The Tailenders

The arrival of cricket in the Northeast is not merely a story of infrastructure arriving late; it is a question of whether a game shaped by the centres of power can ever belong in a region that has long been made to feel peripheral to the Indian story

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IN Kohima, a group of young cricketers practice on a dusty patch of land, their kits a mix of donated equipment and second-hand purchases. One of them, a 16-year-old named Imti, dreams of playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He knows the names of the stars—Kohli, Rohit, Bumrah—but none of them feels like his own. “When I watch them play, I feel proud as an Indian,” he says. Then he pauses. “But I also feel small. Like this game is theirs, not ours.”

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) laid the foundation stones for indoor cricket academies across six states in the Northeast in May 2024. For many, this move appeared as a long-overdue recognition, a symbolic bridge extended towards a region that has rarely figured in India’s cricketing imagination. Yet, the gesture raises more questions than it answers. For decades, the Northeast has been a spectator in a game whose emotional weight was carried elsewhere on the backs of metro cities, in stadiums packed with roaring fans, on television screens that broadcast a version of India far removed from the hills and valleys of this region.

While cricket became the sport of national celebration, football grew quietly in the Northeast’s school grounds, churchyards, and community fields, not as a televised spectacle, but intertwining with everyday life.

This history cannot be undone with the laying of a foundation stone. The arrival of cricket in the Northeast is not merely a story of infrastructure arriving late; it is a question of whether a game so deeply tied to the assertion of national pride and so shaped by the centres of power can ever belong in a region that has long been made to feel peripheral to the Indian story. The BCCI's initiative marks a new chapter, but the script remains unwritten.