A couple of posts ago when I referred to the issue of partition, I touched on the subject of cricket and I searched for this souvenir programme from 1946 but couldn't find it. When you look for something and can't find it. it predictably turns up a couple of days later and so it was...
... I should have looked for something else and then I would have come across it straight away.
When my Dad died in 2003 I took possession of a box of scrapbooks, cuttings and photographs and in this box of memories was this commemorative pamphlet of the tour.
I wanted to find it and include it because this was the first tour of England by an overseas international team after the war but just as significantly it was the final test match tour of what was called the "All India" team, the last tour before partition.
Now, the British Empire might come in for a lot of criticism these days but one thing that cannot be taken away from its achievements is the introduction of cricket around the World - Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Pakistan.
Never mind Captain Cook or Clive of India, Cecil Rhodes or Baden-Powell, it seems to me that Cricket is probably the most important legacy of the British Empire.
Currently 104 of 193 World Countries have some sort of affiliation to the International Cricket Council. For some reason that I cannot explain there are 211 football countries (?) affiliated to FIFA. There are about twenty countries that play the pointless game of US Rounders Baseball.
Interesting also is that the captain of the "All India" team of 1946 was the Nawab of Pataudi, a Muslim Prince and ruler of a small state in the north of India close to Delhi. Previously he had played test match cricket for England in the 1930's. After cricket and partition and his princely state had been dissolved and absorbed into the State of India he went on to work for the Indian Government in the Foreign Office.
The term "All India" had been used in previous tours in 1911, 1932 and 1936 and was meant to emphasise that in terms of faith that this was an all inclusive Indian Team. In 1911 captain, the Maharaja of Patiala announced "This tour marks an epoch in Indian history. It is the first occasion in the annals of our country that the great Indian communities have been banded together in one team."
To some extent it was an attempt by the British authorities to play down their policy of divide and rule in India.
The "All India" touring team of 1946 looking rather cold and miserable. It was a genuine multi-faith side that included Hindus, Muslims, a Parsi and a Christian but as far as I can make out no Sikhs, nevertheless a side that represented the country's diversity.
Otherwise distracted India did not tour England again until 1952 and Pakistan first toured England in 1954.
India are currently ranked the number one cricket nation in the World in all formats of the game. In a 2019 BBC poll of greatest ever cricketers, Sachin Tendulkar of India came second after Don Bradman of Australia, Gary Sobers of West Indies came third and Imran Khan of Pakistan came fourth.
Imran Kahan went on to become Prime Minister of Pakistan and is currently serving a ten year prison sentence for leaking state secrets and violating the Official Secrets Act.
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