Drawing a long arc in India, cricket was a British sport that became Indian. It was then internally democratised, transforming from a Maharaja’s game to the common man’s sport. It spread geographically, moving away from the cities to the hinterland, across the country. Through it all, holding the cricket story together has been the promise and principle of fairness and inclusion — that, for aspirants, the system would pose as few entry barriers and hurdles as possible. Strip away the notion of a level playing field, however, and what you get is an unravelling of the kind that is on show in Puducherry, as an........

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