Pitched battle
I have been taken aback by the vitriol poured by English cricket writers on the Board of Control for Cricket in India, which is seen as an extension of the government. Simon Wilde questioned India’s competence to stage the Olympics in The Times: “Given that the BCCI has close links to the government here, and India is planning a bid to stage the 2036 Olympic Games, it really should be taking a broader view.”
Reporting from Ahmedabad for The Guardian, Barney Ronay targeted the BCCI secretary, Jay Shah: “The real issue with Shah’s status as unelected world boss is that he appears at first glance to be a prodigy, an administrator of such skill he was able to rise to become head of the BCCI aged just 31, and to do so while, by a startling coincidence, carrying the same surname as Narendra Modi’s right-hand man... Amit Shah, who, in an even more profound coincidence... turns out to be Jay Shah’s dad.” He added: “Jay Shah is essentially a political appointment. The global interests of cricket... are being dictated... by a single political movement within that nation, Modi’s ruling BJP party.”
Following the final on TV, the ‘neutral’ watcher, Alan Tyers, wrote in The Sunday Telegraph that India’s defeat was “for schadenfreude connoisseurs, something of a corrective after all the pre-match nationalistic pomp and circumstance… To see Narendra Modi grumpily watching India lose in the Narendra Modi Stadium… well, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.”
Toxic trait
There is something deeply unpleasant about Suella Braverman. Someone who has been sacked as home secretary is bound to be upset, but her revenge letter to Rishi Sunak was vicious and crossed all bounds of decency. Here is a woman of Indian origin who has made it her life’s mission to keep other Indians, especially students, out of the UK. Since they mostly return home after completing their studies, this has never made sense to me.
Braverman was born in North London in 1980 and did well to get to Queens’ College, Cambridge, where she read law. Her mother, Uma, who is from a Hindu Tamil background, came from Mauritius; her father, Christie Fernandes, who is of Goan-Christian ancestry, is from Kenya. Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman is said to be a Buddhist. She and her husband, Rael Braverman, who is Jewish, have two children. She has a handful of supporters on the far Right of the Conservative parliamentary party. But she has convinced herself that she is prime ministerial material. There is no way rank and file members of the Conservative Party will pick a brown woman. They didn’t vote for Rishi when he was up against Liz Truss — he was the unopposed choice as PM of Tory MPs. She has also been unwise in calling demonstrations in favour of a Gaza ceasefire “hate marches”. Many Jews, especially in America, are calling for a ceasefire.
Mind game
Would the psychological pressure on India have been less had the final against Australia not been played at the Narendra Modi Stadium? Mike Brearley told me, “Cricket is a mind game,” when I had gone to see him about his new book, Turning Over the Pebbles: A Life in Cricket and in the Mind. Having been a successful English captain from 1977 to 1980, he has been a practising psychoanalyst for the past 40 years.
Why did India keep fluffing finals was the question I put to him — and that was before the latest setback. Although strong on paper, they had lost to New Zealand in the inaugural ICC World Test Championship in Southampton in 2021, were beaten by Australia in the World Test Championship at The Oval in June, and upstaged in July by a relatively weak West Indian side in the deciding fifth and final Twenty20 in Florida. Brearley explained: “A side may tighten up on a big occasion, if the expectation is too great. And then if one tightens up, one stops playing as well as one might.”
There has to be a balance “between relaxation and concentration” in order to achieve the best result, he added. It is thus tragic that a couple of young men in India were so distraught that they apparently took their own lives.
Probe deeper
How many people died from Covid in India? How did the government handle the pandemic? Should there be an independent inquiry so that lessons can be learnt for the future? These are relevant questions because an exhaustive UK inquiry, chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett, a no-nonsense former Court of Appeal judge, is examining such modules as Resilience and Preparedness; Core UK Decision-Making and Political Governance; Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Healthcare; and Vaccines and Therapeutics. It has already been revealed that Boris Johnson and some of his senior cabinet ministers did not know a thing about science, and were late in imposing the first lockdown.
