War Minus the Shooting

by Mike Marqusee

Combining personal reflection and social observation, this work paints a complex portrait of a sub-continent in ferment, set against the backdrop of the 1996 cricket World Cup, the most extravagant and controversial event in the long history of the gamebook delves into the dilemmas that dog modern cricket - ball-tampering, biased umpires, media moguls and sponsors, race and national identity, gambling syndicates, and more.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, History, India, Classics, Travel, Politics

292 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Mike Marqusee was an American-born writer, journalist and political activist who has lived in Britain since 1971. He was the author of numerous books including If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew, Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the Sixties, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties, Anyone but England: An Outsider Looks at English Cricket, a novel, Slow Turn, and a collection of poetry, Street Music. He was a regular correspondent for a range of publications including The Guardian, Red Pepper and The Hindu.

Reviews

[Nagarjun Kandukuru · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got it second-hand for Rs. 10 on a Bombay local and is the best value-for-money thing I've ever bought. It ranks alongside CLR James' "Beyond a Boundary' as the best cricket book I've read. The cricket is actually fairly incidental - read it for the social commentary and cultural insight, even if you can't be bothered about the '96 World Cup.

[E.T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 One of the finest cricket-travelogues I have read along with Pundits from Pakistan: On Tour with India, 2003-04 by Rahul Bhattacharya. I was a teenager when the World Cup of 1996 took place and it was a joy to relive those days. Forgive me thy holy moral highness, dear author and Rama Guha, I still remember my stoic cousin smashing a bottle on Prasad clean bowling Sohail and avenging the insult. Of my own rolling on the floor in joy when we dismissed both Jayasurya and Kalu in the first over in the infamous semi-final (the only occasion I have done so in my life I think :)
PS:- The author is an ardent leftist and sometimes his commentary feels like a parroting of the one-sided opinion pieces written by Indians in foreign newspapers. But those comments formed a small part of this book and anyways we are now used to such.

[T. Sathish · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book written about globalization of Cricket, its impact on the South Asian sub continent in the backdrop of the 1996 Cricket world cup...It was a nostalgic ride again through the world cup for those of us who went through that tournament in 1996. The book will paint a snapshot for the current youngsters of how India and the sub-continent was during that time. At least, India as a country is unidentifiable to the country that is being spoken of in this book. We have moved forward in various aspects of the sport, in terms of the personnel, the facilities and the stature of India in the power hierarchy.

[Akhilesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, I need to thank Sid and the team at "81 all-out"(https://www.81allout.com/) for re-publishing this book after 25 years and talking about it in all their podcasts in the last six months. After hearing about it constantly, I ordered it when I was visiting India. Turns out, that was a great decision since this is one of the best books I've read in the last two years.

The book itself is a first-person account of the 1996 Cricket world cup held in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka by a journalist name "Mike Marqusee". Mike does not have any of the cultural derisions that we have come to expect of British/American journalists when visiting the Indian sub-continent, especially considering that this account was from 1995-96 when the level of facilities in India was nothing close to what is available now. He comes across as a genuine fan of cricket and connects with journalists and fans from all the different host countries in this case. He equally points out the hypocrisies of the English-speaking countries (Aus and Windies boycotting the games in SL) and the others (Ind and Pak with their nationalistic jingoisms). He covers the entire world cup really well while providing a special focus on the important games (Quarters, Semis, and finals).

There are many themes that Mike sticks to in this book -- the increase in nationalism, ill-effects of money pouring into the one-day game, multi-national companies using the world cup to their advertising gains, politicians in all the countries scooping up the majority of the tickets, the inefficiency of the organizing stadiums, etc. They all seem extremely familiar even to this day although they seem to be applicable to the T20 games that are organized now (IPL etc) along with the international games.

To me, the 1996 WC just evoked extreme nostalgia given the way Sachin dominated that tournament and how India beat Pakistan in my home ground (Prasad v/s Sohail still gives me goosebumps) but Mike goes beyond the on the field incidents and describes how it was to actually get into the stadium(it was really hard) and then observer how different parts of the crowd behaved(some rowdy elements constantly shouted 'Pakistan hai hai!' even if they weren't playing the game).

Some of the changes that the ODI game underwent in the 90s are what the T20 game is now undergoing. Private companies pour a lot of money into the game causing players to associate themselves with these entities (t20 leagues) rather than their national teams. It almost seems like Mike predicted this 25 years ago!

