C. K. Nayudu and Sachin Tendulkar naturally figure in this book, but so too, in arresting and unexpected ways, do Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The Indian careers of those great English cricketers, Lord Harris and D. R. Jardine, provide a window into the operations of Empire. The extraordinary life of India's first great slow bowler, Palwankar Baloo, introduces the reader to the still-unfinished struggle against caste discrimination. Later chapters explore the competition between Hindu and Muslim cricketers in colonial India and the extraordinary passions now provoked when India plays Pakistan.An important, pioneering work, essential for anyone interested in cricket and India, A Corner of a Foreign Field is also a beautifully written meditation on the ramifications of sport in society at large, and how sport can influence both social and political history. ' An original, scholarly and highly entertaining work by a writer who combines the skills of biographer, anthropologist, cricket journalist and political historian' David Gilmour, Spectator 'A fascinating social study, absorbingly told and with much charm' Independent 'Guha efortlessly blends political and social history with a chronology of the game and those who play it in a country, as he puts it, "where all things are turned upside down"' Time Out