The Great Tamasha: Cricket, Corruption, and the Turbulent Rise of Modern India

To understand modern India, one must look at the business of cricket within the country.

When Lalit Modi—an Indian businessman with a criminal record, a history of failed business ventures, and a reputation for audacious deal making—created a Twenty20 cricket league in India in 2008, the odds were stacked against him. International cricket was still controlled from London, where they played the long, slow game of Test cricket by the old rules. Indians had traditionally underperformed in the ...