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foot of page Introduction Factories and Presidencies | Sailors in Cambay | George Vernon's XI From Colombo to Bombay | Defeat by the Parsees | Impact of the tour Sources |
Introduction
I ended The Origins of the Game with Queen Elizabeth I granting a Royal Charter to the Honourable East India Company. This time, I'll look at how cricket became popular in India, after "John Company" imported it into the sub-continent.
Factories and Presidencies
The year 1612 was a significant one in Indian history because the East India Company established its first "factory" (trading post) at Surat. This followed a naval battle with Portuguese ships in the nearby Gulf of Cambay (now Khambhat). Surat is now part of Gujarat, about 165 miles south of Ahmedabad, and 180 miles north of Mumbai.
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| Cambay (Khambhat) in 1813 |
It was the first firmly established English base in India, and it was from there that English activity and influence began to spread. It is possible that cricket was first played on the sub-continent at this time.
In 1639, the Company founded the city of Madras (now Chennai, and the capital of Tamil Nadu on the south-east coast). They built a fort and a factory there. The Company's growing power was enhanced in 1657, when Oliver Cromwell ordered its reorganisation as the sole joint-stock company with rights to the Indian trade.
Earlier, in 1650 and 1655, the Company had absorbed rival companies that had been incorporated by Cromwell under the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In 1661, the Company acquired sovereign rights to Portuguese territory on the west coast of India, including Bombay (now Mumbai). In 1674, it arranged a trading treaty with the Maratha Kingdom that had recently been founded by Shivaji Bhonsle in central India.
Thus far, the Company had been primarily concerned with trade. This changed in 1689 with the establishment of administrative districts called "presidencies" in the Indian provinces of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. It then began its long period of political rule in India. In 1690, an Anglo-Mughal treaty allowed English merchants to establish a trading settlement on the Hooghly River, which became Calcutta (now Kolkata). All of these places became famous cricket centres as the popularity of the game grew among the native population.
In 1702, the Company bought control of the New (or English) Company that had been set up as a rival trading organisation in 1698. An Act of Parliament then amalgamated the two as "The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies". The charter was renewed several times in the eighteenth century, each time with financial concessions to the Crown. Then, in 1707, there was an important historical event with the death of Aurangzeb, precipitating the disintegration of the Mughal Empire.
Sailors in Cambay
Cricket certainly arrived a long, long time before anyone wrote anything down. The first time anyone did that was in 1721, when it was reported that English sailors were playing cricket at Cambay (modern Khambhat), near Baroda (modern Vadodara), and that is the earliest known reference to cricket being played in the sub-continent. One of the players wrote:
When my boat was lying for a fortnight in one of the channels, though the country was inhabited by the Culeys (sic), we every day diverted ourselves with playing Cricket and to other Exercises, which they would come and be spectators of.
The "Culeys" were undoubtedly native Indians, but it isn't clear if the writer meant a particular people like the Bengalis or the Punjabis, or if he misspelt the derogatory term "coolie" that was applied to labourers. Either way, the Indians were certainly interested, and this was the beginning of cricket's rise towards the peak of Indian culture.
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| Eden Gardens in 1861 |
There are few reports of Indian cricket through the 18th century, but the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club is known to have been in existence by 1792. It was probably founded more than a decade earlier. Calcutta's famous stadium, Eden Gardens, opened in 1864 on the site of the Eden Gardens Park, which dated from 1842 and was already in use for cricket. In 1799, another club was formed at Seringapatam (Srirangapatna) in south India, after the successful British siege, and the defeat of Tippoo Sultan (1750–1799).
In 1864, a Madras versus Calcutta match was arguably the start of first-class cricket in India. The most important fixture in the 19th century was the Bombay Presidency match which evolved, first, into the Bombay Triangular, and then into the Bombay Quadrangular.
These involved ethic teams called Europeans, Hindus, Muslims, and Parsees. The first match was played in 1877, and then intermittently for several seasons, until finally being given first-class status in 1892–93, when the Europeans met the Parsees in two matches at Bombay and Poona (Pune). The first match was a draw, and the Parsees won by 3 wickets at Poona.
