Cricket's cultural expansion in India, has had the opposite result.

The game was really loved by millions of Indians. It was played on the streets of cities and in educational institutions. In particular, Mahatma Gandhi, the main ideologue of India's independence movement, played cricket during his school years.

However, this did not help to strengthen the colony's ties with the metropolis. On the contrary, the Bombay Quadrilateral tournament enabled the local population to compete with the colonizers on an equal footing. Whereas local clubs mostly lost when they faced professional teams from England, in Bombay they increasingly defeated the Europeans every year. So it is not surprising that the leaders of the independence movement had nothing against the game itself. However, politics still did not bypass cricket.

Thus, in 1921, during a visit to the Bombay tournament of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII), three days of unrest broke out in the city. In 1930-1934, the tournament was not held at all because of nationwide civil disobedience actions initiated by Gandhi.

Moreover, in the 1930s, the Indian National Congress Party opposed the format of the Bombay Championship as perpetuating India's confessional fragmentation. It demanded that teams based on geography participate in the competition instead of Parsis, Hindus, and Muslims.

In contrast, another influential party, the Muslim League, favored the old format because it saw in it a confirmation of the existence of a separate Muslim nation in India.

As a result, in 1934, the country organized an alternative cricket championship based on geography, the Ranji Trophy. Competitions were also held in Bombay, but began to draw fewer and fewer spectators and were held for the last time in 1946. The following year India and Pakistan, two countries formed from the division of the colony of British India, gained independence.

Cricket today

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After India and Pakistan gained independence, the love of cricket has not only stayed with them, but has become a manifestation of national self-expression. In 1971, the Indian team defeated England for the first time in their homeland, and in 1983, they won the World Cup in London. Both victories were seen as a national triumph. The Pakistanis rejoiced in the same way on October 24, 2021, when they defeated India for the first time in T20 Championship history.

India is now not only a successful international competitor, but has also developed cricket into a multi-billion dollar industry. Created in 2008, the Indian Premier League (IPL), which is governed by T20 rules, is growing rapidly, with matches being watched in many South Asian countries. Here are just a few numbers. In 2020, international consulting firm Duff & Phelps valued the IPL brand at $6.1 billion. In 2017, media group Star India bought the rights to broadcast IPL matches for $2.55 billion over a five-year period. And with the latest, this month the Cricket Control Board of India sold the rights to organize two new teams for $1.6 billion.