South Asian overs

The World Cup will see different countries wielding willows to vye for the biggest trophy of them all. They shouldn't bother, exults Suveen K Sinha - the future belongs to players from the Indian sub-continent.

Social historian Ramchandra Guha, in his A Corner of A Foreign Field, recounts the paradox that was Ram Manohar Lohia, the socialist leader.

Lohia once held forth to journalists about how cricket stood for the Empire, and how if we threw out Nehru, “the last Englishman to rule India”, we could go back to kabaddi. After the scribes left to file their stories, Lohia walked across to the nearest paanwallah, asked for paan and, chewing it, continued: “Kya Hanif (a doughty Pakistani batsman) out ho gaya kya?”

Cricket, just like numerous other modern sports, originated in England and spread with the Union Jack. Englishmen, from sailors to soldiers to generals, sought to tackle homesickness by indulging in a bit of cricket. (Nirad C Chaudhuri once said that to the Englishman abroad literature was the wife and sport the mistress.) Naturally, when India became free, Anglophobe nationalists wished that the game would leave India’s shores with its erstwhile masters.

In the ensuing years, quite the opposite happened. Cricket, with its emphasis on finesse and skill, its own hierarchy that gelled with the caste system, and intolerance of physical contact, became ingrained in the Indian psyche.

Sociologist Ashish Nandy opens his whimsical book, The Tao of Cricket, with: “Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English. Like chilli, which was discovered in South American and came to India only in medieval times to become an inescapable part of Indian cuisine, cricket, too, is now foreign to India only according to the historians and the Indologists.”

What is unfolding now is a reverse spread of the game. Just like English sailors and soldiers three centuries ago, the South Asian migrants — merchants, shopkeepers, pickle makers, plantation workers and software writers — have become the new missionaries of cricket. Feeding off the immense popular appeal and financial muscle that the game enjoys in the sub-continent, they are sustaining the game in parts of the world where it is in recession and sustaining it in new ones.

“Indians and Pakistanis are very mobile people and a large number has migrated in the last 30-40 years. They are found all over. To them cricket comes easier than, say, rugby,” says Guha.

He recounts that there were only two Gujarati speaking players in the 1987 World Cup sponsored by Reliance, the conglomerate controlled by a Gujarati family. One was Deepak Patel of New Zealand and the other Babu Memon of Zimbabwe. (The Indian team had Kiran More, a Gujarati, but his mother tongue is Marathi.)

The next World Cup begins in the Caribbean in three days and a look at the names, surnames and ethnicity of players throws up no less than 23 players — two playing elevens and an extra — of South Asian origin in the teams of Bermuda, Canada, England, Kenya, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland and West Indies.

Taking into account the 15 each of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, that makes it no less than 68 players at the tournament whose origins lie in the undivided India. And we have not counted Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan — given the geographical proximity, it is only to be expected — and Australia’s Stuart Clark, whose parents, both of them English, met in India. “South Asians are the new ambassadors of the game. Largely, the future propagation of the game is in these hands,” says commentator Harsha Bhogle.

South Asians, first taken to the West Indies as plantation workers by the British, have constituted a long-established and growing lineage of cricketers there. Rohan Kanhai (after whom Sunil Gavaskar named his son), Sonny Ramadhin and Alvin Kallicharran are legends, though Darren Ganga is not. When West Indies take on Pakistan in the opening fixture of the Cup, Ramaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Denesh Ramdin will look more like their opponents.

Guyana and Trinidad’s teams look much like their populations — half Indian. Rayad Emrit was man of the match when Trinidad won last year’s Caribbean first-class title and Sewnarine Chattergoon matched him when Guyana won the one-day championship.

Cricket historian Boria Majumdar asked a bunch of West Indian cricket legends last week whether they saw the future of West Indian cricket in East Indian hands. “They said they did not see anyone as East Indian, that everyone was a Caribbean. But think about it. Who are the people that consider cricket their life? It is the South Asians. These people are giving the game what it needs,” says Majumdar.

Significantly, it’s not only the fringe teams — Bermuda, Canada, Kenya, The Netherlands, Scotland — but also the major ones that have players of South Asian origin as vital cogs. Jeetan Shashi Patel of New Zealand follows in the footsteps of Deepak Patel — both right-arm off spinners, but no relation — who created a sensation at the 1992 World Cup when Martin Crowe made him open the bowling.