This book is a treasure for any cricket fan but would particularly be enjoyed by 90s kids who loved and followed cricket growing up.

[Umesh Kesavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mike Marqusee concocts a 1996 cricket World cup based travelogue with generous servings of George Orwell and C.L.R.James. The book's biggest strength is the author's perspicacity in anticipating today's trends of globalization, cricket and politics way back in 1996 itself. He sees how multinational corporations try to capture the soul of cricket, is apprehensive about how the Indian middle classes are falling prey to Hindu nationalism and wonders about the political future of Imran Khan. And, there is a bit of cricket too lest one forgets. A book written amidst the hurly-burly of a tightly packed schedule involving travel across the Indian subcontinent has not lost it's relevance even in 2022 and that is the book's biggest strength.

[John A Raju · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and entertaining journey covering the 1996 ODI World Cup hosted in the subcontinent by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. What I enjoyed was that this wasn't just an account of the tournament but also a commentary on the people, the society, the aspirations and histories of these nations in the 90s. As the tournament panned across Lahore, Colombo, Bombay, Kolkata, Karachi and other places, we catch glimpses of how sport is intertwined with the narrative of a nation/region. I enjoyed how the author captured the tournament from a lens of heralding the shifting tides of cricket power towards Asia too.
Published in 1996, there are ideas that seem outdated, but what was really enthralling was what still seemed relevant. Sports chauvinism, tools of division of societies (cricket team support based patriotism test (Tebbit test) being one example) , the not-unique-yet-captivating-stories of the exploitation of sport for commercial and political means, games that end up being more - War minus the shooting - because of the political environments, unfair personal backlashes for sports performances, among other things, were engaging to read about.
The fairytale journey of Sri Lanka in the '96 World Cup was a neutral's delight, and that's a fascinating underdog tale to read about as well. Having read that from a more fanatic fan's perspective through the inimitable (albeit fictional) Chinaman, this was a more measured yet worth-it revisiting of the same time.
A good read though I'm not sure how much non-cricket fans would enjoy it.

[Kaustubh Dudhane · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When national pride is pricked, facts and logic are quickly superseded by myth and emotion."

A timeless underrated classic which captures the soul of Indian Subcontinent of 1990s.



Firstly, I would like to thank Siddharth Vaidyanathan and 81 all out Podcast and Publishing team for re-publishing this book after it has gone out of print. There was no e-book available here. In fact, the used copies were selling at more than $1000 on Amazon. If not for you, I could never have experienced such a rich and unique book.

This is not a cricket book! Yes, it is centrally focussed on the Wills World Cup 1996 (my favourite one) hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka jointly by challenging the might of TCCB and other white nations. However, the decentralized themes for this book are geo-politics, culture, nationalism, hedonism, food and globalization.

"If the American abroad is puzzled by the English attachment to cricket, he is dumbfounded by the Indian passion for it."

Mike Marqusee was an American journalist and activist who was not a cricket writer. Yet, the game writing is so beautiful that we can literally visualize the events happening on the field. Take a look at these beautiful lines -

"Ambrose came to the wicket looking as if he resented even being there. He glanced around with dull, irritated eyes. Once again, his team-mates had let him down. Was he expected to win the match with bat as well as ball?"

"Whatever else Prasad learned at Dennis Lillee’s feet while studying at the MRF Pace Academy in Madras, he had perfected the fast bowler’s glare; he turned it now on Sohail."

And that's the least of the talents this Marxist activist possesses. What I liked from his writing is that he does not shy away from his ideologies. Moreover, he does not even preach just like the wokes today. He just observes the events, doesn't ask the readers to agree with him on them but encourages them to think about them.

"He invited me to a meal at the home occupied by his extended family in Cavalry Colony. I was confronted by a remarkable gang of ageing leftist intellectuals who plied me with Scotch (freely available despite prohibition) and probed me on the state of cricket and the struggle for socialism."

Along with his opinions, he completely writes about Indian Subcontinent by bashing hypocritical English and Australian journalists without any prejudices towards the people. He exposes the double standards of people especially the Western journalists and Mr. Sunil Dev from DDCA. He has done such a character study that I had never seen a cricket writer do the same for any bureaucrat.

"In one sat the Australian and English journalists. In the other, the Indians and Pakistanis. No one had enforced this apartheid and there were perfectly good professional reasons for journalists from the same country to stick together, but it struck me as sad confirmation that this World Cup, which had been born amid such rancour at Lord’s three years before, had done little to bring together the cricket cultures of the first and third worlds."

