Where There’s a Wicket, There’s a Way: British Imperialism in India (1835-1880) Through Cricket and the East India Company

Description

Two questions guided the research for this paper. The first concerned the role of cricket within the British colonial enterprise in India under the rule of the East India Company. From here an historiographical question emerged, regarding how cricket – when read as a tool of empire – enable historians to reconcile traditional dichotomies within colonial and empire studies.
The primary source for this paper was The Cricket Field; or The History and The Science of the Game of Cricket by Reverend James Pycroft, originally published in 1851. As the work is concerned with the British colonial enterprise, it represents one of the earliest preserved manuscripts on not just cricket as a sport, but on the prevailing notions of “Englishness” contained within the game.
Additionally, two newspapers – The National Observer (UK) and The Times of India (Indian [English-Language]) – provided this conference paper with useful detail on the emergence of cricket and British colonialism in the early nineteenth century.
Secondary sources in four areas of contextual importance moreover proved useful in this study. The first pertained to the intersection of the British military and the East India Company (Mjr. Singh, 1976). A second set of readings framed the understanding of cricket and the consciousness of India. Still others contextualized the globalizing nature of cricket, while another set demonstrated its connections to, for example, the Muscular Christianity Movement.
The central argument of the paper contends that cricket played a crucial role –
as a deliberate and intentional tool of empire – in the emergence of hegemonic British colonial power on the Indian subcontinent. Under the rule of the East India Company, cricket fostered communal relations between colonizer and colonized. This allowed British colonial bureaucrats to navigate the tenuous line between strict imperial rule and hegemonic utility. In making these points, this paper addresses two gaps in the existing research on cricket in India. The first flows from the fact that it focuses on the role of cricket during the early period of British control as opposed to the post-colonial years that have received far more coverage. In addition, through its emphasis on understanding cricket as a commodity – which could be molded, and used to generate both cultural and economic exploitation and submission – the paper helps to show that sport served as a critical tool of empire.

Period	May 2018
Event title	North American Society for Sport History
Event type	Conference
Location	Winnipeg, Canada, ManitobaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International