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Men in White
You watch, drifting, surrounded by the thing it’s like living underwater’ men in white describe the experience of living with cricket in a country consumed by the game mukul kesavan is keen on cricket in a non-playing way with a top score of 14 in neighbourhood cricket and a lively distaste for fast bowling, his credentials for writing about the game are founded on the assumption that distance brings perspective the book recalls the pandara park’ cricket of kesavan’s childhood, examines the current health of test cricket, the problem of chucking, the growing influence of technology on the game and, as he puts it, the wickedness of the icc in-between, he profiles his cricketing heroes and denounces modern cricket’s villains first published in 2007, this updated edition includes a profile of ms dhoni, india’s first adult captain since pataudi’, a celebration of the freakishly talented muttiah muralitharan and a chronicle of the symonds affair’ which revealed more about th
278 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2007
About the author
Mukul Kesavan
10 books34 followersMukul Kesavan is an Indian writer and essayist. He studied History at the University of Delhi and later at Trinity Hall, Cambridge where he received his MLitt. His first book - Looking Through Glass (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1994) received critical acclaim. He teaches social history at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. He's keen on the game of cricket[1] but in a non-playing way. His credentials for writing about the game are founded on a spectatorial axiom: distance brings perspective[2]. Kesavan's book of cricket,Men in White, was published by Penguin India in 2007. He wrote a blog by the same name on cricinfo.com. Later in the year he wrote, The Ugliness of the Indian Male and Other Propositions published by Black Kite. The book is a collection of essays on a wide variety of themes ranging from Indian films to Indian men to travel writing and even political commentary.
He is also the co-editor of Civil Lines, the widely respected journal of Indian writing in English.
His columns have appeared in The Telegraph[3], CricInfo and Outlook Magazine[4], among other places.
He is also the co-editor of Civil Lines, the widely respected journal of Indian writing in English.
His columns have appeared in The Telegraph[3], CricInfo and Outlook Magazine[4], among other places.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 30, 2018
3.5/5 I think writing a good analytical book on cricket is the most difficult of all. It will probably be read (and judged) by a passionate cricket fan who also must have made quite a few observations of his own. Add to that TV commentary,friends, SM and columns in newspapers etc. And so, most cricket books I have read are biographies/memoirs,histories or a rare delightful travelogue by the name of Pundits from Pakistan: On Tour with India, 2003-04
Can you still write a book that analyses the game and is worth reading ?
Yes, if the author is up to it. While this book is not a must-read, it was still a good read with profiles, suggestions, commentary, almost everything. And I now wish some1 publishes a collection of Rama Guha's columns on cricket !
Can you still write a book that analyses the game and is worth reading ?
Yes, if the author is up to it. While this book is not a must-read, it was still a good read with profiles, suggestions, commentary, almost everything. And I now wish some1 publishes a collection of Rama Guha's columns on cricket !
June 30, 2016
I picked up this book after having read a lot of positive reviews about Mukul Kesavan's writings and after having liked reading a couple of his pieces for cricinfo. Happy to report the writing in this book is indeed very enjoyable but the content felt like a bit of a let down to me. It's a collection of articles written by him up until 2008. Some of the pieces seem very outdated and of little significance given the changes T20 cricket has brought in to the game after 2008. For example, there's a piece about the negative impact of one day cricket on test matches, much of which is talked about is taken for granted by the contemporary fan - we all know the current pet peeve needs to be T20 in order to stake a claim at cricket puritanism. Add to this, a couple of pieces, which were mostly boring except for a discussion on nationalism associated along with the game, on the now defunct, hardly remembered or talked about super series tests. But these few outdated pieces do get you interested in what the author's view might be on a range of developments ever since in cricket like the inaugural day night test (given the mild skepticism expressed towards attempts made towards modernizing test cricket), T20 cricket (w.r.t balance or lack thereof b/n bat and ball in one day cricket) and the IPL (there's a very earnest case made for the presence of a league in India which would pay a cricketer according to his skill - yes, that outdated).
