Boria captures the paradox of the game where blue-blooded aristocrats like Ranjitsinh, the maharajas of Patiala, Porbandar, the royal prince of Vijayanagaram and the two Pataudis played along with the great C.K. Nayudu whose bank ledger, reproduced here, shows a princely balance of Rs 306. He has gone to great lengths to collect copies of sports magazines of 1833, besides photographs across generations peppered with anecdotal facts. In Nagpur, for instance, a match was played between soldiers and the Nayudu Club XI in 1896 where C.K. Nayudu’s grandfather distributed copper coins to mark the his grandson’s birth. India played its first Test at Lord’s on June 25, 1932, creating a sensation by reducing England to 19 for 3. India’s first official tour to England in ’32 had an unusual slogan: ‘No Politics, No Caste, Just Cricket’.
