March 23, 2006
Ring of Fire
Posted by John Stern on 03/23/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
Freddie Flintoff loves his music and he loves singing. More specifically, he loves his rock ‘n’ roll and is not averse to a burst of Elvis Presley’s ‘Suspicious Minds’.
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March 22, 2006
Sachin puts his hand up
Posted by John Stern on 03/22/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
Duncan Fletcher’s public utterances are few and far between and rarely memorable. But there is usually a waspish sting in the tail.
Last night he was being lightly grilled about England’s dilatory run rate as they attempted to set India a target. Having explained how hard it was for the batsmen, the coach said: “In Pakistan we were told we scoring too quickly and that we needed to be more patient. Now we’re scoring too slowly. It’s pretty hard to please you people.”
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March 21, 2006
Call the Engineer
Posted by John Stern on 03/21/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
After the hoo-ha about the booing of Sachin Tendulkar, the Wankhede crowd again came under scrutiny yesterday.
Midway through the afternoon, Farokh Engineer, the India and Lancashire wicket-keeper from the 60s and 70s, took it upon himself to make an announcement to the assembled media.
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March 19, 2006
Naming ceremony
Posted by John Stern on 03/19/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
Cricketers are not known for their attention to detail. That particular discipline is left to pedants like us.
So it was something of a surprise when S Sreesanth decided he wanted a second bite at the cherry of the end-of-day media conference. Having taken 4 for 70, he was the designated Indian player to face the hacks and he said all the right things in a gentle inquisition that lasted all of ten minutes or so.
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March 18, 2006
Slaying the Beast
Posted by John Stern on 03/18/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
If you’re a bat geek (that’s as in willow rather than Bruce Wayne) you might know that Kookaburra’s bat the ‘Beast’ was recently deemed illegal by MCC, the arbiter of cricket’s Laws, because it had a graphite strip down the back of the blade.
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March 17, 2006
Better Fred than read
Posted by John Stern on 03/17/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
Virgin Atlantic do their best to alleviate the fidgety tedium of a long-haul flight with some half-decent movies, some re-heated but generally top-notch comedy and a bunch of music channels to suit most tastes.
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March 15, 2006
Happy Holi
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/15/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
So goodbye India. I flew away from Delhi today with memories of a fascinating country where cricket has become as big as football in the UK – with all the associated plusses and pitfalls. Where enthusiasm for the game is such that Greg Chappell receiving an email is news. Where the money involved is massive – and likely to get bigger under the current regime. Where there is a gap between the old school of players – the Tendulkars, the Dravids and the Kumbles – and a brasher new generation, some of whom, such as Zaheer Khan, seem to have let success go to their head – just like young Premiership stars.
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March 13, 2006
The ghost of Botham's mother-in-law
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/13/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
So England lose the Test and with it, most likely, the series. It will be a hell of an effort to win in Mumbai, traditionally a turner.
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March 10, 2006
Kit off is not on
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/10/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
The front page of today’s local section in the Hindustan Times shows a sneering blonde English ladette giving the cameraman the bird.
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March 9, 2006
Of pylons and pilots
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/09/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
The Punjab Cricket Association stadium rose from the Mohali swamp 12 years ago. Tidy and well-appointed, it stands as a glass-and-concrete monument to Punjabi affluence.
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March 8, 2006
Sidhu hits parliament for six
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/08/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
I discover today that the MP for the nearby city of Amritsar is Navjot Singh Sidhu – the Indian opening batsman turned TV commentator, famous for tonking John Emburey for nine sixes in a match. This is an intriguing thought for anyone familiar with Sidhu’s commentary, where he played just as many shots as on the field.
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March 7, 2006
The Chandigarh super womble
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/07/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
So, goodbye Nagpur, hello Chandigarh. The capital of two northern states (Punjab and Haryana, predominantly Sikh and Hindu respectively), Chandigarh was designed on a grid pattern in the 1950s by Le Corbusier – a French modernist architect who liked concrete. A lot. Given that the city’s parliament building is rumoured to have been inspired by a power station, it’s rather nice really, all wide boulevards, neat flower beds and green leaves. A little like Milton Keynes with red flame trees.
