Oval Maidan

This guide to Oval Maidan in Mumbai opens in the 1870s, when a stray cricket ball brushed a European officer's wife and the Parsi cricketers who had played here since the 1840s were expelled from the ground regardless. It follows the Parsis' response, a formal challenge issued to the European-only Bombay Gymkhana in 1877, and the two-day match that followed. From there it traces how that rivalry grew into the Bombay Pentangular, the communal tournament that later drew Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar to these same pitches. Look east to the Victorian Gothic High Court and west to the Art Deco skyline framing the ground.