Casting the British in the role of 19th century sports washers is a stretch and a half, even for Ronay. Wherever the British went, either as military conquerors or financial advisors, they set up private schools and sports clubs (principally cricket, but also horse racing and, in Latin America, football). However, they did so not as proselytisers intent on convincing the locals that the British were actually benevolent eccentrics rather than colonisers or oppressors, but rather simply for their own amusement and the benefit of their own kind. A chance for a chap to hit a six, sing a lusty school song and have a be-gowned and sadistic headmaster thrash as many of their bare bottoms as possible in some corner of a foreign field that would be forever England. Wrapped up in their own pomposity, they were semi oblivious to local niceties and certainly not classifiable as ‘sports washers’. Cricket matches in particular were social occasions as much as sports ones, but to the best of my knowledge they weren’t held to deflect attention away from any atrocities British forces may have committed in the vicinity.
Amritsar massacre you say? Quick, build another pavilion and invite the locals along!
