Rebranding The Game: Cricket Gets A Sanatan Spin

On a warm March afternoon at Indore’s Nehru Stadium, cricket looked slightly different. There were the usual sounds, bat on ball, appeals, laughter, but also saffron robes, religious chants, and a set of ideas that stretched well beyond the boundary rope.

The Sanatan Premier League (SPL), in its inaugural 2026 edition, is not just another entry into India’s crowded ecosystem of local cricket tournaments. It is, at once, a sporting event, a cultural statement, and a project with ambitions that goes far beyond cricket. 

The T-10 tennis ball tournament features eight teams, each named after historical or cultural icons: Rani Lakshmibai Strikers, Chandra Shekhar Azad Thunders, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Lions, Maharana Pratap Ranbakure, Dravid Chola Rockers, Chhatrapati Shivaji Warriors, Ahilya Mata Guardians, among others. 

In India, the phrase “cricket is religion” has long been used casually, almost affectionately. The SPL seems to take that metaphor and gently, but decisively, remove the quotation marks. Because here, religion is not an undercurrent. It is the framework. Teams are named after historical Hindu icons. The organisers speak of passing on “values” to youth. 

"It was Maharaj ji’s idea to connect Sanatan with cricket," said Sunendra Tiwari, chief advisor and organiser of the league, referring to self-styled spirtual preacher Devkinandan Thakur.

The Pitch: Access, Opportunity, And Visibility

Trials were conducted in 8 states –  Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh—drawing players largely from local and tennis-ball cricket circuits. 

For many young players, especially those from smaller towns and villages, this was less about ideology and more about opportunity.

Organisers pitched the league as a platform for “young cricketers, particularly those playing in local and tennis ball leagues, to showcase their talent.” 

The age limit, however, stretched from 15 to 40 years. Selections were free, and open registrations drew crowds of up to 1,500–1,800 participants in some cities.

Players, according to Tiwari, many from villages and small towns, were brought into camps, given kits, accommodation, and even “exposure” on television.

Matches were broadcast on Sony, DD Sports, and digital platforms. 

For players used to dusty grounds and informal leagues, the experience mimicked professional cricket: national anthems, floodlights installed within weeks, live commentary, and prize money. 

30-year-old Lakshmi Narayan Gurjar, a police constable in Rajasthan Police, who was also the captain of the Maharana Pratap Ranbakure, said that he always had interest in cricket and had played at district level but never got a chance to go further than that. 

“The platform was huge. Many players came from small villages and towns.

The biggest thing was that everything was free. Poor players who couldn’t afford big leagues got a chance to show their talent. There were photoshoots, matches were live-streamed, even on DD Sports,” he added while speaking to Outlook. 

The scale of the league was far from modest. Organisers estimate that nearly ₹20 crore went into putting the tournament together, backed by around 32 sponsors, with H&S (Home & Soul)  as the title sponsor and additional corporate support from brands such as Investors Clinic and KEI Wires. 

The financial outlay was visible not just in the production but also in the rewards: winning teams took home prize money running into lakhs, standout players were awarded cars and bikes, and even participation came with a payout of ₹11,000 per player.

For many, it was their first brush with visibility. As one of the coaches who has also played Ranji trophy puts it, children from “villages, conservative areas, poor backgrounds…at least they are getting a chance to come on TV.” Former India players, including Piyush Chawla and Mohit Sharma, who also attended few of these matches, echoed this sentiment.

And that part is difficult to dismiss. Cricket in India is aspirational, but also expensive. Coaching academies, equipment, travel—entry often comes at a cost. Here, participation was free, and selection came from the kind of gully and local leagues that rarely feed directly into professional circuits.

In a country where millions grow up believing cricket is a path out of poverty, the SPL offered, at least on paper, a door, however narrow.

Calling it a ‘commercial gimmick’, veteran sports journalist Soumitra Bose is blunt in his assessment.

“It is not serious cricket. Tennis ball cricket is what we play in our gullies,” he said. He also pointed out that claims of offering opportunities to players from far-flung areas implicitly suggest that the existing system, which the BCCI, the national cricket body, is not doing its job. “You must understand how BCCI works—networking is fantastic. It has reached every corner of India, through state associations they do a fabulous job,” he said.

The BCCI, he argued, has made cricket a lucrative ecosystem where even those who never play for India can build careers.

Cricket, But With A Civilisational back story 

At the centre of it all is preacher Devkinandan Thakur, who inaugurated the league on March 12. In his telling, cricket itself may not quite belong to where we think it does.

“Many people say cricket is a British game,” he said at the opening, “but the Bhagwat Gita mentions Lord Krishna striking a ball with a bat… then how can it be called a British game?”

It is a claim that lands somewhere between reinterpretation and reinvention, much like the league itself. 

The league’s defining image, however, was not a cover drive or a yorker. It was the sight of self-styled religious leaders playing cricket. In a closing exhibition match, saints traded sermons for bats in a five-over game against former international players. Thakur himself scored 62 off 25 balls, leading his side to a 10-wicket win. 

Alongside him were figures like Pradeep Mishra, Indresh Upadhyay, and Sadanand Saraswati, names more familiar from religious congregations than cricket scorecards. Former cricketers such as Suresh Raina, Madan Lal, and Chetan Sharma were also associated with the league, lending it a degree of sporting legitimacy.

It made for good optics. It also raised a more complicated question: what exactly was being played here—cricket, culture, or something in between?

