Mahatma Gandhi Thoughts on Cricket: The British ruled India for about 2 decades and during that time cricket had made good inroads in this country. Even before independence in 1947, the Indian team had played its first test match. Mahatma Gandhi also actively participated in the freedom struggle, but did he ever play cricket in his life? If yes, at what level did Gandhiji play cricket and was he bowling or batting?
During the time of Mahatma Gandhi, the game of hockey was more popular in India and in those days Team India was continuously winning medals in the Olympics. But as far as cricket is concerned, Mahatma Gandhi believed that this game belonged to the British, which was brought to India from abroad. He believed that traditional sports had suffered losses due to the arrival of cricket in India. Gandhi believed that games like cricket and football were expensive and could only be played by big people.
Why didn’t you want to play cricket?
Mahatma Gandhi has written in his autobiography that he never played cricket and he did not even know what the rules of this game were. Mahatma Gandhi’s thoughts are still alive in the hearts of people. He believed that farming can keep people’s body more healthy than playing cricket.
Famous writer Kaushik Bandopadhyay has written in his book ‘Mahatma on the Pitch’ that Gandhiji came to know about cricket for the first time during his school days. In those days, the headmaster of that school located in Rajkot had made it mandatory to play cricket and exercise. But Dhoni did not want to participate in this game in any way. Quoting his book Mahatma Gandhi, Kaushik ji said that he did not want to play cricket because of shyness.
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Mahatma Gandhi had opposed this big tournament, was against dividing teams on the basis of religion.
