The first book I read from cover to cover was written by an Australian. His name was Keith Miller, and he was the greatest all-round cricketer his country has produced. After he retired from the game in 1956, Miller published a sporting autobiography, called Cricket Crossfire, which was reprinted by an Indian publisher who managed to send some copies to the town in the Himalayan foothills where I grew up. A full decade after Miller had quit playing cricket, what may have been the last copy of his book circulating in India was bought by my father in a store in Dehradun’s Rajpur Road and handed over to me.
When I read Cricket Crossfire as a boy, two things struck me: first, Miller’s ambivalent feelings about his captain, Don Bradman, and, second, the affection that Miller displayed towards India and Indians. The author acknowledged that Bradman was the greatest cricketer of his age, yet he felt that as a person, Bradman was single-minded and even selfish. The Indians he…