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1. The Parsis Were the First Indian Community to set up a Cricket Club in India
The origins of Indian cricket, that is, cricket played by Indians are to be found in Bombay and the first Indian community to start playing the game was the small community of Zoroastrians, the Parsis. Brought into close contact with the British because of their interest in trade and the first Indian community to westernise, the Parsis founded the first Indian cricket club, the Oriental Cricket Club in Bombay in 1848. Parsi clubs were funded and sponsored by Parsi businessmen like the Tatas and the Wadias. The white cricket elite in India offered no help to the enthusiastic Parsis. 2. Mahatma Gandhi Condemned the Pentangular Tournament
Mahatma Gandhi, condemned the Pentangular as a communally divisive competition that was out of place in a time when nationalists were trying to unite India’s diverse population. A rival first-class tournament on regional lines, the National Cricket Championship (later named the Ranji Trophy), was established but not until Independence did it properly replace the Pentangular. The colonial state and its divisive conception of India was the rock on which the Pentangular was built. It was a colonial tournament and it died with the Raj.
3. The Name of the ICC Was Changed from the Imperial Cricket Conference to the International Cricket Conference
The regulation of international cricket remained the business of the Imperial Cricket Conference ICC. The ICC, renamed the International Cricket Conference as late as 1965, was dominated by its foundation members, England and Australia, which retained the right of veto over its proceedings. Not till 1989 was the privileged position of England and Australia scrapped in favour of equal membership.
4. The Significance of the Shift of the ICC Headquarters from London to Dubai
The technology of satellite television is a simple fact which shifted the balance of power in cricket: a process that had been begun by the break-up of the British Empire was taken to its logical conclusion by globalisation. Since India had the largest viewership for the game amongst the cricket-playing nations and the largest market in the cricketing world, the game’s centre of gravity shifted to South Asia. This shift was symbolized by the shifting of the ICC headquarters from London to tax-free Dubai.