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When will a Parsi play cricket for India again?
Updated On: 25 August, 2024 08:45 AM IST | Mumbai | Debjani Paul
A new documentary highlights how the Parsi community that once put India on the cricketing map, is disappearing from the field as fewer youngsters step up to the crease
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Farokh Engineer, visiting Mumbai from the UK, recounts the glory days of Parsi cricket at the Parsee Gymkhana at Marine Lines during a visit last Friday. Pic/Ashish Raje
As Farokh Engineer, one of India’s cricketing greats, steps into Parsee Gymkhana on Friday afternoon, the sea-facing club bears a near deserted look, with just a handful of youngsters in whites playing at the nets. And it’s not just the club from where the Parsis have gone missing. From a community that pioneered the sport’s growth in the country, Parsis have been slowly disappearing from the sport over the last few decades. Ironically, even Parsee Gymkhana’s own team, which figures in the ‘A’ division of the famous Kanga League, features not a single Parsi player.
Few feel this absence as keenly as 86-year-old Engineer, who hails from the glory days of Parsi cricket, when the community had contributed not one, but four of the 11 players in the Indian Test team during the 1961-62 tour of West Indies—Nari Contractor, Polly Umrigar, Rusi Surti and Engineer, all giants of the game. Engineer remains the last Parsi to have played for India in men’s cricket.
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