When I mentioned about the blank mind of Mike Marqusee, he totally immerses himself in the culture, geo-politics, racism, casteism, and the psychology of the people in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. His take on the India vs Pakistan Quarter Final at Bangalore is breath-taking, uncanny and sad at the same time. Moreover, the chapter on the India vs Sri Lanka Semi Final at Calcutta is a heart breaking retelling of a sad event of bottle and missile throwing with Vinod Kambli crying on the field.

"For the English, the Eden Gardens ‘riot’ confirmed what they had always believed: the subcontinent was no place to stage a World Cup. Its denizens had been derided as volatile fanatics since the days of Empire and their inability to cope with defeat proved that they were still beyond the pale of civilisation (and its English epitome, the game of cricket)."

Finally, there were many times where I had laughed out and saluted the author for the sheer brilliance in writing. What is commendable is his audacity of writing such things which cannot be imagined to be published today in a sensitive world where everyone gets offended by everything. Here are a couple of examples -

"Watching Ranatunga, Warne and umpire David Shepherd standing together at the non-strikers’ end, I reflected that despite modern training regimes this could still be a game for rotund men."

"Bevan was listed on the scoreboard simply as ‘Michael’, a Pakistani payback for the countless times their names had been muddled by commentators abroad."

To summarize, it is one of the greatest cricket books (if not the greatest) which I have ever read! Perhaps it is at the level of Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew.

[Satya Narayana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating account of the 1996 world cup with the right amount of political and popular culture context. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book although it left me with mixed feelings about cricket and its jingoism.
Highly recommended!

[Siddharth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so much more than an account of the cricket played during the 1996 World Cup. Marqusee digs deep and produces a thrilling narrative of first-world haughtiness, subcontinental solidarity, religious nationalism, giant killing, civil war uncertainty, globalisation, internal strife, capricious crowds, and exhilarating cricket. It is - above all - sports journalism at its very best.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

[Jeyanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best cricket books that I have read in my lifetime. For someone who did not watch the events of the 1996 Cricket World Cup, this book provided a great substitute for living through those days. Detailed description of events on and off the cricket ground, ranging from the greed of the multinational companies in emerging markets to the systemic plagues and inefficiencies associated within any organization, this was a solid read.

[Simon B · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the 2023 One-Day International World Cup in South Asia approaches, I decided to finally buy this much-heralded book about the 1996 ODI World Cup in preparation. It's often labelled one of the best ever books about cricket and I can see why. I was a teenager, and a rather one-eyed Australia supporter, in 1996. I recall that World Cup final with mixed emotions even now. Aravinda De Silva was the difference: even as a surly teen I had to grudgingly admire his near-perfect innings. He scored a wonderful century against a strong Australian attack, repeatedly finding unlikely gaps in the field. Sri Lanka's triumph over Australia in the final was great for world cricket and the ground-breaking, aggressive style of openers Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana was an early template for modern T20 batters.

Marqusee's account of the tournament combines intriguing details of the key moments with sharp, nuanced analysis of the political dilemmas in the three host nations - Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka - and how those political issues were influencing the game. His analysis is not so much out of date as it is prescient: toxic Hindutva nationalism, Singhalese chauvinism, Pakistani elite malfeasance and corporate influence over cricket certainly haven't dwindled in the past 30 years.

"The English cricket establishment had fought a bitter battle to stop the 1996 World Cup being held in the sub-continent, and it had lost. In the Daily Telegraph, Christopher Martin-Jenkins argued that England was 'the ideal venue' whose advantages' cannot be matched by the rival bidders from a vast and unruly sub-continent'. He decried the ICC decision as a triumph for 'money and politics' over cricket. In so doing, he rewrote two hundred years of cricket history, dominated as they had been by English money and politics. When national pride is pricked, facts and logic are quickly superseded by myth and emotion."

*****

"Sub-continental cricket's biggest problem is the emerging conflict between two cultures, between those who adore cricket for its own sake and those for whom it is primarily a means to an end, to either personal or national self-aggrandisement, or increasingly, some venomous cocktail of the two. This is not a conflict of generations or between moderisers and traditionalists, or between a sophisticated elite and lumpen mass - all used to explain the events in Dehli and later in Calcutta. At Dehli it seemed to me the war was between the VIPs and the OCFs (Ordinary Cricket Fans) and that if the VIPs were victorious, cricket would be reduced to a grotesque charade, a medium for the expression of insecurity, both national and individual."

