About a month ago, in Jaipur, a 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scored his second century in the Indian Premier League (IPL)—his first this season—off 36 balls. The Rajasthan Royals player is the youngest to achieve many milestones in Indian cricket, including a Ranji Trophy debut (at age 12) and a century in men’s T20 (last season). He now has the second—scored last season off 35 balls—and third fastest IPL hundreds.
If the inevitable comparison to Sachin Tendulkar has followed—for prodigious abilities, early emergence, baby-faced bravado—there is a key distinction between the two, besides the 35-year gap between their first claim to fame. Tendulkar rose from the established cricketing culture of Mumbai while Sooryavanshi is from Tajpur, Bihar, which has an estimated population of over two lakh and no history of cricketing excellence.
Sooryavanshi is not a rarity in Indian cricket now, with its players appearing from different, remote parts of the country as opposed to just two decades ago when most players were from conventional centres like Mumbai and Delhi. What triggered this change primarily is M.S. Dhoni, who learnt his cricket in Ranchi, played a trademark “helicopter” shot, captained the country and inspired several to believe that it’s possible.
Aayush Puthran and Samod, both journalists, chase this narrative in Chasing like Dhoni: Exploring the Underbelly of Indian Cricket, about the spread of cricket in India, the hopes and dreams that it has fuelled and the harsh realities young cricketers face in trying to make it to the pinnacle of the sport, the Indian team. The title may suggest that the book has insights about Dhoni, but it merely uses his name to explore modern day Indian cricket, showing that behind the glamour and glitz of, say, an IPL, there are stories of toil, poverty, rejections, politics, casteism, and luck.
In a country where 129 million people wage daily battles for food, water and shelter, write Puthran and Samod, cricket’s wealth remains abstract, almost insulting in its distance. “Yet this very disparity illuminates the sport’s strangest power: its capacity to suspend, however temporarily, the weight of daily struggles. For many, the joy of the sport makes the load of daily life slightly more bearable.”
“For all its glory, cricket is still just a game. Yet millions are convinced, perhaps willingly deceived, that it can heal them, if not forever then long enough to mask the wounds temporarily. That’s why millions pursue the dream of becoming the next Dhoni.”
Indian cricket changed significantly post the 1983 World Cup win, the emergence of Tendulkar in the late 1980s and economic liberalisation of the early 1990s, which led to a comprehensive commercialisation of the sport. Its governing body in the country, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), had the vision to take the sport to smaller towns by developing infrastructure and coaching centres. Former cricketers joined in as coaches and mentors in various places as, a decade or more later, players of international calibre started to emerge from all over. Dhoni remains the biggest story of them.
Current or recent international cricketers (men and women) today, for example, include Shubman Gill from Fazilka in Punjab, Smriti Mandana from Sangli in Maharashtra, Rohtak’s (Haryana) Shafali Verma, Nadiad’s (Gujarat) Axar Patel and Guwahati’s Riyan Parag among others.
According to statistics given in Chasing like Dhoni, in one-day internationals, before the advent of the IPL, 68 per cent players came from traditional centres. Of the 316 men who have played Tests, only 109 have emerged from outside the six traditional hotspots—Mumbai, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad and Bengal. Since the IPL, the numbers from other than traditional centres have risen from 31.77 per cent to 55.81 per cent.
The reason for the earlier imbalance, write Puthran and Samod, apart from corruption and nepotism, is that cricket’s growth, being an expensive sport to play, is tied to the wealth of the region.
The writers dig deep to find obscure, often forgotten stories, of brief successes and massive failures, of near misses, of breakthroughs and heartbreaks. Like Priyank Panchal, who has over 8000 first class runs, including a triple century, an average of over 45, and yet was never chosen to play for India. Other unconventional discoveries include Robin Minz, who was the first Adivasi in the IPL; Minnu Mani, a labourer’s daughter from Wayanad made her Women’s T20 International (WT20I) debut in 2023 and Kamran Khan, the son of a woodcutter from Nadwa Sarai in UP, who played for the Rajasthan Royals in 2009. Munaf Patel from Ikhar village in Bharuch was working in a tile factory for a daily wage of Rs35 when he was discovered at a trial and played for India.
While millions work their way to finding that IPL ticket—the target has long shifted from playing Tests to IPL, which is far more lucrative and arguably requires less rigour—the probability of success is low. The odds of making the Indian team is 0.001 per cent, of playing IPL or WPL (Women’s Premier League) is 0.005 per cent, according to the writers’ analysis of available data. Cracking the notoriously difficult Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) civil services entrance tests is a more achievable 0.07 per cent.
While the sheer competitive nature of the sport may be a reason for low success rate, other societal factors play a role. Unlike racial segregation, the authors say, caste-based discrimination is less visible, yet prevalent.
Puthran and Samod may have used the “Dhoni” word to attract attention, but their book shines light on the uncomfortable reality of cricket—in the world’s most populous nation, few make it, while the rest spend their best years chasing a dream they can’t catch.
The book releases on 31 May.
Arun Janardhan (@iArunJ) is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers sports, business leaders and lifestyle.