War Minus the Shooting ★★★★★

Read in 2022: War Minus the Shooting by Mike Marqusee 📚

I highly recommend this cricket book. Although it recounts the author's journey through India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan during the 1996 World Cup, it is much more than about the sport. The geopolitics, corruption, nepotism, ego, marketing, capitalism, etc. all vie for attention in this tale of cricket coming of age in the subcontinent. Fresh off liberalization, India tasted the wealth that this sport could create in its nascent unleashed economy

In terms of cricket, it created a new superpower, the Sri Lankans who perfected the art of moving up the slog overs to the beginning of the match but also proved, they could be resilient and calm when the need arose, like it did during the final. Although Australia was beaten, it would be another 15 years after this World Cup that any country not named Australia would win the Cup. With Lara, Tendulkar, Warne, the Waugh brothers, Arvinda de Silva and Jayasuriya emerged as the stars of cricket.

I still remember the India-Pakistan quarter final in Bangalore vividly. Jadeja smashing 51 off the last three over including the great Waqar Younis and then Venkatesh Prasad scalping Aamir Sohail after being taunted remains one of my best cricket memories. Although banners like, We don't want the Cup, we want this match would soon aid the rise of nationalism in India especially after the shameful manner in which the semi-final between India and Sri Lanka ended (the author says, it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be).

Go ahead and grab a copy. This book was out of print and was resurrected by the inimitable cricket podcast, 81 All Out.