AND so to India.
I’m on my latest passage to cover the I League for Zee Sports, the company that’s pouring millions into Twenty20 cricket – not that too many rupees are coming my way!
The I League is soccer’s latest professional set-up and the second season has just got under way with gloriously named clubs like Churchill Brothers and Mohan Began.
My co-commentator is a delightful chap by the name of Syed Sabir Pasha, a former international striker – 60-odd caps, 30-odd goals – a sort of Indian Gary Lineker.
The only difference is that Pasha, as he likes to be called, is a Muslim who adheres to very strict disciplines.
His religious beliefs demand that he prays five times a day, he has to go to a mosque on Fridays, and as he’s fasting at the moment he eats at 4 o’clock in the morning and about 6.30 in the evening.
It all depends on sunrises and sunsets and can be as specific as 6.41 for the evening meal.
I pointed out to him that the first three games we covered together kicked off at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and he’s scheduled to pray at 5 o’clock.
I was fearing long periods of silence, but he reassured me that the prayers can be long or short, so he would make the 5 o’clock one as brief as possible!
NO matter how many times I come to India I never cease to be amazed by the fervour for cricket among women!
The lady who came to clean my room yesterday morning was keen to elicit my opinion on whether Mahendra Singh Dhoni or Anil Kumble was best suited to captain India in the forthcoming Test matches against Australia.
If that was not sufficiently gobsmacking, she then launched into a tirade about the lbw law, and she wasn’t talking laundry before Wednesday!
She reckons if the ball is going to hit the stumps, no matter where it’s pitched or if the batsman has got outside the line, he should be given out.
I’ve got her number if the ICC is interested!
