Mihir Bose's Blog, page 35

Green Park Jeremiad – what has happened to Indian cricket

Outlook Magazine

Its top tier may be gilded, but Indian cricket’s base is rotting away

Just over a year ago I was in Kanpur, researching a book on how India has changed since the midnight of August 15, 1947. When I arrived, I was told UP was playing a Ranji Trophy match at the Green Park and I felt the gods were smiling on me. For us, the midnight’s children generation, Green Park is one of the most romantic names in cricket. There, just before Christmas 1959, India beat Australia for the very first time. The news made the front page of the Times of India, with dear old K.N. Prabhu writing, “Let the trumpets sound, the drums roll. Let the herald angels sing”.

And how we sang. In the following Test in my home town Bombay, as Abbas Ali Baig scored a second successive 50 to save India from defeat, a girl rushed out from CCI’s North Stand and kissed him on the cheek. But that day, what I saw at Green Park was utterly soul-destroying.

There’s no reason Crystal Palace can’t cement itself as a Europa League challenging club, insists Steve Parish

Not surprisingly, Neil Warnock was a very happy man on Sunday night after Crystal Palace breezed past Liverpool. The Palace manager had not had much to smile about over the previous month or so but the 3-1 win ended a spell of five games without a victory.

At times during that run Warnock found it hard to contain his emotions, with referees often the focus of his anger; he was fined £9,000 by the Football Association for accusing official Craig Pawson of being influenced by Chelsea players.

Grow up Europe. You cannot change FIFA on your own

The row that has erupted over FIFA's handling of the much trumpeted Michael Garcia report on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup means we are once again seeing a re-run of what is now sports oldest soap opera: how shall we reform FIFA? It is not often that bad movies get so many repeat showings, even on a dank, dull, evening in Bognor. But then this is FIFA - an organisation where the past is not a foreign country but one that is always being revisited.

And it is no surprise that some of the suggestions for change are also some very old and very corny ideas. They have had much publicity but you can be sure it will not lead to any material change in how the house of football in Zurich is run. So we have had letters from FA chairman Greg Dyke to each of the FIFA executive members demanding that FIFA publish the Garcia report in full.

For Dyke to write such a letter is astounding. The FIFA executive has no power over the report as it has been prepared by the ethics committee, a body which is at arms length from the executive. In fact in that sense the ethics committee is not much different from the FA's own disciplinary body which sanctions misdemeanours in English football. That body, as the FA always reminds us, is very distinct from the FA board let alone the FA council. Totally separate, totally independent, we kept being told. Any attempt to get the FA board or council to intervene is always rejected on the grounds that this would violate how the FA operates. So how can the FIFA executive intervene in a body over which it is not supposed to have any control? I would be surprised if Dyke did not know this. I suspect he and the FA hierarchy felt that he had to write this letter to show he was making a response and, probably, comforted himself with the thought that it would prove a great sound byte. It has. But it will lead to nothing.

‘It’s been very tough, some of the personal jibes have been hurtful’ – pilloried boss Alan Pardew on riding the Newcastle storm

Alan Pardew has been fighting fires at Newcastle all season. It is apt, then, that during our interview at a London hotel the fire alarm goes off.

A friendly member of staff whispers in his ear that there is nothing to worry about — it’s only a drill — but back in the North East goodwill towards the Newcastle manager has been in short supply.

The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football by David Goldblatt; book review

In May 1985 a massed charge by Liverpool fans at rival Juventus supporters at the European Cup Final in Heysel led to 39 deaths.

There were other contributory factors including the dismal state of the ground, thoroughly inept planning by Uefa and the Belgian authorities and the inexperience of the Belgian police. But with the Sunday Times having already pronounced that football was “a slum game played by slum people in slum stadiums” the focus was on the behaviour of the Liverpool fans. Mrs Thatcher apologised to the Italian government and tried hard to force football fans to have identity cards. Thankfully, she failed.

‘It may take 10 years to tackle football’s lack of diversity’ – FA Council member Rimla Akhtar

Five months ago, Rimla Akhtar became the first Muslim woman on the FA Council. In a body which Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, says is “overwhelmingly male and white”, Akhtar is seen as the ideal role model for the Asian community.

But, when I mention this, the 32-year-old chartered accountant smiles and says: “That’s up to others to decide.”

She is one of six women on the 121-strong FA Council, which helps decide major policy for the governing body, and her appointment comes at a time when the lack of diversity in positions of power within the game is a hot topic.

We must make Twickenham a fortress

With only 10 months to go before England kick off the Rugby World Cup on these shores, Chris Robshaw believes now is the time for his side to lay down a crucial marker.

Over the next four weeks, England host the three southern hemisphere powerhouses of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and also take on Samoa.

Why ECA shows football is still failing to make cool judgements

The whole business of the Qatar 2002 World Cup, and when it should be held, has again emphasised why sport, more than any other business, must make sure that it arrives at its decisions after very careful deliberation. Now you may say surely that is true of everything we do. Yes. But sport faces a problem no other business, indeed activity, does. This is that by its very nature people who follow sport tend to make instinctive judgements.

England can win the World Cup, says Ireland legend Brian O’Driscoll

Retired captains are often generous about other teams but Brian O’Driscoll sounds ­genuine when he says: ­“England can win the World Cup. They’ve come a good ­distance under Stuart Lancaster.”

For England to lift the Webb Ellis Cup on home soil next autumn they will first have to finish in the top two of a pool which includes Australia and Wales.

How Kevin Pietersen’s demise unravels a long-held myth of man management

Now you may think that the Kevin Pietersen saga has nothing to tell us about man management except that it is very difficult to cope with big stars. The bigger the ego the greater the clash between the player and the management team. And the very nature of cricket makes this more difficult. Cricket is that unique team game which allows an individual batsman or bowler free reign. A bowler can take all ten opposition wickets without the help of any of his team mates. He could clean bowl a batsman, have him leg before, or catch him of his own bowling. The rest of his team mates have no part in any of these three dismissals and, similarly, a batsman in cricket could make runs entirely through his own individual efforts provided all his scoring strokes are fours or sixes. This would mean he and his partner would not have to cross and get to the other end for a run to be recorded.