Punjab has produced a long line of Indian cricketers out of proportion to its size: Bishan Singh Bedi of Amritsar, one of the greatest spin bowlers in the game's history and captain of India; Kapil Dev of Chandigarh, who captained India to the 1983 World Cup; Navjot Singh Sidhu; Harbhajan Singh of Jalandhar; Yuvraj Singh of Chandigarh; Shubman Gill of Fazilka district.
Kapil Dev, born in Chandigarh to a family displaced from Rawalpindi in 1947, is the only cricketer to have taken 400 Test wickets and scored 5,000 Test runs.
The stadium at Mohali, opened in 1993, is one of India's main international venues.
Cricket displaced hockey as the game with money and attention in Punjab, as it did everywhere in India, and Punjab's hockey nurseries emptied at about the rate the cricket academies filled.
The Punjab school and district cricket structure now runs largely on private academies, which is a change from the college and railway teams of the earlier period.
Mohali's stadium, opened in 1993, is the state's international ground and it took the fixtures that had been at Chandigarh.
Bishan Singh Bedi bowled slow left arm off a run of four paces and has the most admired bowling action anybody has put on film. He was also the most consistently outspoken cricketer India has produced, on selection, on the board and on fixing, and it cost him every job he might otherwise have had.
Cricket is the urban sport in Punjab. Hockey, kabaddi and wrestling are the village ones, and the money has gone in the other direction.