The first overseas team to tour India was the English amateur one led by George Vernon in 1889–90. The tour, which included Ceylon, was a huge success, but none of its matches are considered first-class. In 1892–93, Lord Hawke captained an English team that played four first-class matches including one game, 26–28 January 1893, against "All India". At Lord's in June 1932, India played their first-ever Test match.
George Vernon's XI
There's much more to be said about Indian cricket in the 19th century, but I'm moving on to the 1889–90 season when an English team arrived, and made the first overseas tour of the country.
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| George Vernon |
He was a dual international for England, playing for the rugby union team five times, and once in Test cricket. In first-class cricket, Vernon played for Middlesex and MCC for the most part, and took part in 240 matches between 1876 and 1898. He was a right-handed batter (RHB) who scored four centuries and 28 fifties.
Vernon's career average was only 19.10, so you might wonder how he ever got into the England team? Well, he was available.
He sailed to Australia in 1882–83 with Ivo Bligh on the quest to "bring back those Ashes". Vernon played in the first Test, which the Aussies won by 9 wickets. He didn't contribute much, batting at #11, scoring 11 not out and 3. He didn't play again, and England recovered those Ashes without him.
If you have access to CricketArchive, see George Vernon (profile), and Australia v England, 1st Test, 1882–83 (scorecard). There are two obituaries online: in Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game, volume XXI, issue 612; and in Wisden, 1903. Disappointingly, neither of these mentions the 1889–90 tour of India and Ceylon.
Vernon organised and managed the tour, and so the team is always known as G. F. Vernon's XI. The captain was supposed to be "his lordship" Martin Hawke, but he missed the first nine matches through poetic justice. Hawke had left England ahead of the main party because, being a jolly good chap who went to the right school, he just had to indulge in a spot of big-game hunting. It's the done thing, you know, what! Anyway, when he arrived in Gwalior, he copped a very nasty bout of gastritis, which saved the lives of several animals. Hawke, of course, was the upper-class twit who declared that no professional should ever captain England. When one did (Len Hutton), we won the Ashes (mind you, Bradman had retired by then).
Actually, Hawke and Vernon were the only players in the party who were at all well known at the time. One who later made a name for himself was wicket-keeper Hylton "Punch" Philipson, then at Oxford, who went on to play for England in five Tests between 1892 and 1895. There were no professionals on the trip, and so the team was decidely sub-standard. None of its thirteen matches have been recognised as first-class. Even so, with the exception of the Parsees, Vernon's team was much better than any in India or Ceylon at the time, and achieved six innings victories. They had three other substantial wins, plus one against North-West Frontier Province by 3 wickets. Two matches, against Bihar Wanderers and Northern India, were drawn. And, they had one defeat, when they lost by 4 wickets to the Parsees at the famous Gymkhana Ground in Bombay.
The classic magazine, Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game, carried a lot of news about the tour and its preparations. Issue 215, dated 11 July 1889, tells us that the team were to sail by P&O steamer Bengal, embarking from Tilbury on 31 October, and stopping at Colombo, Madras, and Calcutta. Raising the team was difficult because of invitations being declined. Then, on 10 September, Herbert Rhodes, a sometime Yorkshire amateur who had accepted, fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Dover. An inquest ruled that he had died accidentally, but there seems to have been something suspicious, and perhaps scandalous, about Rhodes' doings.
From Colombo to Bombay
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| Thomas Tapling |
Vernon arranged two matches in Colombo. These were against "All Ceylon" and the Colombo Cricket Club, which is now a first-class team. Without a full eleven, Vernon had to recruit local players as given men. Even so, his team won both of these games by an innings, but the matches were against European residents only. So, no, they didn't encounter the likes of Murali, or Lasith Malinga, or Kumar Sangakkara.
The Bengal made a short stop in Madras, and then went on to Calcutta, arriving in the week before Christmas.
