Economist's South Asia bureau chief finds the game of cricket a telling metaphor for what ails and heals the new India. Cricket has functioned as a tool to both institutionalize India's caste system and break it. From a quintessentially Victorian gentleman's game, cricket was first adopted by the Brahmin class of Zoroastrians from Gujarat, and prosperous merchants, who started the first clubs in Bombay. From Hindu clubs to Muslim, Astill sees cricket's subsequent growth across India as "unplanned, organic and almost exclusively on sectarian lines." Even the positions on the team formed along class lines: Gentleman batted, and working men bowled. Early Indian princes captured the public's imagination; by the time of Indian independence, cricket had not only been firmly institutionalized, but it had taken on a highly theatrical quality. Yet partition proved a blow to Indian cricket, as the best bowlers were absorbed by Pakistan. The bitter India-Pakistan rivalry precluded meeting on the cricket field between 1952 and 1977 (and again after the Mumbai attack in 2008). The rise of corporate patronage vastly changed the game, as did the association with Bollywood celebrity. The slow-moving matches on which Ashis Nandy's The Tao of Cricket (1989) were based were already giving way to a shorter, faster game after India's 1983 World Cup victory, inviting new money, TV sponsorship, corruption and match-fixing. Astill traces political and corporate infiltration of the game, such as by the powerful Sharad Pawar, International Cricket Council boss, and Lalit Modi, creator of the glamorous, shaky Indian Premier League. Alternating with his prodigious research, the author chronicles his passionate watching and playing of the game, from city green to slum, finding among the lowest castes an admirable motivation and "remarkable consolation." A stirring study by an enthusiast of the game.

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June 1, 2013
Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British, writes Astill, the Economist's South Asian bureau chief since 2007, quoting Bengali sociologist Ashish Nandy, who cites the game's endless digressions and slow-burning dramas, the partiality of its victories and defeats, and its management of ambiguity and chaos, the definition of all South Asian society. But that was 1989, and that was the long-form versioninternational Test cricketwhich has been all but shoved aside by its surlier, more profitable, more impatient progeny: the Indian Premier League, which plays a more amped-up, zero-sum, one-day version. Astill explores the history of these changes in India and draws a direct link between a corrupted, bowdlerized but vastly more financially successful game with like changes happening in Indian society at large. Nonfans of the game could get bogged down in the telling, but as Jacques Barzun said about understanding America through baseball, so Astill's book gives an insightful take on modern India.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)