What do Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Viswanath, Farokh Engineer, B.S. Chandrasekhar, Syed Abid Ali and Chetan Chauhan have in common?
They all played for India in test cricket. That’s not all. Although not all of them achieved the same kind of acclaim, what they share is an esteemed place as inductees in Hartford’s Cricket Hall of Fame. Yes, that’s Hartford in Connecticut. Cricket may not have a high profile in the U.S., but it has legions of fans among immigrant communities, for whom baseball—whatever its charms—will never displace their first love. Hartford, at first glance, seems to be an unlikely location for a cricket museum. Yet it’s probably true that the Northeast’s tristate region has the most vibrant cricket scene in this country.
The latest Indian inductee, Ajit Wadekar, led his team to spectacular, groundbreaking victories against England and the West Indies in the early ’70s. Later that decade, under his captaincy, India suffered a humiliating defeat in the U.K. This Cricket Hall of Fame, which has existed since 1981 (barring a five-year hiatus), also includes many illustrious non-Indian inductees—such as Gary Sobers, Tony Greig and Greg Chappell.