ABSTRACT
In the contemporary sporting world, few would argue with the assertion that India is the new cricketing superpower. While nineteenth- and twentieth-century cricket owed much to the pragmatism, enthusiasm and energy of the English empire builders, decolonization and the rise of postcolonial nation states since the 1980s have heralded a fundamental transformation in the character of the sport. In the modern cricket world, the Indians lead; the others follow. As a consequence, cricket has become integral to defining the culture of postcolonial India, a nation anxious to define its own position in a rapidly changing world characterized by globalization and growing interdependence.