The presence of religious leaders is not incidental; it is central. “Every society wants to pass its values on to the youth. We also want to do the same,” Thakur said.

Players were not just coached, they were addressed through sermons about avoiding alcohol, smoking, and “staying on the right path.” One slogan used during the league captured the fusion neatly. “Where there is cricket, there is enthusiasm; where there is Sanatan, there are values,” said Lakshmi Narayan, a player from Rajasthan who led his team to victory.

But what exactly is being invoked when organisers use the term “Sanatan”?

Historian and author  Anirudh Kanisetti points out that the idea itself is not as ancient or fixed as it is often presented. The term, he says, is largely absent in medieval inscriptions or political vocabulary. “You don’t see kings saying they are defending Sanatan Dharma,” he noted, adding that religious identities in pre-modern India were far more fluid and overlapping.

What the term does today, he suggests, is to “engulf all these histories” into a single, unified narrative. In that sense, it becomes less a historical category and more a modern construct—“a concept of the early 20th century,” closely tied to the rise of nationalist and Hindutva thought.

Kanisetti describes it as a kind of language, one that offers “a vocabulary of symbols, myths and identity.” That language, he argues, becomes especially powerful when attached to spaces that already carry emotional weight. “Things like cricket or film already have positive associations,” he said. “When you plug this language into them, it creates a very powerful cultural pull.”

That pull, he adds, is not accidental. It draws from a broader playbook, one that provides belonging, identity, and, at times, a sense of opposition. For younger audiences especially, it can act as “a funnel for aspiration, identity… and sometimes even anger.”

Thakur is not just a religious preacher; he is also a polarising public voice. His speeches frequently touch on issues of identity, demography, and religious mobilisation.

In one widely circulated address, he said, “Muslim children remain Muslim… but Hindu children do not remain Hindu,” framing it as a crisis within the Hindu community.

He has also advocated for institutional measures like a “Sanatan Board” to safeguard Hindu interests, and spoken about the condition of Hindus globally in ways that invoke a sense of collective threat.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) ordered Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to release Bangladeshi pacer Mustafizur Rahman from their 2026 IPL squad on January 3, 2026, due to intense political tensions and strained bilateral relations. Bought for ₹9.20 crore, his removal followed backlash in India over reported attacks on minorities in Bangladesh. 

Speaking on this as well, he said, “In Bangladesh, Hindus are being brutally murdered… their homes are being burned, and their sisters and daughters are being raped,” before questioning how a team could include a cricketer from that country.

That argument has not gone uncontested. Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, “I honestly don't think cricket should be made to carry the burden of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh.” A cricketer, he added, “has nothing to do with any of these things… he is a sportsman, and mixing these two things is simply not fair.”

Against that backdrop, the SPL begins to look less like an isolated sporting initiative and more like part of a continuum—a softer, more accessible extension of a larger ideological project.

Mixing Sports and Religion

For many observers, this blending is precisely the problem. Bose questions the mixing of moral messaging with sport. “Are you trying to preach religion or are you trying to play sports seriously?” he asked, pointing to the league’s emphasis on behavioural pledges. 

More fundamentally, he argued, sport by its nature does not classify. “The biggest thing about sport is it does not differentiate between caste or creed or religion—that is the beauty of sport,” he said. To call something “Sanatan,” he added, is already to draw a line. “We are a secular country… does it mean that a certain section of people from a different religion should be treated as outcasts?” he asked. 

Journalist Sharda Ugra, meanwhile, pointed to the optics and scale. “There have always been leagues formed on the basis of community, religion, profession, caste,” she said, but what makes this different is the platform. “When it’s on a national channel like this, it becomes a statement.” The key question, she suggested, is intent: what is the catchment area, what is the end game, and where do players go from here?

“I don’t think this is a pathway,” she said. “It’s using the game to make a statement—a political statement, a cultural statement, a religious statement. You are not doing it for cricket.”

Tiwari, however, maintains that the league was open to everyone irrespective of religion, even if most participants ended up being Hindu and no Muslim players featured. For him, the purpose remains clear: “It’s about giving opportunities, guiding youth, and creating a platform.”

There was also a social component. Organisers announced that ₹500 would be donated for every run scored to support acid attack survivors. Around 2,200 runs were scored, and approximately ₹11 lakh was donated to an organisation working with such women. Tiwari said that this year, “we focused on supporting women financially,” adding while being unsure whether future editions could include a women’s league.

Top-level umpires, coaches, and commentators were brought in to give players the feel of a major tournament. “We provide the platform. After that, performance matters. They can move to district, state, IPL, or even India level,” Tiwari said, drawing a parallel with larger leagues. The difference, he emphasised, is that SPL focuses on “completely new players, unknown talent—we want to make them famous.”

Yet, questions about intent and trajectory remain. As Ugra pointed out, even the timing of the tournament, just ahead of the IPL, does little to connect it to existing scouting pathways. “I’ll be very happy if someone gets a contract from that league,” she said, but added that tennis-ball tournaments take place across the country all the time, what makes this one different is not cricketing value, but visibility.

And perhaps that is where the SPL ultimately sits, at the intersection of aspiration and assertion, opportunity and ideology, sport and something that is not quite sport.

“We didn’t see Krishna playing cricket,” Bose, meanwhile, points out. “But we have seen Gavaskar and we have seen Tendulkar.”