Given the game's antiquity, it is perhaps surprising that nobody has produced a history of Irish cricket; the only work coming anyway close being Cricket In Ireland written by W.P. Hone back in the 1950s and that - as the author freely admitted - was really a book of reminiscence, writes Karl Johnston
Obviously, Ramachandra Guha's excellent book is not remotely concerned with cricket in this country, but at the end of it all, there are interesting comparisons to be made between the game in India and in Ireland. In both countries cricket was introduced to, if not actually imposed upon, the native population by the British, some sections of the local society took to the game with alacrity while others despised it; the attitude of the GAA and its followers to so-called "foreign games" in Ireland had and still has an admittedly dwindling parallel on the Indian sub-continent.
And it may be argued that were it not for politics and the advent of the GAA and its deplorable ban, cricket could today be a major sport in Ireland. In his excellent book Proud And Upright Men, the history of Tuam Stars Gaelic Football Club, the late Noel O'Donoghue proved conclusively that the footballers had their beginnings in Tuam Cricket Club, and that before the foundation of the GAA, cricket was the one properly organised game throughout rural and urban Ireland.
According to Guha, the first mention of cricket in India dates back to 1721, when British sailors played a match among themselves at the port of Cambay. And, says the author, the first cricket club outside "Britain" (which, presumably includes Ireland as well) was Calcutta CC, founded in 1792; in those early times, the English played with themselves, so to speak, while the "natives" were simply onlookers or servants, mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water".
But that state of affairs was soon to change. The Parsis of Bombay (who had fled their native Persia with the advent of Islam) were the first "natives" to play cricket and, according to the author, were viewed with disdain by the high-born Hindus. Because of their commercial skills and business acumen, the Parsis became allied to the British, to the mutual benefit of both races.
Gradually, the game grew with the formation of Parsi, Hindu and Muslim clubs, but was soon destined to spread ever further and further afield. Guha quotes Dinkar Balwant Deodhar, who he describes as the greatest of Poona cricketers, in a recollection: "the children only wanted the happy monopoly of open-air life and uninterrupted games, sports and competitions. We played 'cricket' in those camps and pitched our wickets in any field anywhere . . . The trees were our stumps, a broken fir plank our bat and a rotund - never mind if it was oval - piece of wood served as a ball. With such equipment we played, and quarrelled, and frisked and gambolled like calves let loose on a village green . . . we marched daily with our 'bats' and 'stumps' dangling awkwardly in our hands to play on open spaces wherever we found them."
"Hansiegate", bribes and match-fixing scandals have been grist to the mill for Indian critics of cricket, who claim that the game holds back other sports, says Guha, but this will not dampen the craze for cricket: "The patriotic fan has nowhere else to go. For the Sydney Olympics, this nation of a billion people sent a contingent of 200 competitors which collectively won one bronze medal"; we in Ireland, obsessed with games which cannot be played at international level, can identify with that situation. The difference is, of course, that Indian cricket, like cricket everywhere, is an international sport, one followed by millions on the sub-continent. As Guha says: "When Sachin Tendulkar is batting against the Pakistani swing-bowler Wasim Akram, the television audience exceeds the entire population of Europe."
Karl Johnston is a freelance journalist and is Cricket Correspondent of The Irish Times
A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport. By Ramachandra Guha. Picador, 496 pp. £20 sterling