Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sport
In India, it's all about cricket! Cutting across all echelons of society, cricket is more than
just a national sporting obsession - it's a matter of enormous patriotism, especially evident
whenever India plays against Pakistan. Matches between these South Asian neighbours -
which have had rocky relations since Independence - attract especially passionate support,
and the players of both sides are under immense pressure to do their respective countries
proud. The most celebrated contemporary Indian cricketer is Sachin Tendulkar - fondly
dubbed the 'Little Master' - who, in 2012, became the world's only player to have scored
one hundred international centuries. Tendulkar announced his retirement from one-day in-
ternationals in December 2012.
India's first recorded cricket match was in 1721. It won its first test series in 1952 in
Chennai against England. Today cricket - especially the recently rolled out Twenty20
format (
www.cricket20.com
)
- is big business in India, attracting lucrative sponsorship
deals and celebrity status for its players. The sport has not been without its murky side
though, with Indian cricketers among those embroiled in match-fixing scandals over past
years. International games are played at various centres - see Indian newspapers or check
online for details about matches that coincide with your visit. Keep your finger on the
cricketing pulse at
www.espncricinfo.com
(rated most highly by many cricket aficionados)
and
www.cricbuzz.com
.
While cricket is the overwhelmingly favourite sport of contemporary India, the country
is also known for its historical links to horse polo, which intermittently thrived in the sub-
continent (especially among nobility) until Independence, after which patronage steeply de-
clined due to dwindling funds. Today there's a renewed interest in polo thanks to beefed-up
sponsorship and, although it still remains an elite sport, it's attracting more attention from
the country's burgeoning upper middle class. The origins of polo are not completely clear.
Believed to have its roots in Persia and China around 2000 years ago, in the subcontinent
it's thought to have first been played in Baltistan (in present-day Pakistan). Some say that
Emperor Akbar (who reigned in India from 1556 to 1605) first introduced rules to the
game, but that polo, as it's played today, was largely influenced by a British cavalry regi-
ment stationed in India during the 1870s. A set of international rules was implemented after
WWI. The world's oldest surviving polo club, established in 1862, is in Kolkata (Calcutta)
- see the Calcutta Polo Club website (
www.calcuttapolo.com
)
.
