Before India’s T20 World Cup final against South Africa, photojournalist Frédéric Noy looks at the role that cricket plays on the sub-continent
According to Ashis Nandy, an Indian political psychologist, “cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British”. In a 2018 survey, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said as much, estimating that more than 90% of the world’s one billion cricket fans live on the Indian subcontinent.
The first appearance of cricket in India dates back to 1721 with a match between English sailors in the port of Cambay, or perhaps further south, at Tankari Bandar, on the soggy banks of the River Vishwamitri, where the currents would have forced one of Her Gracious Majesty’s ships to wait a fortnight for the tide to rise. Regardless of the exact location, the consensus is that to kill time, the crew played cricket under the eyes of intrigued and attentive locals. “I read about it in the paper, and my father and grandfather told me about it. As a child, I knew that the British had played cricket down by the river in 1721. Cricket was born in Tankari Bandar,” says village chief Ranjit Sikh with aplomb.
Workers sew gloves in the factory of Sanspareils Greenlands (SG), which is India’s largest manufacturer and exporter of cricket equipment. With 3,000 employees, SG is based in Meerut, a town in Uttar Pradesh, nicknamed the city of sport because more than 3,000 equipment manufacturers of all sizes are based there.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jun/29/india-cricket-photo-essay-world-cup
Author : Guardian Staff
Publish date : 2024-06-28 23:16:31
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