Cricket Across Dark Waters: The Colourful Story of India vs West Indies tussles
by Arunabha Sengupta
wth a Foreword by Shashi Tharoor
Paperback £14.99
Kindle £8.99
Every time the Indians and the West Indians have clashed on the cricket field it has resulted in complex rivalry. It has also been a meeting of people, ethnicities, and, in many ways, because of the complicated histories and intertwined cultures, a reunion.
In 1952/53, the Indian cricket team toured the Caribbean for the very first time. To their surprise they reached a home away from home. In British Guiana and Trinidad, for the descendants of the indentured Indian labourers the arrival of cricketers from the land of their forefathers was an epochal event.
The Indian cricketers were madly popular. Common roots, culture, food and language. Besides, India had become independent and the Caribbean nations were still on their way towards self-governance. Many of the East Indians in British Guiana and Trinidad ended up cheering for the visitors. It was history in all poignancy on the sporting field and beyond.
Through the decades, the histories – cricketing and otherwise – of India and the various Caribbean nations that make up the cricket-playing West Indies have gone through several upheavals. There have been highs and lows on one side, and lows and highs on the other. Connecting the cricketing theme there has always been the story of people, and the complex ethnic and racial undercurrents that have left their mark on cricket and politics.
Is it just cricketing reasons that the visiting Indian teams have always performed better in Guyana and Trinidad? How did the diverse ethnicities and ethno-centric politics affect the society and history of Anglophone Caribbean? How much did these complex currents seep into the cricket? How did these two cricketing entities fare in the years when the game was governed with a predominantly Anglo-Australian bias? When in the journey of building their post-colonial identity did India emerge as a cricketing superpower? When did the concept of West Indies as an identity become blurred?
This book is a tale of the fascinating tussles that has been flamboyantly ignored in cricket literature, the rising and dwindling fortunes, of two vivacious cricketing powers whose identities were stoked into their cricketing cultures. Alongside the cricket, it is also a history of the two different parts of the world, with their multicultural complexities and their troubled post-colonial struggles.
Capturing the true spirit of not one but two fascinating cricketing cultures and their engagement over the years is at the heart of what makes this book stand out. – Shashi Tharoor
Succeeds in addressing the major gap in the documentation of interplay between between two major cricketing cultures, two sides from two ends of the world with incredibly mixed ethnicities, two geographies connected by unfortunate histories across the dark waters. – Clifford Narinesingh