Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T11:51:09.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Cricket and globalization: global processes and the imperial game

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2013

Fahad Mustafa*
Affiliation:
University of Vienna, Austria E-mail: fahad@globalistan.org

Abstract

This article seeks to reposition sport as a subject of analysis in ‘global historical’ processes. It examines the diffusion of cricket in the British empire, its appropriation by the colonies, and the subsequent commercialization of the sport. It asks the question: how did an elite English sport come to be one controlled by a former colony – India? With this as the substantive question, it seeks to develop theoretical insights about the nature of global processes and cultural transfers in the twentieth century. By way of conclusion, it asserts that, as a result of these global processes, there was a tangible shift in the ‘cultural economy’ of sports from the developed nations of the West to the developing nations.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 James, C. L. R., Beyond a boundary, London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2005Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 153.

3 Dipesh Chakrabarty: Provincializing Europe: postcolonial thought and historical difference, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 29Google Scholar

4 Nandy, Ashis, The tao of cricket, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 1Google Scholar

5 Goldberg, Lawrence, ‘Cultural studies vs. political economy: is anyone else bored with this debate?’, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 12, 1, 1995, pp. 7281Google Scholar

6 Vamplew, Wray, ‘Sport and industrialization: an economic interpretation of the changes in popular sport in nineteenth-century England’, in J. A. Mangan, ed., Pleasure, profit, proselytism: British culture and sport at home and abroad 1700–1914, London: Frank Cass, 1988, p. 7Google Scholar

7 Mangan, J. A., The games ethic and imperialism: aspects of the diffusion of an ideal, London: Frank Cass, 1998Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 17.

9 Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, Quest for excitement: sport and leisure in the civilizing process, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. See also Norbert Elias, ‘The genesis of sport as a sociological problem’ in Eric Dunning, ed., The sociology of sport, London: Frank Cass, 1971, pp. 88–115.

10 See Mangan, Games ethic.

11 Miller, Toby, Lawrence, Geoffrey A., McKay, Jim, and Rowe, David, Globalization and sport: playing the world, London: Sage, 2001Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 2.

13 Maguire, Joseph, Global sport: identities, societies, civilizations, London: Polity Press, 1999, p. 13Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 207.

15 Rumford, Chris and Wagg, Stephen, eds., Cricket and globalization, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010Google Scholar

16 Stoddart, Brian and Sandiford, Keith, eds., The imperial game: cricket, culture and society, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998Google Scholar

17 Birley, Derek, A social history of English cricket, London: Aurum Press Ltd., 2003Google Scholar

Cashman, Richard, The paradise of sport, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002Google Scholar

Guha, Ramachandra, A corner of a foreign field, London: Picador, 2002Google Scholar

Beckles, Hilary, The development of West Indies cricket in the age of globalization, Kingston: University of West Indies Press, 1998Google Scholar

Williams, Jack, Cricket and England: a cultural and social history of the inter-war years, London: Frank Cass, 1999Google Scholar

18 Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at large, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, p. 33Google Scholar

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Quoted in ‘Cricket, lovely cricket’, The Economist, Special report on the business of sport, 2 August 2008, p. 13.

22 Williams, Cricket, p. xiiiGoogle Scholar

23 Wiener, Martin J., English culture and the decline of the industrial spirit 1850–1980, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987Google Scholar

24 See Mangan, Games ethic.

25 Ibid., p. 143.

26 The Viceroy of India Lord Harris, for example, was a fervent supporter of cricket. Cricket also enjoyed widespread appeal in the Houses of Parliament, testified by the fact that a portion of the Great Railways Bill of 1888 was killed off by cricket interests in Parliament when it threatened the famous Lord's Cricket Ground with demolition.

27 Williams, Cricket, p. 124Google Scholar

28 Sandiford, Keith, Cricket and the Victorians, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1994, p. 81Google Scholar

29 Appadurai, Modernity, p. 93Google Scholar

30 Mangan, Games ethic, pp. 122–141Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 141.

32 Ibid.

33 Stoddart, Brian, ‘Cricket and colonialism in the English-speaking Caribbean to 1914: towards a cultural analysis’, in Mangan, Pleasure, p. 251Google Scholar

34 Headlam, Cecil, Ten thousand miles through India and Burma: an account of the Oxford Authentics cricket tour with M.J. Keys in the year of the Coronation Durbar, London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1903, p. 168Google Scholar

35 Cashman, Richard, ‘Cricket and colonialism: colonial hegemony and indigenous subversion’, in Mangan, Pleasure, p. 261Google Scholar

36 Cashman, Richard, ‘The phenomenon of Indian cricket’, in Richard Cashman and Michael McKernan, eds., Sport in history: the making of modern sporting history, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1979, pp. 190191Google Scholar

37 Sorabjee, Shapoorjee, A chronicle of cricket amongst Parsees and the struggle: European polo versus Indian cricket, Bombay: published by the author, 1897Google Scholar

38 See Guha, Corner.

39 Bayly, C. A., Rulers, townsmen and bazaars: north Indian society in the age of British expansion 1770–1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983Google Scholar

40 Guha, Corner, pp. 60–61Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 106.

42 Ibid.

43 Appadurai, Modernity, p. 95Google Scholar

44 Guha, Corner, p. 105Google Scholar

45 Mangan, J. A., ed., The cultural bond: sport, empire, society, London: Frank Cass, 1992, p. 6Google Scholar

46 Merrett, Christopher and Nauright, John, ‘South Africa’, in Stoddart and Sandiford, Imperial game, p. 73Google Scholar

