Cricket hobbies in India

[coffee_rules]

Growing up, we had so many hobbies related to Cricket.  Much before Internet, Smart phones, these were some favorite indulgences.

I will list a few here:

1. Collection of Team selection banners before each series. They used to sell these posters of teams before each series.

2. Cards of Cricketing heroes

3. Picture books of some popular shots of Gavaskar, Tendulkar - Cover drives, hook shots , you need to turn the pages and you get to see the animation

4. Sportstar collections - photos, scorecard etc

5. Cricket matches being payed on the last bench using thick textbooks - Book Cricket. My favorite

6. Radio commentary (before TV days)

7. Cricket stories being narrated by old uncles - IVAR, Roberts, Clive Llyod, Lillee, GRV, stories. We would relay them to friends with our your additions like Chinese whispers game

8. Best of all - Galli Cricket , Indoor cricket, one-tappa-out, outside the compound out, french cricket. Some many versions

 

 

[Lord]

Cricket trump cards, wallpapers,newspaper cuttings. Done it all

[nevada]

I used to buy sportstar magazine whenever I travelled by bus or train. One of them had an article about a Bradmanseque county cricketer called Graeme Hick. Another had an article about two schoolboys called Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli who put on a world record partnership. 

[AuxiliA]

How many of you guys read the great Cricket Samrat magazine. Never saw a better cricket magazine till date. Sportstar doesn't come anywhere close to it.

 

It had everything from detailed stats, scorecards, trivia, cricket gossip, Q&As, interviews, colour photos, posters, editorials, old cricket stories, cricket jokes etc. It was a goldmine for cricket lovers before the internet became big. 

 

 

[singhvivek141]

8 hours ago, AuxiliA said:

How many of you guys read the great Cricket Samrat magazine. Never saw a better cricket magazine till date. Sportstar doesn't come anywhere close to it.

 

It had everything from detailed stats, scorecards, trivia, cricket gossip, Q&As, interviews, colour photos, posters, editorials, old cricket stories, cricket jokes etc. It was a goldmine for cricket lovers before the internet became big. 

 

 

I do.

 

I used to have collection of Cricket Samrat & Cricket Bharati both. One will come on 25th of every month while other will be available at mid of every month. Used to take it to school as well and flaunt it to classmates.

 

My house walls were decorated with the posters of cricketers, I remember mom used to get angry as she couldn't find space to stick posters of God & Goddesses and would ask me to take it down. 

[coffee_rules]

2 hours ago, singhvivek141 said:

I do.

 

I used to have collection of Cricket Samrat & Cricket Bharati both. One will come on 25th of every month while other will be available at mid of every month. Used to take it to school as well and flaunt it to classmates.

 

My house walls were decorated with the posters of cricketers, I remember mom used to get angry as she couldn't find space to stick posters of God & Goddesses and would ask me to take it down. 

Must be a North Indian thing, never heard of Cricket Samrat. Competition for Sportstar was Sportsweek or sportsworld. It had better pictures , glossy than matte finish. My hostel room had pictures of Tendulkar, Azhar (I know it’s embarrassing) Ajay Jadeja and of course Kapjl Dev. 

[singhvivek141]

2 hours ago, coffee_rules said:

Must be a North Indian thing, never heard of Cricket Samrat. Competition for Sportstar was Sportsweek or sportsworld. It had better pictures , glossy than matte finish. My hostel room had pictures of Tendulkar, Azhar (I know it’s embarrassing) Ajay Jadeja and of course Kapjl Dev. 

Yeah, it was a Hindi magazine.

There was sportstar magzines in our school libraries but it didn't interested me much. 

Cricket Samrat was the most popular magzine started somewhere in 1980's. Sadly it ended its journey in 2020 due to Covid and internet boom.

 

I was introduced to cricket by my dad, and he was a big fan of fast bowlers, so the tradition continued.

In my room there were posters of Ambrose, Bishop, Walsh, Donald, Pollock, Akram, Klusener, Srinath etc...I was even partly rooting for WI in the 97 bridgetown test coz I wanted a 5fer for Ambrose, but Franklin Rose came out of syllabus.

[Gollum]

Cricket cards, gold/silver/bronze. Just like WWF(E) cards. Used to meet up at friend's place and exchange cards, and play with them in our school buses. Wonderful memories, so much innocence back then. 

[BacktoCricaddict]

On 2/12/2025 at 10:51 AM, coffee_rules said:

5. Cricket matches being payed on the last bench using thick textbooks - Book Cricket. My favorite

In my book cricket, Shastri was always out for <10 and Srikkanth always made 120+.  Somehow it always happened ;-).

[Zero_Unit]

I didn't grow up there but my dad showed me his school years collection of pepsi - cricket card collection. I kept them