Pestonji Kanga was an Indian cricketer associated with the early development of the sport in Bombay (now Mumbai). He is remembered as part of the Parsi cricketing community that played a foundational role in Indian cricket during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
| Name | Pestonji Kanga |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Indian |
| Sport | Cricket |
| Community | Parsi |
The Kanga family is well known in Bombay cricket. The most prominent member, Hormasji Dorabji Kanga, was an early India Test-era figure after whom the long-running Kanga League in Mumbai is named. Pestonji Kanga belonged to the same Parsi cricketing milieu, which produced a number of pioneering players who represented teams such as the Parsis in the Bombay Presidency matches that later evolved into the Triangular and Quadrangular tournaments.
Parsi cricketers were among the first Indians to take up the game seriously, forming clubs in Bombay from the mid-nineteenth century. They organised the first Indian cricket tour of England in 1886 and again in 1888, and competed regularly against European teams in the Presidency matches that began in 1892. Players like Pestonji Kanga were part of this broader tradition that helped lay the groundwork for organised Indian cricket and, eventually, for the founding of the Board of Control for Cricket in India in 1928.
Although detailed records of Pestonji Kanga's individual career are limited, his place in the genealogy of Bombay's Parsi cricketing families connects him to a community that shaped the institutional and competitive structure of Indian cricket in its formative decades.