How the British forged first Indian cricket team

Cricket, it has famously been said, is an Indian game accidentally invented by the English.

By a curious historical irony, a sport that was the exclusive preserve of colonial elite is now the national passion of the formerly colonised. What is equally extraordinary is that India has become world cricket's sole superpower, according to BBC.

It is a status much savoured by contemporary Indians, for whom their cricket team is the nation. They regard "team India" as a symbol of national unity, and its players a reflection of the country's diversity.

"In this last decade," former cricketer Rahul Dravid noted in 2011, "the Indian team represents, more than ever before, the country we come from - of people from vastly different cultures, who speak different languages, follow different religions, belong to different classes."

But the link between cricket and the nation was neither natural nor inevitable.

It took 12 years and three aborted attempts before the first composite Indian team took to the cricket field in the summer of 1911. And contrary to popular perception - fostered by the hugely successful Hindi film Lagaan - this "national team" was constituted by - and not against - empire.

A diverse coalition of Indian businessmen, princely aristocrats and publicists, working in tandem with British governors, civil servants, journalists, soldiers, and professional coaches made possible the idea of India on the cricket pitch.

Because of this alliance between colonial and local elites, India was represented by a cricket team in imperial Britain more than a hundred summers before Virat Kohli and his men embarked on their campaign for the 2019 ICC World Cup.

The project to construct an "Indian" cricket team had a long and tortuous history. The idea was first floated in 1898, following the stunning rise of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji or Ranji, an Indian prince who bewitched Britain and the wider imperial world with his sublime batting. Indian cricket promoters sought to capitalise on Ranji's celebrity in putting together a team. But Ranji, who used his cricketing prestige to become the ruler of Nawanagar, was wary of a project that might raise questions about his nationality and, in particular, his right to represent England on the cricket field.

There were some in the English establishment - notably, Lord Harris, the ex-Governor of what was then Bombay - who had never reconciled themselves to Ranji's astonishing cricketing success and continued to regard him as a mere "bird of passage".

Four years later, a different imperative was at work. Now, Europeans in colonial India, who sought to attract teams from home, collaborated with powerful local elites to create an Indian team that would showcase the country's potential as a cricketing destination.

But the venture failed because of fierce divisions between Hindus, Parsis and Muslims over the question of their representation in the proposed team.

A subsequent attempt in 1906 met with the same fate as previous failed ventures.

The years between 1907 and 1909 saw a wave of "revolutionary" violence by young Indians who targeted British officials and their local collaborators. And there were strident calls in Britain to prevent the free movement of Indians into the country.