The team's first match in India was played 23–25 December 1889 against the old Calcutta club at Eden Gardens. Tapling had arrived, so Vernon could select a full team, and they won by 9 wickets. Days later, they played Bengal, also at Eden Gardens, winning that one by an innings and 17 runs. Vernon's XI then took to the railways, and played nine more matches between 9 January and 1 March. They travelled to Bankipore, Allahabad, Bombay, Lucknow, Agra, Meerut, and Lahore.
As in Ceylon, their opponents in India were European residents—mostly British expats—who were typically Army officers, or Colonial Service officials. With one exception. Vernon agreed to play against the Parsee Gymkhana of Bombay on the Gymkhana Ground in a two-day match on 30 and 31 January 1890. His team were still in good form because they had easily beaten the Bombay Gymkhana team by an innings on the 27th and 28th, and left-arm spinner John Hornsby, who became a good bowler in the 1890s, took match figures of 13/78.
Defeat by the Parsees
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| Bombay Gymkhana today |
The best Parsee player was all-rounder M. E. Pavri, a fast bowler who had enjoyed success in England on the 1888 tour. He played for Middlesex a few years later, and became known as the "Grace of the Parsees" because, like WG, he was both an all-rounder and a doctor.
Vernon won the toss, and decided to bat first. They struggled against Pavri and his fellow bowlers, B. D. Gagrat and R. E. Modi. Vernon made the top score of 45 not out, but they were all out for 97 in the 32nd over, and eight of them were bowled. The Parsees fared no better in their first innings, and were 80/9 at close of play. They were all out for 82 in the second over next morning. Fast bowler Ernest de Little took 4/25, and Hornsby 3/25. Vernon's XI began their second innings with a lead of 15 but they could not cope with Pavri, who skittled them for 61, taking an impressive 7/34. So, with plenty of time in hand, the Parsees needed 77 for a famous victory. Hornsby and de Little again caused problems. The Parsees were 17/4 at one point, but Pavri and B. C. Machhliwala steadied the innings with scores of 20 and 21 not out, and the Parsees made it to their target with four wickets in hand.
The match had been billed in advance as the "Cricket Championship of India". The Parsee victory was celebrated throughout Bombay. In his excellent book, Ramachandra Guha says the match was acclaimed as "the greatest sporting contest in the city's history", and many people said the result was "a blow to the prestige of Empire". Guha adds that the celebrations "revealed the communal competitiveness that would drive the progress of cricket in colonial India". He also mentions a cautionary note in the Parsee newspaper Rast Goftar, that their players must "bear in mind that Hindu and Muslim cricketers would be seeking to emulate their success, so they must themselves be ready to face challenges".
Four weeks passed before Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game could publish a report of the match. In issue 231 on 27 February, the magazine praised the Parsees, saying "their victory cannot fail to give a fresh impetus to the practice of the game among the followers of that great community". According to a separate report in the same issue, Vernon's team travelled to Lucknow on the Jubbulpore mail train, but they were expected to return to Bombay for a rematch with the Parsees. This didn't happen. The last match was against the Punjab in Lahore at the end of February. By then, the team had been depleted by injuries, and needed four replacements for the match in Lahore.
Impact of the tour
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| India Railways Map, 1909 |
English cricket's love of trains began during the so-called "railway boom". William Clarke—of whom, more anon—realised the potential of railways as the means of taking his All-England Eleven to play against teams all over the country.
There is no doubt Vernon's tour was a success. It gave the sport a tremendous boost in both Ceylon and India. On 27 March 1890, Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game reproduced an article in India's Pioneer Mail which praised Vernon's XI for "setting on foot an enterprise now sure to be repeated". That was a safe prediction, and the next tour by an English team was in 1892–93.
Colynge Caple said the tour began as "something in the nature of a pleasure trip", but "forged yet another link in the ever-growing chain of international cricket".
Sources
Among the best sources for information about early Indian cricket are:
- Bose, Mihir (1990). A History of Indian Cricket. Andre-Deutsch.
- Caple, S. Canynge (1959). England versus India: 1886–1959. Littlebury & Co. Ltd.
- Guha, Ramachandra (2001). A Corner of a Foreign Field – An Indian History of a British Sport. Picador.
- Raiji, Vasant (1986). India's Hambledon Men. Tyeby Press.
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