ABSTRACT
Cricket had endured amid the traumatic birth of a nation and had, inevitably, been a matter for political contention. Following a meeting between East Pakistan leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Syed Abbas Athar, had rendered the coming rift with the historic headline ‘Idhar Hum, Udhar Tum’. This chapter describes the coming of the rift, the birth and progress of a new nation and the relationship of cricket to these developments. Cricket had been played in Calcutta, the major city of West Bengal, since the late eighteenth century and a Bengal side had begun competing in the Ranji Trophy in 1935, the year after the competition’s inception. Pakistan undertook a cricket tour of England with the east of the country back home in chaos. A 75,000-capacity national cricket stadium in under construction in cricket stadium in Purbachal New Town outside Dhaka.