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March 6, 2006
The circus has left town
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/06/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
The circus has left town. The players are long gone. Most of the commentators, reporters and fans flew out today, leaving me and a handful of others. The tourist bars and restaurants are suddenly empty and silent. Nagpur’s cash bonanza is over.
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March 5, 2006
Chappell receives email: hold the front page
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/05/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
A friend of mine once came to Calcutta to teach small Indian schoolchildren. He began with some UK geography, asking his eager pupils to name a city in England which he would then point out on a map. ‘London’, came the first reply. ‘Very good’ said Mark, pointing to the Thames estuary. ‘Birmingham’ said another, at which my friend was impressed because these were young children. Then a third stuck his hand up. ‘Taunton’ he called out. Bewildered, Mark said, yes, Taunton was indeed in England, but how on earth had the lad known about it. He should have guessed: ‘Taunton sir – India v England, 1999 World Cup.’
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March 4, 2006
Yozzer's win-ometer
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/04/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
Although his stint as Channel 4 TV’s Analyst ended last summer, Simon Hughes is in India for the Daily Telegraph and continues to come up with sparky technical innovations. The latest is a ‘win-ometer’ on the Telegraph website; Yozzer produces regular updates on which side he reckons the match is swinging towards and the needle on the win-ometer moves accordingly.
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March 3, 2006
Eight and a half on the roar-ometer
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/03/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
The bass-heavy tannoy boomed. The crowd drummed on the stands and roared, teaming across the terraces with the Indian tricolour streaming behind them like ensigns on a fleet of speedboats. And from the pavilion emerged … not Sachin but MS Dhoni, the Indian wicketkeeper and pyrotechnic batsman.
For years the English have equated the Indian batting with Dravid, Laxman and above all Tendulkar – all members of the team immortalised by the miracle comeback to beat Australia in 2000-01.
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March 2, 2006
Breakdancing bowler a sign of the times
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/02/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
I discover today that the young Indian quick bowler Sri Sreesanth is a former breakdancing champion. Now I’m no expert but to the best of my knowledge Sunil Gavaskar was not often seen ‘busting some moves on the dancefloor’. And Javagal Srinath, I’m reliably informed, was not a master of the Michael Jackson-style moonwalk.
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March 1, 2006
Blackie: a local hero a long way from home
Posted by Paul Coupar on 03/01/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
For me a sleepy but significant day’s cricket was enlivened by the Test debut of Ian Blackwell. You see Blackie and I first met over a french fry fight at an eighth birthday party in McDonalds and later went to school together at Brookfield Community School in Chesterfield, a red-brick and pint-of-bitter town in northern England.
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February 28, 2006
The Last Flight to Nagpur
Posted by Paul Coupar on 02/28/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
India has many many fine towns and cities but Nagpur is not one of them. A nondescript industrial sprawl 800 kilometres east of the coast at Mumbai, it's bang in the middle of the country but very far from the nation’s heart. The town is unremarkable, largely unloved and famous in cricketing circles for having produced the odd outrageous greentop. It is, in fact, the Derby of India. Which, a cynic would tell you, is exactly why Jagmohan Dalmiya chose it for the First Test – revenge for all those years of English slights, perceived and real.
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February 27, 2006
Send for Nasser
Posted by Paul Coupar on 02/27/2006 in England in India, 2005-06
Today Nasser Hussain and Mike Atherton, in India on Sky TV duty, slipped almost unnoticed through a busy airport and out into Mumbai, a money-making city of muggy sunshine and honking horns. Which made you wonder: is it just a lazy cliché to say that cricket’s ‘like a religion on the subcontinent’. Then, just as I had that thought, my bubbly taxi driver excitedly pointed out Hussain, started a detailed and unprompted analysis of his captaincy, asked me about Alastair Cook, and reeled off the exact scores that Dravid and Laxman made in the Eden Gardens Aussie-bashing of 2000-01. Later, I checked the scorecard. He was dead right.
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