Historian Ramachandra Guha will come out with a book on cricket in November, which will trace the entire arc of the game in India, across all levels at which it is played and also present vivid portraits of local heroes, provincial icons, and international stars.
"The Commonwealth of Cricket: A Lifelong Love Affair with the Most Subtle and Sophisticated Game Known to Humankind" will be co-published by HarperCollins India and William Collins UK.
Publisher Udayan Mitra acquired the book in India and Arabella Pike, William Collins Publishing Director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding India), according to a statement.
When Guha began following the game in the early 1960s, India was utterly marginal to the world of cricket: the country still hadn't won a Test match overseas; by the time he joined the Board of Control for Cricket in India, 50 years later, India had become world cricket's sole superpower, the publishers said.
"The Commonwealth of Cricket" is a first-person account of this transformation and blends memoir, anecdote, reportage and political critique.
Mitra says this is the story of how Guha has engaged over nearly six decades with an endlessly fascinating game - as a player, a spectator, a fan, a writer, and a cricket administrator.
"The narrative is as enchanting as the spin of Bishan Singh Bedi and EAS Prasanna, as charming as the batting of Gundappa Viswanath or Vijay Hazare; it transports us out of our present miseries into a magic world where on a lazy afternoon the willow meets leather, making the loveliest sound in the world," he says.
According to Pike, the book is a "beautifully crafted memoir of Guha's lifelong passion for cricket and a story that will enchant all who love this greatest of games".
Currently distinguished University Professor at Krea University, Guha has authored books like "The Unquiet Woods", "India after Gandhi", and a two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi.
Guha has also written quite a few books on cricket - "A Corner of a Foreign Field", "The Picador Book of Cricket", "Spin and Other Turns", "Wickets in the East".
