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Last week, Indian-owned franchises in the England and Wales Cricket Board-run (ECB-run) league, The Hundred, found themselves caught in an anti-discrimination row after a BBC report suggested that the four Indian-owned franchises would not be considering Pakistani cricketers for their teams. The UK media, with a rare show of unity across the ideological spectrum, condemned any such move as discriminatory, and a “stain on the game”.

While the ECB has for the time being brokered an uneasy compromise, by issuing a general statement where all teams reiterate their commitment to inclusion, the affair, coming on the heels of the ongoing controversy laden International Cricket Council or ICC T-20 World Cup adds fuel to the emerging global opinion that the control India exercises over cricket is damaging to the future of the sport. 

While the cricketing world’s political responses to the dominance of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and Indian capital in general, are interesting to watch, the question for Indian cricket fans today is more fundamental – are we merely passive consumers of an admittedly intoxicating mix of nationalism, capital and entertainment or do we still have a broader and more genuine love for the game? 

Answering this question requires us to understand the interplay between Indian nationalism, capital, and cricket. Specifically, we must understand how this interplay shaped us, the Indian cricket fan, into who we are today. 

Welsh sociologist and culture critic Raymond Williams argues that each generation has a unique “structure of feeling”. The structure of feeling is the broader culture of a period. It is a living result of all the elements in a particular society or organisation, and shapes how a particular society views events, at a particular point in time.

While this structure of feeling need not be perceived in the same way by every single person living in a society, its penetration is wide enough to permit communication on its terms. Often the same term can invoke widely different meanings in different generations based on differences in the underlying structure of feeling.

For example, in the 1950s, the word “reform” in India would have immediately been understood as referring to social reform. By the 1970s, “reform” would have conjured visions of nationalisation, and by the 1990s, “reform” was almost universally equated with liberalisation. 

Liberalisation and the reframing of capital

This underlying structure of feeling often shapes how capital is perceived by the population in each generation. Liberalisation in India marked a fundamental cultural shift in this respect. Class conflict,........

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