With the not so good things about the book out of the way, I enjoyed getting various historical nuggets about the game like the evolution of the ICC and its subsequent efforts to assert its authority via match referees. It was interesting to read the author's accounts of various players both long and recently retired, and the parameters chosen for an attempt at comparing their efforts across eras (though I found the author's insistence on rating modern greats getting pinged on their helmet as a diminutive attribute a bit petty). But the most enjoyable aspect of the book for me was the sociological commentary by the author on various topics related to the game. Like the non-playing but blood-baying fan in India, the contrast in reactions to match fixing allegations in South Africa vs Australia, the petulance of the Indian players over misfields and the middle classness behind it, et al. These apart, there are experiences in the book which one can instantly connect to as a cricket fan like getting your first experience of time zones following tours down under and elsewhere, playing the game in restricted spaces with improvised rules, and a few more. Overall, if this book is to go by, I get the feeling that more than Mukul Kesavan's cricket writings it his sociological insights that I would sumptuously enjoy. Looking forward to getting my hands on 'Homeless on Google Earth' and 'The Ugliness of the Indian Male' then.
With the not so good things about the book out of the way, I enjoyed getting various historical nuggets about the game like the evolution of the ICC and its subsequent efforts to assert its authority via match referees. It was interesting to read the author's accounts of various players both long and recently retired, and the parameters chosen for an attempt at comparing their efforts across eras (though I found the author's insistence on rating modern greats getting pinged on their helmet as a diminutive attribute a bit petty). But the most enjoyable aspect of the book for me was the sociological commentary by the author on various topics related to the game. Like the non-playing but blood-baying fan in India, the contrast in reactions to match fixing allegations in South Africa vs Australia, the petulance of the Indian players over misfields and the middle classness behind it, et al. These apart, there are experiences in the book which one can instantly connect to as a cricket fan like getting your first experience of time zones following tours down under and elsewhere, playing the game in restricted spaces with improvised rules, and a few more. Overall, if this book is to go by, I get the feeling that more than Mukul Kesavan's cricket writings it his sociological insights that I would sumptuously enjoy. Looking forward to getting my hands on 'Homeless on Google Earth' and 'The Ugliness of the Indian Male' then.
August 7, 2016
I have read a number of Mukul Kesavan's essays and thoughts on Cricket in the Wisden Asia cricket magazine in the early noughties and of course, the Cricinfo website where I eagerly lapped up any piece authored by him. And then, when I chanced upon this book, mostly a collection of essays from those very same sources, decided to take a trip down memory lane and revisit cricket from my years growing up.
Mukul Kesavan writes with much panache and easy flamboyance, much like the early Sachin or Sehwag at the crease. This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys the game or laments the decline of the sport from the "Gentleman's game" to "the greedy man's game". Mukul Kesavan's passages about the joy of Test cricket and the undying hope of the Indian fan make for the best reading in the book. His sketches of individual cricketers are no doubt, tinted by his own opinions and biases (and no doubt, the ardent cricket fan that he is, they should be!) but then again, here too, it's the ease of phrase and the shrewd observations that get your interest going in the book.
There are two books on Indian cricket every fan should read: "A Corner of a Foreign Field" by Ram Guha, which in the author's words is, "not a history of Indian cricket but rather, a history of India through cricket" and secondly this book, "Men in White", a view of India, Indians and the Indian psyche through the lens of cricket!
Mukul Kesavan writes with much panache and easy flamboyance, much like the early Sachin or Sehwag at the crease. This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys the game or laments the decline of the sport from the "Gentleman's game" to "the greedy man's game". Mukul Kesavan's passages about the joy of Test cricket and the undying hope of the Indian fan make for the best reading in the book. His sketches of individual cricketers are no doubt, tinted by his own opinions and biases (and no doubt, the ardent cricket fan that he is, they should be!) but then again, here too, it's the ease of phrase and the shrewd observations that get your interest going in the book.
There are two books on Indian cricket every fan should read: "A Corner of a Foreign Field" by Ram Guha, which in the author's words is, "not a history of Indian cricket but rather, a history of India through cricket" and secondly this book, "Men in White", a view of India, Indians and the Indian psyche through the lens of cricket!
November 27, 2022
An enjoyable read, but the essays feel a little disjointed given that they were clearly written over a very long period of time. Also, some of the points raised by the author are now completely out of date with the advent of T20 cricket and all its (cricketing and financial) ramifications.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews