Power play and Indian cricket

Mr Bose, who had earlier written The History of Indian Cricket, revisits that history and comes up with a new theory

India has won the World Cup twice, in 1983 and 2011. It has also won the T20 championship once in 2007 — after resisting the format for several years rather as a former chairman of the State Bank of India had resisted ATMs in the 1980s. For the last few years, India has been at or near the top of all the cricket charts. Finally, commercially, too, it is to world cricket what China is to world trade: A very rich bully.

Mihir Bose, a highly respected journalist and author, tries to explain what has brought about this ascendancy in The