[Aniket Khasgiwale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard about War Minus The Shooting for a long time, but I never bothered to pick it up until now for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wasn't too interested in an English author's experience of a tournament in the subcontinent. Most of them understand neither the culture nor the cricket, as they are constrained by their first-world blinkers, and their writing tends to have a condescending tone. Secondly, the 1996 World Cup holds a special place in my heart as it is where my obsession with cricket started, and I did not want anyone else's reminiscences to taint the rose-tinted view of the tournament which existed in my heart.

On the latter, I figured that 25 years is a long enough gap to revaluate a key childhood experience. On the former, I was so completely mistaken that I would like to apologize to the ghost of Mike Marqusee.

War Minus The Shooting is a remarkable book about a remarkable event that significantly changed world Cricket. Marqusee covers the event comprehensively, covering the origins of the tournament, (including the English opposition to another World Cup in the subcontinent), the business side of the tournament (which was quite lost on me at the time as an eight year old fan), the importance of hosting the tournament to the people of the subcontinent, the controversies, the actual Cricket, and its legacy in the three host countries and the wider Cricketing world.

I was amazed by how well Marqusee understood the people of the subcontinent and the place that Cricket has in their lives. Often it felt like I was reading a book written by an Indian and not a British-American. Marqusee spent a lot of time researching the Cricket history and culture in each of the three host nations, going into the details of the school cricket system in Sri Lanka, the one-day cricket revolution in India, and the various powers at play in Pakistani Cricket. While I was aware of most of these, the book does a great job of integrating these threads (among many others) and linking them to the World Cup in a coherent story.

I would highly recommend this book to fans of Cricket, especially those who would want to relive a memorable tournament. Despite being 25 years old, the book is really a classic and relevant even today.

[Nitin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was the best of the times, it was the worst of the times. And Marqusee captures it all in his odyssey through South Asia - the romance and hypocrisy in equal measure, and yet avoids almost all the traps of a stereotypical subcontinent travel log which so many outsiders fall into. And to add something extra, he even predicts the future a few times.

Like "Anyone but England", Marqusee's intellectual integrity and deep commitment to democracy shines through. Some of the sociopolitical ideas he has might be infeasible. And I don't agree with everything he says. But what is always amazing is how consistently he applies those principles to friend and foe alike - never shying away from exposing the flaws of those he likes. And this extreme honesty makes all his work worthwhile.

[Abhimanyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://twitter.com/a_b_manyu/status/...

[Vishal Katariya · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good! I am very happy this book was reprinted and I got a chance to read it. Highly recommend it to cricket and geopolitics fans.

[Aravind Nagarajan · Rating 5 out of 5]

1996 stars. I don’t even know where to start. An account of the most defining event of my life.

[Daivat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Marqusee is a prophet. This was written in the late 90s but his words on the commodification of cricket and its players rings ever so true when franchise cricket has overwhelmed us, and the role of the fan has been turned into that of a consumer. We can't fault him for his optimism in hoping more democracy turns the sport around. The recent t20 world cup's treatment of its fans as well as associate nations has only proven the hegemony in cricket and the role of money.

[Sairam Krishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely amazing blast from the past! There's just so much in there, and I'm also glad I read it during the '23 World Cup, and was able to place these experiences side-by-side. So much has changed, and yet, so much stays just the same. I will have more thoughts on this, I'm sure.

[Suhel Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getting me to like a book on the 1996 World Cup is not that hard. But I think I am speaking on all cricket and cricket writing fans (and not just fans of that greatest miracle of 1996) that this is a must-read. Unputdownable. Page-turner. Use your cliche of choice.

Before we go further into the book, a huge thanks to Sidvee and all the folks at 81 All Out for bringing this book back from the dead. Quite literally this masterpiece was lost to the world, and after Sidvee and friends mentioned this online earlier in 2021, many of us tried to get our hands on it, but to no avail. Read more about the journey of the book itself on the website.

Now back to the book.

The late Mike Marqusee is a cricket writer, but not your usual type. He was an American, who moved base to England and so had an outside in perspective on cricket. This book itself, while very much about that tournament and the cricketers is also a travelogue and a journalist's perspective of the politics of cricket, the sub-continent, and a lot more. He pulls no punches, at the English/Australian elitism, the sub-continental corruption and jingoism, the Pepsi-Coke wars, and observes the cricket and the drama that follows it with a sense of aloofness and amusement, while never disrespecting the sport or the fans.

