Arunabha Sengupta (born

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, India, 13 June 1973) is an Indian-born sports writer and novelist who resides in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. He has written five non-fiction volumes on cricket history with a socio-political perspective as well as four novels and one collection of short stories. He is a

cricket historian The sport of cricket has a known history beginning in the late 16th century England. It became an established sport in the country in the 18th century and developed globally in the 19th and 20th centuries. International matches have been playe ...

and a

Cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

Writer at CricketCountry.com and Scoreline.org

Books

* ''Cricket Across Dark Waters

CricketMASH Feb 2025 - The story of India vs West Indies cricket. Along with the cricket there is a thorough exploration of the fortune of the two geographies - India and the various Caribbean nations - in the post-colonial world as their cricketing fortunes evolved. It has an introduction by

Shashi Tharoor Shashi Tharoor (; born 9 March 1956) is an Indian politician, author, and former diplomat, who has been serving as Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. He is currently the Chairman of Committee on External Affairs. ...

. In CricketWeb this book was rated 4.5 stars and lauded for the originality with which it dwelled on the complex historical undercurrents along with the cricket. * ''Elephant in the Stadium

Pitch Publishin

May 2022 – The story of India's epochal Test series win in England in 1971. With the series as the main theme, the book is also a look at the complex relationship between India and Britain through the days of colonial rule to the modern day. It has an introduction by

Mihir Bose Mihir Bose (born 12 January 1947) is a British Indian journalist and author. He writes a weekly "Big Sports Interview" for the ''London Evening Standard'', and also writes and broadcasts on sport and social and historical issues for several ou ...

The book was shortlisted for the Derek Hodgson

Cricket Writers' Club The Cricket Writers' Club is an association for cricket journalists working in print, television or radio. It was established in 1947, and contains around 90% of those eligible for membership. During the 1946–47 Ashes series, the Australian and B ...

Book of the Year Award 2022. The title was also shortlisted for the

British Sports Book Awards The Sports Book Awards (previously National Sporting Club Book Awards then Telegraph Sports Book Awards) is a British literary award for sports writing. It was first awarded in 2003 as part of the National Sporting Club. Awards are presented in ...

2023 in the Heartaches' Cricket Book of the Year category The book was listed as one of The Times' Best Sports Books of 2022. Alyson Rudd, chairperson of the

William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British sports writing award sponsored by bookmaker William Hill. It was first presented in 1989, and was conceived by Graham Sharpe of William Hill, and John Gaustad, founder of the Sport ...

, adjudged it to be the best cricket book of 2022. She wrote: "It was a quiet year for cricket books, but arguably the best is Elephant in the Stadium, by Arunabha Sengupta, which is a social history and as much about the legacy of colonialism as it is about India’s first Test series win in England in 1971." The book was also longlisted for the MCC Cricket Society Book of the Year Award 2023 * ''The Ashes: This Thing Can Be Done

CricketMASH Mar 2022 – A history of The Ashes in a graphic novel format. It is co-written with artist and sports-illustrator Maha and has an introduction by

Stephen Chalke Stephen Chalke (born 5 June 1948) is an English author and publisher, particularly of books on cricket and cricketers. Chalke was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire. He has two undergraduate degrees – one in Drama, English and Philosophy, the oth ...

* ''Sachin and Azhar in Cape Town

co-written with Abhishek Mukherjee Pitch Publishin

Jan 2021 – India and South Africa, the countries and their cricket, through the prism of the incredible partnership between Tendulkar and Azharuddin in the Newlands Test of 1997. It has an introduction by

Harsha Bhogle Harsha Bhogle (born 19 July 1961) is an Indian cricket commentator and journalist. Bhogle has cemented his reputation for being a notable personality in the global cricket broadcasting industry. Early life Bhogle was born into a Marathi-s ...

* ''Apartheid: A Point to Cover

CricketMASH May 2020 – A history of South African cricket during the apartheid era 1948–1970 leading up to the Stop The Seventy Tour campaign. It has an introduction by

Peter Hain Peter Gerald Hain, Baron Hain, (born 16 February 1950), is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2007, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2007 to 2008 and twice as Secretary of State ...

* ''Sherlock Holmes and the Birth of The Ashes

Best Mysteries August 2015 – A

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

pastiche involving the legendary fictional detective in the backdrop of the epochal

1882 Test match at The Oval The Australia national cricket team toured England in 1882. The team is officially termed the Third Australians, following two previous tours in the 1878 and 1880 seasons. At the time, there was no Test cricket and so, as in 1880, the single m ...

. This was shortlisted for the

Cricket Society The Cricket Society is a charitable organisation founded in 1945 as the Society of Cricket Statisticians at Great Scotland Yard, London. It has grown steadily to be the largest body of its kind in the cricket world. The Cricket Society now has ov ...

and MCC Book of the Year Award in 2016. This was republished by Max Books in 2016 * ''The Best Seller

Createspace November 2010 – A novel set in Amsterdam, dealing with, among others, the travels and travails of a struggling writer in the murky publishing world. ForeWord Reviews rated the novel 5 stars. * ''Big Apple 2 Bites

(Frog Books, Mumbai March 2007) – a novel combining the worlds of Software, Love and Aikido and set against the backdrop of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. (The author himself is a first dan black belt in

Kobayashi Aikido Kokusai Aikidō Kenshūkai Kobayashi Hirokazu Ha (国際合気道研修会小林裕和派) is the school of aikido propagated by Hirokazu Kobayashi (1929–1998) (not Yasuo Kobayashi) disciple of the founder of aikido Morihei Ueshiba (1883–196 ...

.) * ''Bowled Over – Stories Between the Covers

Both Labyrinth and Bowled Over were listed in the Journal of Commonwealth Literature * ''Labyrinth – a novel about the Software Industry'' (iUniverse, Inc. 5 June 2006) (First published by Writers Workshop (publisher), Writers Workshop Indi

"True picture of the Indian workplace" – Book Review India, vol 30 No 7 July 6 Book Review India
* His writing also appears alongside luminaries like

Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh FKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write '' Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 ( ...

and

Pritish Nandy Pritish Nandy (15 January 1951 – 8 January 2025) was an Indian poet, painter, journalist, politician, media and television personality, animal activist and maker of films, television and streaming content. He was a parliamentarian in the Ra ...

in ''Lessons on Lessons '' – a collection of essays on the insights gained from the biographical work ''Lessons'' by

P. Lal Purushottama Lal (28 August 1929 – 3 November 2010), commonly known as P. Lal, was an Indian poet, author, translator, professor and publisher. He was the founder of publishing firm Writers Workshop in Calcutta, established in 1958. Life an ...

References

External links

Author's home page at CricketCountry

Author's home page at Scoreline
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sengupta, Arunabha 1973 births Living people Indian male novelists Cricket writers