Cricket Diaries

A veteran sports journalist’s evocative memoir offers a ringside view of India’s beloved sport.

- ARUN JANARDHAN

Cricket writer, columnist, and former sports editor Pradeep Magazine’s new book, Not Just Cricket: A Reporter’s Journey Through Modern India, as the title suggests, is not just about the sport. In this memoir, he also writes about the meaning of identity, being Kashmiri, growing up in terrorstricken Punjab, and social and political upheavals over the last 50-odd years, told through the prism of a cricket writer.

“When I found out that the New India Foundation was looking for books on Indian history and culture, I thought I had a bit to say,” Magazine says over a Zoom call. “I thought of combining my cricket reporting journey with what was happening at the time around the country.”

The former sports editor of The Pioneer India Today, and Hindustan Times began his career as a reporter with The Indian Express in Chandigarh in 1979 before becoming the newspaper’s cricket editor in 1999. Before he sat down to write this book, Magazine went to the Punjab University library in Chandigarh to scan newspapers dating back to the 1970s, particularly The Indian Express and The Tribune. While the Express carried his own writings, the Tribune reported more extensively on what was happening in Punjab and Kashmir.

“I have never spent so much time in one place— even when I was studying for exams,” Magazine says, laughing at the daily average of six hours that went into the research process. “From the beginning to the end, it took around two years as I am not a fast writer. It was not easy; I had to connect cricket with current events and find dates that matched. Memory plays tricks on you, so fact- checking was crucial.”