Sri Lanka gets a bit of reprieve from his sarcastic barbs, maybe because he treated us (them) as a little brother but other than them, and yes, the Kenyans, everyone is in for some fun at Marqusee's able hands.

The other thing that stood out was the time warp quality of the book. As this was written soon after the 96 tournament, you have to remember that while India was on the rise as a cricket power, they were nothing compared to what they are now. It was still an English-Australia dominated game and there were plenty of misgivings about giving the World Cup to the third world. Tendulkar was an upcoming superstar, but not God yet. Money had started to flow into cricket, and India, but still very much a developing nation with ambitions, not a global powerhouse with Ambanis and others in richest people on the planet list. So all of that has a magical effect of taking us back in time, one that those from our generation experience first hand while growing up.

And then there's the pieces that stand out: (1) The Australia-Sri Lanka final; (2) The WI-Kenya upset; (3) the India-Pakistan QF.

Anyway, I won't do much justice to this with more words than I have already used. Just go and enjoy!

[Naeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is sports writing, perhaps at its best. Marqusee places the 1996 World Cricket Cup in the context of culture, political economy, and the divide between East and West. It makes for superb reading but it helps to know some cricket terminology -- as the text moves in and out of describing actual matches. You learn as much about India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka as you do about cricket and so called globalization. The details of how cricket is organized and played differently in these countries are superb. And the meaning of cricket for fans and non fans alike really comes through.

One star off for his unselfconscious secularism and a lack of curiosity about why populations need nationalism and religion. Still, his disdain for England and English cricket makes me want to read his Anyone But England.

Be warned: he is an unabashed fan of Sri Lankan cricket.

[Prakhar Sachdeo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has only been a few minutes since I finished reading the last page of the book. I cannot thank 81allout for their efforts to republish this masterpiece. Every page of this book is a delight. This is an all-time classic book on cricket. This book needs to be studied not just read!


Mike Marqusee takes us through the 1996 cricket world cup that was jointly hosted by India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. He had the ringside view of the tournament at times s a cricket journalist and at times as an ardent fan of the sport. If you have picked this book to know the match reports on the games played, then I am sorry you would be left disappointed. This book is beyond the matches played. It shows us the politics, the sociology of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and their association with the sport and the business of the sport.

Yes, Mike Marqusee does take us into the depth of some of the most memorable matches (West Indies vs Kenya, India vs Pakistan, India vs Sri Lanka group stage match, and India vs Sri Lanka quarterfinal, and the Final), but it is what Mike writes on beyond those matches, that forms the heart and soul of this book.

This book will at times feel like a travel memoir at times it will read like a political commentary, some chapters are like sports history lessons while a few pages will talk about the corporatization of cricket.

What left me stunned was the final few paragraphs of the book! If you read those paras and have followed the business of cricket in the past few years, you would be shocked to realize that the author was foreshadowing how cricket would evolve some 27 years ago. Those few lines were enough for me to realize the greatness of the author and his mastery of the sport and everything around it.

I have read quite a few pieces and blogs on the best cricket books ever, and strangely and sadly this book doesn't make it in those lists. Pick this book and read it.

[Raza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Put everything down and read this book. Apart from an entertaining look back at the '96 WC, the writer takes one back to a point in time when the combined forces of globalisation, commercialisation & nationalism (with a tinge of communal tensions) were about to seep into mainstream subcontinent cricket.
Mike is as adapt at narrating cricket passages as he is exploring the socio economic conditions of the 3 subcontinent countries.
It's a fascinating look but an outsider, who is repulsed by the brands & sponsors (selling nationalism in the form of ads - coke/pepsi running respective ads in pak/india) & vips (hoarding tickets from the associations) hijacking the cricket experience.
Cricket needs to stay among the people -> rowdy, vulgar & democratic. But unfortunately, with satellite tv spreading everywhere around the globe in 96, mike saw how this could make the spectators in the stands irrelevant.
Mike figured the basic fight for the spirit of cricket was between the crowds & those elite who wanted to use cricket for their own buisness/political ends.

[Piyush · Rating 2 out of 5]

A foreigner's view of Indian cricket and society at large. While Mike doesn't come across as racist and, in fact, in places, is fairly in love with some of the things he sees - he does come across as deeply biased and judgemental. No society is perfect, and you can always choose and pick experiences and stories that fit your narrative. In fact, in some cases, he doesn't even let facts come in the way of the narrative.

