A tryst with destiny

Hindustan Times

2 days ago

Tonight, as they have done on three other memorable, heartbreaking occasions over the past 18 years, Royal Challengers Bangalore will take the stage in an IPL final. For an incredible fourth time, Virat Kohli, who has worn the RCB colours since its founding, will walk into a capacity stadium filled with the most loyal fans in the world, whose fierce, steadfast belief – Ee sala Cup namde! – has lit up every IPL season since 2008, to the familiar, ear-splitting chant – Aar-Cee-Bee! Aar-Cee-Bee!
This time, RCB's opponents are the Punjab Kings. It is apposite that the names of both teams reference the monarchy, for rulers of the regions these teams represent have had a big part to play in the birth and growth of cricket in our neck of the woods.
The first mention of cricket in the subcontinent comes from the 1737 work 'A Compendious History of the Indian Wars with an Account of the Rise, Progress, Strength and Forces of Angria the Pyrate' (a reference to the dreaded Maratha Navy admiral, Kanhoji Angre) by the East India Company midshipman Clement Downing. As the ship lay in port in Cambay in 1721, enjoying a brief respite between battles with Angria, writes Downing, 'we every day diverted ourselves with playing at cricket, and other exercises…'
Cricket officially began, however, with the establishment, in 1792, of the Calcutta Cricket Club, only five years after the founding of the venerable Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The next cricket club in India came up much closer home – after the fall of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War of 1799, Col Arthur Wellesley (later the First Duke of Wellington), is believed to have set it up in Seringapatam (Srirangapatna)!
The man who led the successful British campaign in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War was General George Harris, 1st Baron Harris. He himself had nothing to do with cricket, but his son, the 2nd Baron Harris, who had fought, as a 16-year-old, in the same war, provided the financial backing for the establishment, in 1835, of the Old County Ground in Kent, home of the West Malling Cricket Club; in his 1836 novel, The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens featured the ground as the setting for a fictional cricket match.
It was the 2nd Baron's grandson, Lord Harris, first-class cricketer and captain of the English cricket team, who is credited with having the greatest impact in laying the foundations for the spread of the gentleman's game in India, during his tenure as Governor of Bombay between 1890 and 1895. In 1909, as a trustee of the MCC, he helped set up the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC) as cricket's primary governing body; in 1926, he persuaded the ICC to accept the British colonies of the West Indies, New Zealand and India as members.
And where does Punjab come into this? It was the flamboyant ruler of Patiala, Maharaja Bhupinder Singh (remember him from Diljit Dosanjh's Met Gala costume?), who was instrumental in the setting up of the BCCI in 1928. He also donated the Ranji Trophy (named after KS Ranjitsinhji, an Indian prince who played for England and was considered the greatest batsman of the age) to kick off our own first-class inter-state annual cricket tournament in 1934.
In 1934, the Mysore Cricket Club (estd 1933, now the Karnataka State Cricket Association) became affiliated to the BCCI, and played its first Ranji Trophy Match against Madras State (Mysore lost). The then Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, was not involved with his homegrown cricket club, but from 1923 to 1940, as the first patron of the Tamil Union Cricket Club in Colombo, Sri Lanka, he played his part in the spread of the sport in the subcontinent.
Right. It's almost time. Godspeed, boys! Ee sala Cup definitely namde!
(Roopa Pai is a writer who has carried on a longtime love affair with her hometown Bengaluru)