MAHATMA ON THE PITCH

How the most important man of
our national movement viewed the most important sport in our country.Did
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi ever play cricket? Did cricket ever figure in the
Gandhian world of thought? What were the views of the most important man in
the history of India’s freedom struggle on the game that dominates Indian
national consciousness in the twenty-first century? Were there any
connections between Gandhi and cricket during the high tide of national
movement? Did Gandhi or his ideas make any impact on the game? Did he ever
oppose the cause of cricket? Did cricket ever invoke Gandhi after his
death?These questions seem as remote as Gandhi’s tryst with cricket! Mahatma
on the Pitch tries to find answers to these apparently quirky questions by
exploring the untold relationship between two of the most enduring phenomena
of modern India: Mahatma Gandhi, arguably the greatest Indian icon of the
twentieth century and Indian cricket, probably the most assertive Indian
national emblem in the twenty-first-century world.