Sport

Jan 8, 2008

India in denial

The Guardian, Comment is Free 8 January Harbhajan Singh’s three match-ban from Test cricket for his alleged on-field racist abuse of Australian Andrew Symonds has elicited howls of outrage from Indian cricketers, the Indian cricket board (BCCI) and the Indian media. This morning the story is in banner headlines on the front page of every… Read more

Dec 3, 2007

Bend it like Murali

It is for his dignity as much as his wizardry that we should salute the Tamil’s historic feat December 3, 2007 The Guardian By the time you read this, Muttiah Muralitharan is likely to have become the highest Test wicket taker in cricket’s long history. It’s an extraordinary, heartwarming achievement that will be celebrated at… Read more

Sep 30, 2007

London’s Olympic reverie

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 30 September Four miles from my doorstep lies one of Europe’s largest construction sites: 500 acres to be transformed into an Olympic Park and Village in time for the 2012 Games. At the moment, it’s a wasteland. A few hundred tenants have been evicted from a council estate. Nineteenth century… Read more

Jul 1, 2007

Boundary buster commemorated

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 1 July It’s rare that a fashion item makes the slightest impression on me, but I have to confess to being childishly delighted by a purchase I recently made over the internet. It’s a tee-shirt emblazoned with CLR James’s ever-pertinent rhetorical question: What do they know of cricket who only… Read more

Apr 8, 2007

Giants and minnows

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 8 April IN a recent debate over the role of the minnows in the World Cup, BBC Radio’s chief cricket correspondent, Jonathan Agnew, argued that in order to ensure the greater public got to see what it most wanted to see (notably an India-Pakistan match) the minnows should be excluded… Read more

Mar 26, 2007

This innuendo about the Pakistan team is a disgrace

Reaction to the murder of cricket coach Bob Woolmer has more to do with stereotyping and hyperbole than the facts The Guardian, 26 March It is a serious matter – as umpire Darrell Hair found out – to accuse a team, purely on the basis of supposition, of cheating to win a cricket match. It… Read more

Mar 11, 2007

Raising the curtain on the World Cup

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 11 March IN sharp contrast with the situation in India, the run-up to the World Cup in England has been a muted affair. This is partly because cricket just doesn’t carry the weight in its native land that it carries in South Asia. Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool et al,… Read more

Dec 31, 2006

A magician bows out

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 31 December IN the final scene of the film, the wounded gunfighter (played by Alan Ladd) rides off into the distance as the hero-worshipping eight-year-old boy (played by Brandon de Wilde) cries after him: “Shane, Shane, come back!” Before it became a popular boys name down under, “Shane” was most… Read more

Oct 1, 2006

Who’s afraid of the Asian bloc?

India Today, Champions Trophy Collectors Edition, October 2006 In the course of the this year’s Lord’s annual lecture on the ‘Spirit of Cricket’, Martin Crowe gave vent to what he clearly considered home truths about the state of the global game. “Let’s face it – Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are being kept on the international stage… Read more

Sep 2, 2006

Chronicle of an obsession

Review: You Must Like Cricket? Memoirs of an Indian Cricket Fan by Soumya Bhattacharya (Yellow Jersey Press). [An edited version of this review appeared in The Guardian, 2 September] Like Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, Soumya Bhattacharya’s memoir is an intimate, often wry account of “thirty years of following a team. Three decades of highs and… Read more