47 Ibid.

48 Desai, Ashwin, Reddy, Krish, Vahed, Goolam, and Padyachee, Vishnu, Blacks in whites: a century of cricket struggles in KwaZulu, Natal: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 2003Google Scholar

49 Gemmel, Jon, The politics of South African cricket, London: Routledge, 2002, p. 52Google Scholar

50 Merrett and Nauright, ‘South Africa’, pp. 63–64Google Scholar

51 W. F. Mandle, ‘Cricket and Australian national identity in the nineteenth century’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 59, 4, December, 1973, pp. 225245Google Scholar

Cashman, Richard, ‘Australia’, in Stoddart and Sandiford, Imperial game, p. 39Google Scholar

52 Ibid.

53 See Jared van Duinen, ‘Playing to the “imaginary grandstand”: sport, the “British world”, and an Australian colonial identity’, pp. 342–364 in this issue.

54 Stoddart, Brian, ‘Other cultures’, in Stoddart and Sandiford, Imperial game, p. 135Google Scholar

55 Kaufman, Jason and Patterson, Orlando, ‘Cross-national cultural diffusion: the global spread of cricket’, American Sociological Review, 70, 1, 2005, p. 90CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 Ibid., p. 104.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid., p. 95.

59 Ibid., p. 97.

60 Melville, Tom, The tented field: a history of cricket in America, Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1998Google Scholar

61 Sandiford, Keith A. P., ‘Introduction’, in Stoddart and Sandiford, Imperial game, p. 1Google Scholar

62 Guha, Corner, p. 205Google Scholar

63 Beckles, Development of West Indies cricket, vol. 1, p. 11Google Scholar

64 Chris Searle, ‘Race before cricket: cricket empire and the white rose’, Race and Class, 31, 3, 1990Google Scholar

Beckles, Hilary McD. and Stoddart, Brian, eds., Liberation cricket: West Indies cricket culture, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995Google Scholar

65 Constantine, Learie, Cricket and I, London: Allan, 1933, p. 170Google Scholar

66 Guha, Ramachandra, ‘Cricket and politics in colonial India’, Past & Present, 161, 1998, pp. 155190CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 Appadurai, Modernity, p. 105Google Scholar

68 Ibid.

69 Cashman, Richard, ‘The subcontinent’, in Stoddart and Sandiford, Imperial game, p. 130Google Scholar

70 Appadurai, Modernity, p. 100Google Scholar

71 Sen, Satadru, ‘History without a past: memory and forgetting in Indian cricket’, in Stephen Wagg, ed., Cricket and national identity in the postcolonial age, London: Routledge, 2005, pp. 94109Google Scholar

72 Ibid., p. 97.

73 Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians, p. 71Google Scholar

74 Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians, p. 71Google Scholar

75 See Birley, Social history.

76 Miller et al., Globalization and sport, p. 62Google Scholar

77 The Indian Telegraph Act, Act XIII of 1885. Amended in 1957, section 7 of Act 47, redefining the term ‘telegraph’.

78 Nalin Mehta, ‘Batting for the flag: cricket, television and globalization in India’, Sport in Society, 12, 4–5, 2009, p. 590Google Scholar

79 Ibid., p. 591.

80 Supreme Court Case 161 before justices P. B. Sawant, S. Mohan, and B. P. Jeevan Reddy, Civil Appeals Nos. 1429–30 of 1995, quoted in ibid.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid.

83 Section 115 of the Broadcast Service Act (BCA) 1992.

84 Gupta, Amit, ‘The globalization of cricket: the rise of the non-West’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 21, 2, 2004, p. 265CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85 Ibid.

86 Howe, Darcus, ‘Tebbit's loyalty test is dead’, New Statesman, 3 July 2006Google Scholar

87 Roberts, Michael, ‘Cricketing fervour and Islamic fervour: marginalization of the diaspora’, in Boria Majumdar and J. A. Mangan, eds., Sport in South Asian society: past and present, London: Routledge, 2005, p. 316Google Scholar

88 Foster, John and Pope, Nigel, The political economy of global sporting organisations, London: Routledge, 2007Google Scholar

89 Ibid., p. 5.

90 Salve, N. K. P., The Story of the Reliance Cup, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1987Google Scholar

91 Mike Marqusee, ‘Who's afraid of the Asian bloc?’, Mikemarquesee.com, http://www.mikemarqusee.com/?p=218 (consulted 4 June 2012).

92 N. Mehta, Jon Gemmel, and Dominic Malcolm, ‘“Bombay Sport Exchange”: cricket, globalization and the future’, Sport in Society, 12, 4–5, 2009, p. 700Google Scholar

93 Ibid.

94 ‘Cricket, lovely cricket’, p. 11.

95 Ibid.

96 Ibid.

97 Holton, Robert, ‘Globalization and cricket’, in Rumford and Wagg, Cricket and globalization, p. 19Google Scholar

98 Steen, Rob, ‘Acronym wars: the economics and Indianisation of contemporary cricket’, in Rumford and Wagg, Cricket and globalization, pp. 84–102Google Scholar

99 Miller et al., Globalization and sport, p. 14Google Scholar

100 Appadurai, Modernity, p. 113Google Scholar

101 Ibid., p. 29.

102 Maguire, Global sport, pp. 211–212Google Scholar