Willing to read an old print eulogising Dhyan Chand’s exploits during the 1936 Berlin  Olympics or gloss over what was written after the Maharaja of Vizianagaram sent back Lala Amarnath from England , then grab a book that chronicles India’s  sporting history with interesting fables.

In an attempt to catch country’s sporting history in the past 175 years, the ‘Times of India’ has published a coffee table book ‘Sporting Times’, which captures sports reports that dates back to even 1840.

The reports from the newspapers’ rich archive has been compiled by sports historian Boria Majumdar and the reader will for sure enjoy a “journey” through the good, bad and the ugly of Indian sports.

“Essentially, we didn’t want it to be a book on cricket. There is a lot of cricket but there are reports on India’s Asian Games gold medal in kabaddi , from Wilson Jones to Geet Sethi, C K Nayudu to M S Dhoni, Dhyan Chand, Col Balbir Singh to Ajit Pal Singh, every era has been captured through the pages of the newspaper,” Majumdar said about the book.

For the connoisseurs of cricket, this book certainly is a collector’s item with rare photographs and anecdotes.

The doyen of cricket writing in India through the 60’s and 70’s, K N Prabhu’s match reports on India’s twin series victories in the West Indies and England in 1971, Sunil Gavaskar’s magnificent debut series, a report on young Haryana all-rounder Kapil Dev being selected to represent India, you find it all within one cover.

Then there are reports and rare pictures about crowd violence that marred the India versus West Indies Test at the Eden Gardens on a New Year’s Day in 1967 and the tragic death of six spectators during the 1969 Test match between India and Australia at the same venue.

There are reports about Milkha Singh (1960) and P T Usha (1984) missing out on much-deserved Olympic bronze medals by whisker. The heartbreak that Vijay Amritraj faced after losing to Czech Jan Kodes in the Wimbledon quarterfinal after being two sets up.

The reports of India’s famous twin triumph in cricket in 1983 and 1985, the football team’s exploits in the 1962 Asian Games at Jakarta. A significant number of events reported by the PTI during the phase have also been used.

The book will be launched by Sachin Tendulkar and Abhinav Bindra in Mumbai tomorrow.

source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> PTI Stories> National> News / Press Trust of India / New Delhi – May 27th, 2013