C. L. R. James was born in Caroni, Trinidad, to Robert Alexander James and Ida Elizabeth Rudder. The family moved to Tunapuna, where James' friend Malcolm Nurse (George Padmore) lived. After graduating from Queen’s Royal College he pursued a writing career, publishing the short story ‘La Divina Pastora’ in 1927. At a similar time, he befriended the cricketer Learie Constantine, who moved to England in 1929. On his arrival in England in early 1932 James stayed with Constantine in Nelson, Lancashire, before moving to London in 1933.

James' collection of essays written for the Port of Spain Gazette shortly after his arrival in Britain (published as Letters from London, 2003) indicate his position on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group. In London, he was invited to join the Friends of India Society and to lecture on any subject connected with the West Indies at the Indian Students’ Central Association. James also attended several meetings of the India League. He began to read the work of Marx, Lenin, Engels and Trotsky and merged his interest in black politics with Marxist theory. He joined the League of Coloured Peoples, which also had a South Asian membership at this point, and wrote for their journal The Keys. He associated with other black anti-colonialists of the time, such as George Padmore, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Ras Makonnen. As a Trotskyist, James attracted the attention of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. A 1937 Special Branch report shows that James was a regular visitor to Balkrishna Gupta, an Indian Trotskyist who was reportedly linked to Nehru. In 1938, James was living with Ajit Mookerjee (Ajit Roy), a Trotskyist law student at LSE and friend of Gupta, on Boundary Road, London. James and Mookerjee formed the Marxist Group in 1935 and later the Revolutionary Socialist League. In 1936, James' play Toussaint L’Ouverture was staged at the Westminster Theatre with Paul Robeson in the title role. James was also the cricket reporter for the Manchester Guardian from 1933 to 1935 and the Glasgow Herald in 1936. He was a fan of cricketer Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji and wrote about him both in his journalism and at length in his work Beyond a Boundary (1963).

In 1938, James left Britain for the United States where he stayed for the next fifteen years. In 1952, he was interned at Ellis Island for passport violations, and upon release in 1953 he went back to England before relocating to Trinidad in 1958. In 1962, he returned once again to England, settling in London for the majority of his remaining years. He died in his Brixton home on 31 May 1989.

Born in 1891, Bhupinder Singh was put on the throne of Patiala State in 1901, a year after his father died. Patiala State was a Sikh Princely State in the Punjab. Bhupinder Singh was educated at Aitchison Chief's College in Lahore and was a talented polo and cricket player. In 1911, the Maharaja of Patiala captained the India XI that toured England. He played for various teams in India and as a member of the Marylebone Cricket Club for the season 1926/7. He contributed generously to the Indian Gymkhana Club in London which catered for Indian students and which with his donation was able to move to Osterley Park. He also founded the Sikh Dharamsala in Putney in 1911 (which later moved to Shepherd's Bush).

The famous ‘Patiala Necklace’, one of the most expensive pieces of jewellery ever made, was created for him by the house of Cartier in 1928. Besides his passions for beautiful women (he married ten times and had eighty-eight children) and sparkling gems, the Maharaja’s addiction to the prestigious Rolls-Royce Motor car practically kept the firm in business. In his garage at Moti Bagh, Patiala, the Maharaja had forty-four Rolls-Royces, all especially built for him.

Bhupinder Singh was extremely loyal to the British empire. In October 1914, he left Patiala with his Imperial Service Troops and headed for the Western Front to command his troops there for the British. However, on the journey over he was beset by ill-health and had to return to India. He did though donate his troops to the First World War and spearheaded a large recruitment drive for volunteers. Patiala State sent more than 28,000 men to fight in the war and their involvement encouraged other Sikhs in the Punjab to volunteer; nearly 89,000 Sikhs were involved in the war. The total financial contribution of Patiala to the war in terms of material and cash was Rs 1,17,16,822/6/2. Singh was a member of the Imperial War Council in 1918. After the Armistice, he was appointed Honorary Colonel of 1/140th Patiala Infantry, and had already been appointed Honorary Colonel of the 15th Sikhs. Singh was given Freedom of the City of Cardiff in 1918 and Freedom of Edinburgh in 1935. He was given the keys to Brighton in 1921 and unveiled the Southern Gateway of the Royal Pavilion there in October 1921, a gift from Indian princes for the kindness of Brighton to their wounded soldiers during the war.

Singh was awarded the GCIE in 1911, the GBE in 1918, the GCSI in 1921 and the GCVO in 1922. He also served as a representative of India at the League of Nations assembly in 1925. In 1919, during the 'Amritsar Massacre', the Maharaja gave aid to the British. Sir Michael O'Dwyer, Governor of the Punjab, remembers this assistance in his autobiography and his obituary of the Maharaja for The Times. His eldest son, Yadavindra Singh, succeeded him to the throne when he died in March 1938 in Patiala.

