The Oriental Cricket Club was a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

club established by the

Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...

community in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

in 1848. The origins of Indian Cricket, that is, cricket played by Indians are to be found in Bombay and the first Indian community to start playing the game was the small community of Zoroastrians, the Parsi. The Parsi community viewed these clubs as a way of cementing ties with the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

colonial powers. They were sponsored by Parsi businessmen like the Wadias and the Tatas. Though the club was the first to be organised by Indians, it was closed a few years later. The Parsis were the first to start the cricket in India because they were in close contacts with the Imperial British, as they were interested in trade. The British offered no help to the enthusiastic Parsis.

References

The South AsianNCERT
Indian club cricket teams Cricket clubs established in 1848 1848 establishments in British India {{India-cricket-team-stub