Of Mumbai cricket and communal superiority
Writing for Live Mint, Dustin Silgardo sheds light on how cricket in 19th century Mumbai revolved around communal pride and superiority
ESPNcricinfo staff
11-May-2015
Writing for Live Mint, Dustin Silgardo sheds light on how cricket in 19th century Mumbai revolved around communal pride and superiority.
The Hindu community had a long-standing social and business rivalry with the Parsis and were not going to let them be the only local group playing the British at their own sport. That the first Hindu club was called the Bombay Hindu Union Cricket Club, founded in 1866, was ironic, as the Hindus were anything but united. Clubs were usually restricted to people of a specific caste or from a particular region, as names such as the Gowd Saraswat Club, Kshatriya Cricket Club, Gujarati Union Cricket Club and Maratha Cricket Club suggest. In fact, even the Bombay Hindu Union Club was formed by and for members of the Prabhu caste.