ABSTRACT
To scholars of sport globally, Professor J.A. Mangan is a legend. Every honour, scholastic or otherwise, has been accorded to him. No wonder scholars across generations have looked up to him. In my case, a simple truth sums it up – he is my mentor; he is my guru. Having worked very closely with him over the past five years, I know how deeply he cares about scholarship. This book is a small tribute.
Cricket was much more than just another game to the Victorians. Indeed, they glorified it as a perfect system of ethics and morals, which embodied all that was most noble in the Anglo-Saxon character. They prized it as a national symbol, perhaps because – so far as they could tell – it was an exclusively English creation unsullied by Oriental and European influences. In an extremely xenophobic age, the Victorians came to regard cricket as further proof of their moral and cultural supremacy. [ 1 ]
