India’s Blades of Glory Museum highlights value of bringing cricket memorabilia to life

There are no signs. In fact, there are no clues that within the given address at the top of a residential street, lies a cricket museum.

The address simply states the third floor of a named apartment block. This is in Sahakara Nagar, about an hour’s drive from the western part of the Indian city of Pune.

There is no one to ask if this is the right place to resolve my quest to visit what has been rated as the world’s largest cricket museum. I have a booked appointment with Rohan Pate, the founder and driving force behind the Blades of Glory Museum.

Eventually, I spy a security guard in a glass-fronted lookout post. He confirms that I am in the right place and that I should take the lift to the third floor. On entering the museum, I am told that Pate is with the Australian team in their hotel in central Pune, but he will return to meet me.

Having just experienced the journey, I brace myself for a wait. In the meantime, I am shown around the museum, which occupies an apartment in one of two blocks developed by the Pate family’s real estate business.

There are real treasures on display to delight any cricket aficionado. Bats wielded by the scorers of triple centuries in men’s Test matches have a prominent place. The display serves as a reminder of how the thickness of bats has changed since Andrew Sandham of Surrey and England scored the first triple hundred in 1930. It took until 1974 for another 10 players to achieve the feat. Since then, the landmark has been breached on 20 occasions.

There is a zone dedicated to Sachin Tendulkar, India’s cricketing icon. It was a present by Tendulkar of one his bats that kindled Pate’s fire to capture other cricketing memorabilia. Another zone celebrates Virat Kohli’s career in