Soumya Bhattacharya

Bhattacharya, in his light and fluent prose, dances round and round his obsession…highly entertaining

A fascinating analysis of India's progress and development over the last 20 years, seen through the microscope of cricket

An affectionate account of watching cricket, and a bid to explain its cultural significance in India

An intimate, often wry account of 30 years of following a team

Memoirs of an Indian Cricket Fan

The great C L R James once asked: 'What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?' For some of us answering that can keep you awake at night. 
 
Soumya Bhattacharya knows this: he has a steady job, a loving wife, a daughter he dotes on. But most of all he has cricket. Or perhaps more accurately: cricket has him. Ever since he can remember, he's loved the game. From his first knockabouts on the living-room carpet - with his mother's paper bats and balls - he progressed to Test Match Special on short-wave, then to the whole panoply of obsession: one-dayers, Test matches, TV highlights, re-runs of TV highlights, always following one team - India. When you come from a country where the game is more than a religion, you must like cricket, right? 
 
In this sparkling memoir of a lifetime spent in the company of eleven men, a green field and a billion other worshippers, Soumya Bhattacharya gives us a guided tour of the soul of a cricket obsessive. Part reportage, part travelogue, part cultural politics, You Must Like Cricket? takes us from his home in Kolkata to Lord's and back again as Bhattacharya explores the joys and the lows (mostly the lows) of a thirty-year love affair, how one game has become so closely tied to a nation's identity, and the troubling hold cricket has over him. But if your home ground was called Eden Gardens, where else would you rather be?

You Must Like Cricket?

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Soumya Bhattacharya

Praise for You Must Like Cricket?

Bhattacharya, in his light and fluent prose, dances round and round his obsession…highly entertaining

A fascinating analysis of India's progress and development over the last 20 years, seen through the microscope of cricket

An affectionate account of watching cricket, and a bid to explain its cultural significance in India

Bhattacharya, in his light and fluent prose, dances round and round his obsession…highly entertaining

A fascinating analysis of India's progress and development over the last 20 years, seen through the microscope of cricket

An affectionate account of watching cricket, and a bid to explain its cultural significance in India

Bhattacharya, in his light and fluent prose, dances round and round his obsession…highly entertaining

A fascinating analysis of India's progress and development over the last 20 years, seen through the microscope of cricket

An affectionate account of watching cricket, and a bid to explain its cultural significance in India

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