In a country obsessed with cricket, where we eat, sleep and breathe the sport, literally, it’s but obvious that we would want to read about cricket too. Cricket merchandise floods stores and your homes, curious dishes and drinks based on your favourite cricketer tempt you into taking a bite or sip… all pointing to the persistent obsession.
Although fiction on cricket have always existed to cater to our insatiable hunger, as long back as the time when author RK Narayan wrote Swami and his Friends, it was author Chetan Bhagat’s Three Mistakes of my Life that sort made cricket cool, taking it up as a theme that is.
Author Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor revolutionised the chick lit genre by introducing the sport. There has been a resurgence of books based on cricket in recent times, what with the commercialisation of cricket. Autobiographies and biographies have been churned out, some famous ones including Sunil Gavaskar’s Sunny Days, Kapil Dev’s My Style and Harsha Bhogle’s Azhar.
More recently, cricketer Matthew Hayden released his autobiography titled Standing My Ground. He told us, “I have written about my struggles, tough times, team mates and opponents, people who have inspired me… cricket, the controversies and the celebrations.”
Howzzat!! By Mani D’Mello and Sanjay Pandey, another book that centers on cricket scandal exploring match-fixing and money laundering, is an addition to the ever-growing number of books on cricket. Mani says, “Cricket, for Indians, is an addiction. I love the sport, I’ve played cricket as a young kid.
But when I saw things up close, I was terribly disillusioned. I wanted to let people know not to get cheated.” More fiction and non-fiction follow as the writer knows that the Indian reader can’t have enough of cricket. One look at the number of such that have come out in the last couple of months tells the complete story.
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