Cricket Country

Kausik Bandyopadhyay, Journal of Modern History Cricket Country marks a very significant departure from the conventional writings on Indian cricket in "setting its narrative within a transnational frame"...It also significantly contributes to the genre of exploring neglected episodes of Indian sporting history and reconstructing the fascinating narratives of those episodes in the context of colonial and postcolonial India.

Jacob Kornbeck, The International Journal of the History of Sport For scholars involved in the humanities and social sciences of sport, there is much to learn and use from the findings reported by Kidambi from his archival research. For the philosophers of sport, this material should also prompt further reflection on the implications of spreading sports over large geographical areas while sticking to formally unified technical frameworks.

Shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize

Selected as a 2019 Sport Book of the Year in The Financial Times

James Lamont, The Financial Times Prashant Kidambi tells the intriguing story of the first "All-India", and largely forgotten, team to reach British shores ... Kidambi's achievement is to retrieve from obscurity the backbone of the team, including a Dalit, or low-caste, bowler Palwankar Baloo, and Muslim cricketers from the Islamic educational centre of Aligarh.

Theo Barclay, The Daily Telegraph 5* review: This book is an engagingly written and deeply researched social history of the last days of imperial Britain, and the first days of Modern India. The 1911 tour is used as a framing device through which the author explores the ties that bound the colony together and the slow beginnings of an Indian nationhood. It is a history book, not a cricket book, and all the better for it.

Shomit Dutta, The Times Literary Supplement Kidambi's forensic eye and vast array of sources make for a ... nuanced revisionism. Not that he pulls his punches.

Shompa Lahiri, BBC History Magazine Cricket Country explores both the history of imperial British cricket in India and colonial Indian cricket in Britain, as well as cricket as a vehicle for nation-building, cultural diplomacy, imperial pedagogy and masculinity, but at its heart tells the tale of a group of men in search of sporting glory... Prashant Kidambi traces the story with great detail, which will delight cricket enthusiasts.

Richard Evans, Five Books (The Best History Books: the 2020 Wolfson Prize shortlist) You don't have to know a lot about cricket, or even be an enthusiast, to enjoy this book ... [Kidambi] uses a lot of archival material, and presents a lot of original research, but writes it in a very engaging way.

Richard Whitehead, The Cricketer Kidambi has produced a masterly piece of sports scholarship, fit to be considered alongside books on more weighty historical subjects. The depth of his research is extraordinary and his knowledge of Indian history [...] is just as impo...

Prashant Kidambi is Associate Professor in Colonial Urban History at the University of Leicester. After completing graduate degrees in History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to pursue a doctorate at the University of Oxford. His research explores the interface between British imperialism and the history of modern South Asia, with a specific focus on cities. In addition to numerous articles in journals and edited volumes, he is the author of The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890-1920 (Aldershot, 2007; London and New York, 2016). His other research interests include the social history of sport in colonial and postcolonial India.

Preface 1: Parsi Pioneers 2: Imperial Wanderers 3: Elusive Quest 4: Reviving the Dream 5: Men in White 6: The Captain's Story 7: City of the World 8: Indian Summer 9: Lost and Won 10: Beyond the Boundary 11: Ends and Beginnings Bibliography Index