He himself states that the hooliganism in English football is much more strident before going on to excuse that because, not being in support of a nation, cannot be considered as damaging. There are many other such narratives that I don't agree with in the book and left me quite disappointed.

It may be illuminating to read to see how some people still see India as - but other than that, there are better reads on Indian cricket. It may also appeal to some non-Indians/South Asians who would like to reinforce the stereotypes they've already built in their heads.

[Rajat Jain · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was very excited to go through this book. I was 11 when the 96 world cup started and this was really my first years of watching cricket that I still remember almost fully.

But as soon as I glanced through the foreward, I realised I may be in for a torrid time. I was not wrong. It seems that there was nothing right that happened in India - they spent more pages talking about "Hindutva" and everything that is wrong within the country than about the success of the tournament. At the same time, there were loads and loads of sympathies for Pak and SL - even the fact that Friday during Eid is "ok" to have empty stands and everything.... but everything that "Hindus" do is wrong, corrupt, inefficient....

I would recommend to skip this book. It is HIGHLY biased against India AND the majority religion of the country. Just like so many other foreign authors (and even many Indian authors) like to do...

[Achyuth Sanjay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice social commentary on cricket in the subcontinent and how it influences every other sphere of life, following the trail of the 1996 World Cup. The correlation between (often chauvinistic) nationalism and sports is a global phenomenon but is especially amplified in the subcontinent because of the huge popularity of cricket - and the author embarks on a journey to basically understand and document this correlation.

It was also nice to read a time capsule of what people on the ground thought about issues like Kashmir, India Pakistan relations, LTTE and so on. A lot of the perspectives resonate with today’s political climate, almost making me wonder about how much progress we’ve really made in the two decades in between.

[Ram Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable and astonishingly right in its predictions

From 1996, Mike Marqusee has, with journalistic precision and local insights has blow-by-blow, recorded not just the happenings of the 1996 Cricket World Cup, but the larger forces of globalization, capitalistic greed, nationalism, and regionalism that continues to shape global sport. And most of what he predicted have come true as I write this in 2022. This book is a work of precision and beauty both. Told with empathy, and an unassumingly large hearted attitude that is so endearing to us. Was surprising to know that Marqusee grew up in America.

[Abhigyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a cricket fan who has fond memories of 90s cricket and the 1996 World cup held in South Asia, this book provides an interesting commentary and refresher on all the important matches of the World Cup. However the book is recommended strongly not for the description of the cricket matches but how the author goes much much beyond that to descrobe the socio political situation in the subcontinent at that point of time, what cricket meant for the people in power and those not in power. Sprinkled by worthy anecdotes and interesting observations, this book will be really well appreciated by cricket fans who have gone through India's progress in this sport on the global front.

[Ramachandra M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply mind-blowing! This book is a classic, a masterpiece, in every sense! Probably the greatest cricket book I’ve read thus far. The author Mike Marqusee has depicted his subcontinental romance with cricket during the 1996 WC, in an engrossing fashion, and will definitely leave you enthralled. Apart from the cricket his insights on the ongoing political turmoil in India — its communal tensions, Hindutva politics — has added some flair to this book. Reading this book did take me back to childhood and I throughly reminisced the first WC I watched as a kid. The ‘War minus the shooting’, is a must read if you love cricket.

[Puneet Nayyar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has come back into print 25 years after the 1996 World Cup. It is not just about the cricket - it is about that time in the subcontinent when the shift had started towards the power of money and divisive culture. Mike looked at the society from a western lens and was surprised by the various common themes in all the 3 countries. Someone pointing them out in 1996 would have surprised me but they seem so important 26 years later.

Cricket World Cup of 1996 was my favourite (along with 1992) as I watched most of the matches very closely. So this book was a very enjoyable read as it touched 2 subjects that are both close to my heart.

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like travelogue's, I like sport, I like social and cultural commentary. And this book combines all three. Written almost 30 years ago but many things still hold up which speaks for Marqusee's astute observations on globalisation, commercialisation & nationalism. Orientalism is something I am usually wary of when a Westerner (the author was born and raised in the USA and then moved to England) comments on cultures alien to them but I didn't sense much of that at all.

Plus, for someone like me who wasn't fully into cricket at that age and was also just a child, it was nice reading about an historic tournament like that from the perspective of someone at the games.