Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai is taut with excitement. The India- Sri Lanka World Cup final is in progress. Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashes a six to take India to victory. The 42,000 people in the stadium heave a sigh of relief. The millions more watching the game on TV are relieved too. Then the celebrations begin across India.

Indeed, cricket or football are like important festivals in our country, as big as Durga Puja, Eid, or Deepavali. During an India-versus-Pakistan cricket match, or an East Bengal-versus-Mohun Bagan or Brazil-versus-Argentina football game, the roads are emptied out across the country. Old and young sit down in front of the TV, or follow the score on the internet. So many different sports at home and abroad, and so many thousands of sportspersons! Some of them are our favourites, making us happy when they perform well, and some days when they don’t, we are sad. There are our rival teams too, and any of them playing well puts us in a bad mood.

An assortment of sports and games—along with all the hopes and aspirations, rage and hurt, happiness and excitement associated with them—is interlaced with the development of a country or nation. Why is one particular sport popular in a country, while several others aren’t? Different aspects of social history are hidden in such questions. Football, cricket, hockey, badminton, basketball, track-andfield— each game or sport has its own history. These histories not only narrate the evolution of these sports, but also bring before us unknown facts about a country, nation, or region.

We will read the history of sports in this book, and, through it, try to understand various aspects of Indian society. We have picked football, cricket, and hockey to tell our stories. Cricket is the most popular sport in India now, although football does not lag far behind. And India was world-famous in hockey once. All three sports were brought to India by the British. At first, they used to play these games amongst themselves. The Indians joined in later. During the British Raj, a different dimension was added to the sporting contests when an Indian team took on a British team. It wasn’t just a game of football or cricket then; it turned into a battle between a united India against the British rulers. This was how sports went beyond the boundaries of fun and entertainment and grew to be part of a bigger story. We will tell you some such tales.