RAMACHANDRA GUHA BATS FOR PERMANENT BLACK

Ramachandra Guha once said he writes on history for a living and on cricket to live. The States of Indian Cricket marries the craft of history to the life of cricket in India and is described by its author as ‘the product of a lifelong addiction to the most sophisticated sport known to mankind.’

Guha draws upon the memories of several generations of cricket lovers to give us wonderful sketches of India’s cricketers, the forgotten as well as the famous: from C.K. Nayudu and Vinoo Mankad to Saurav Ganguly and Anil Kumble. Using the device of imaginary all-time India Elevens, he provides rich insights into the cities and states in which Indian cricket was forged.

We thus have here, for the first time within the covers of a single volume, an informal, anecdotal, and immensely readable history of Indian cricket, a book which complements Guha’s celebrated work on the sport’s social history, A Corner of a Foreign Field (2002).

Ramachandra Guha is one of India’s most distinguished historians and biographers. His many awards and distinctions include the Daily Telegraph/Cricket Society Book Award and the Leopold-Hidy Prize of the American Society of Environmental History. His most recent book is the widely acclaimed India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy.

ISBN 81-7824-241-9 / Rs 295 / paperback / 320pp / Published in Sept 08 / A Black Kite book

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