Duleepsinhji, the nephew of the cricketer Ranjitsinhji, was also a cricketer who played for England. He was born into the Princely State of Kathiawar. He arrived in Britain in 1921 and was educated at Cheltenham College and Cambridge. Duleepsinhji played for the Cheltenham XI from 1921 to 1923. He played cricket for Cambridge from 1925 to 1927 (gaining a Blue), and for Sussex from 1926 to 1931. He was captain of Sussex in 1931 and 1932. He played for England in twelve test matches and scored a century on his debut against Australia. However, in 1929, Duleepsinhji was not selected to play against South Africa after the first test, an omission that he believed was because some South African politicians did not want to see their team to concede runs to a man of colour. His career was beset by illness and he was forced to retire in 1931.

Duleepsinhji joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1949 and served as India High Commissioner in Australia and New Zealand.

Iftikhar Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi, is the only Test cricketer to have played for both England and India. Born into the princely family of Pataudi, in the Punjab (approximately 53 miles away from Delhi), he arrived in Britain in 1926 to further his education. He joined Balliol College, Oxford, in 1927 and won hockey and cricketing blues for the University. In a notorious incident playing in the 1931 match against Cambridge, A. Ratcliffe of Cambridge set a new record for the University Match with 201 runs. Pataudi declared that he would beat that record and did exactly that in the next innings, scoring 238 not out. This record stood until 2005.

Pataudi made the England squad for the infamous Bodyline series tour of Australia in 1932-3. On his Ashes and Test debut, he scored a century, but was dropped after the second test. He only played three tests for England, with a recall in one of the Ashes tests in 1934. Pataudi returned to India and had a chance to captain India in 1936, but withdrew from the series against England. In 1946, he did captain India against England, but he was 36 years old by then.

In 1931, Iftikhar was formally installed as ruler, Nawab, of Pataudi. After Indian independence in 1947, he gave up the principality and worked for the Indian Foreign Office. He died in 1952, while playing polo, in Delhi, leaving his wife, Sajida Sultan, the daughter of the Nawab of Bhopal, three daughters, and an eleven-year old son, Mansur, who would become one of India's greatest cricketing captains.

Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji was a cricketer for England and a Prince of Nawanagar State in India, known as 'Ranji' to his cricketing fans. As a child, he was chosen as heir to a distant relative, Vibhaji, the Jam Sahib of Navanagar, but then discarded. He studied at the Rajkumar College in Rajkot and then in 1888, at sixteen, Ranjitsinhji went to Britain. He joined Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1889. It was not until 1893, having played in the meantime for local clubs on 'Parker's Piece', that Ranji gained a place in the Cambridge University cricket team. He was the first Indian to win a cricket Blue. In 1895, Ranji began to play regularly for Sussex. Having faced opposition to his inclusion into the University side, there was now a growing public debate as to whether Ranji should be allowed to play for the England national side. In 1896, Ranji made his debut for England against Australia at Old Trafford. In 1897, Ranjitsinhji produced a book on the evolution of cricket in England called The Jubilee Book of Cricket. In the winter of 1897-8, Ranji toured Australia with the England team.

In 1904, Ranji returned to India as he was no longer playing for England and could not financially support himself in Britain. However, he continued to return to England at regular intervals and play for Sussex. In 1906, the new Jam Sahib of Navanagar, the son of Vibhaji, died and with no other formal heir, Ranjitsinhji assumed the throne. When war broke out in 1914, Ranji helped the imperial effort, by converting his house in Staines into a hospital for wounded soldiers, by donating troops from Navanagar and going to the Western Front himself. Ranji also had a lakeside castle at Ballynahinch, on the west coast of Ireland. In August 1915, he lost his right eye in a shooting accident in Yorkshire, and played his last game for Sussex in 1920. As an Indian Prince, Ranjitsinhji took up many political responsibilities: he represented India twice at the League of Nations, and was a delegate to the Round Table Conference sessions in 1930. He died in 1933 in one of his palaces in Jamnagar.

Jahangir Khan was a cricketer who played for India and, after independence, for Pakistan. He was selected for India's first test match tour of England in 1932. After the tour, he stayed in England to study for a doctorate at Cambridge University. He was called to the Bar from Middle Temple. While at Cambridge Khan continued playing cricket, winning Blues in all four years. He also made two appearances in Gentlemen v Players matches. In 1935 he played for the Indian Gymkhana, scoring 1380 runs in two months. He played in the three tests of India's 1936 tour of England. Khan is famous for the sparrow incident in 1936 when he was playing for the university against MCC. While bowling to T. N. Pearce, the ball struck and killed a sparrow, which was subsequently stuffed and is now displayed in the museum at Lord's cricket ground. Khan retired from test cricket in 1956.