Reliving History: After 130 years, Parsees take on England

MUMBAI: Even as Rajkot witnesses the latest round of cricketing hostilities between India and England, the sea-facing Parsee Gymkhana here will celebrate how it all began. Very few know the fact that in 1886, the first-ever cricket team from India left for the shores of England, for a cricket tour.The team comprised only Parsee players from Mumbai (then Bombay). According to Ramachandra Guha's 'A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of British Sport', it played against clubs and towns, but not first class counties. The tourists lost 19 matches and drew eight - their only win was against Lord Brassey's side at Normanhurst.Sadly, cricket is hardly a first choice sport today for the young Parsee generation, but the community still values its contribution to the roots of the game, having produced exciting cricketers like Rusi Surti (ex-India all-rounder), former Mumbai and India captain and India's first double centurion Polly Umrigar, Farokh Engineer (former India wicketkeeper), and another ex-India skipper Nari Contractor, more famously known as the man who almost died after being struck by a Charlie Griffith bouncer in the West Indies in 1962.It is perhaps for this reason that the Parsee Gymkhana is celebrating the 130th anniversary of that historic tour with a 30-over game between the Parsees and the British (a team comprising the expat community from England which lives in the city), called the '1886 Trophy,' at the club's premises on Saturday.The enthusiasm for the match, which will be attended by Contractor and Engineer, can be gauged by the fact that at 74, Freddy Sidhwa, a Dubai-based businessman will turn out for the Parsees.While the 1886 tour, according to Guha's book, failed on the cricketing and financial front, it sowed the seeds of what was to be a regular feature in international cricket in the coming years.