There are around 20 million people of Indian descent living in other countries. Britain has two million of Indian and Pakistani origin. South Africa has another million, where Hashim Amla is a rising Test star. Already the first player of Asian descent to score a century for South Africa, Amla, who comes from Durban’s long-established Indian community, proclaims his Muslim allegiance with a flowing beard.

What’s more, the future of cricket in the land of its birth rests on brown shoulders. The 2004 Champions Trophy in England, held somewhat unwisely at the beginning of the soccer season, drew just two full houses. One was the final at the Oval, which, like any other tournament final, was sold out in advance. The other was the India-Pakistan game.

Already, those playing the game in England have begun to reflect the hues of its following.

For long, England’s cricket structure has been condemned as overtly and institutionally racist. A 1997 study from the Centre for Sport Development Research at Roehampton Institute documented the two-tier structure in club cricket, one for whites and another for blacks and Asians.

The tradition of Asians playing for England dates from 1896 and Prince Kumar Ranjitsinhji’s century-making debut against Australia, the first of three Indian princes to accomplish the feat.

But in later decades, not many Asians managed to establish themselves as England regulars.

Things promised to — but did not — change when Chennai-born Nasser Hussain, whose family migrated to England when he was five, became the first of Asian origin to be appointed the captain of the national team.

But Hussain, often emphatically and always consciously, emphasised his “Englishness”. It helped that he looked and spoke like the British. (It did not matter that his father Joe [Jawad] Hussain, who ran the Ilford Cricket School in Essex, did not hide his ethnicity.)

English players continued to be sceptical of touring India. When they came, instead of trying to be a part of the milieu, like the Australians, they remained cold and aloof.

This was most evident during the 2001-02 tour of India. The England squad, on their visit to Hyderabad, was invited by Mohammad Azharuddin to have dinner at his home. Only four went — all of Asian origin.

Mark Ramprakash tried to counter his mates’ scepticism by once saying that “being in London and England presents much more of a risk than being in India”. But Ramprakash, a very promising batsman and a county star, never quite grew roots in the national team.

The real change is knocking on the doors now and he wears a patka and beard. Already, fans in the stands can be seen wearing fake beards and cheering for Madhusuden Singh — Monty — Panesar, even his already fabled misfields. He is the best England spinner in 30 years and is, along with the likes of Andrew Flintoff, reviving interest in a game that had been elbowed to the obscurity of the inside pages in England’s newspapers by soccer and rugby.

Panesar is all Indian. His closest childhood friend is Nitin Parsooth and Nitin’s dad is Monty’s manager. His “guru” is Hitu Naik. A family friend, Naik gave Monty the most important piece of advice: just turn it as much as you can no matter where it pitches. As a practising Sikh, Monty does not drink alcohol.

As a student, while his friends succumbed to the munchies, Monty would be cooking himself Punjabi recipes. As the first Sikh to play for England, Panesar is just the role model that league officials hope will persuade other talented youngsters from the Asian communities in Luton, Bedford, Wellingborough and Northampton to play mainstream cricket.

“Monty is popular because he shows his emotions. He gets excited if he takes a wicket. English cricket is otherwise so bland. He is obviously bad at fielding but has been working hard at it and people love his underdog status,” says Bhogle.

At the World Cup, England will most likely give the new ball to Sajid Mahmood, a product of one of the northern towns that have experienced racial conflict, whose family came from Pakistan. Mahmood built his skills playing in the streets of Bolton, where fellow players included his cousin Amir Khan, Britain’s silver-medal-winning boxing star of the Athens Olympics and now a rising professional. His teammate for the World Cup, Ravi Bopara’s parents are from India.

Vikram Solanki, Kabir Alir, Owais Shah and Usmaan Afzaal have played for England in recent times. Solanki spent his early days in Udaipur, Rajasthan. With an Indian father and English mother, Solanki speaks Hindi and is a practising Hindu. Northamptonshire’s Bilal Shafayat is on the threshold of national honours.

When Sahafayat was captain of England Under-19, the team had five boys from an Asian background. At the last count, 30 players of Asian origin were active on the county circuit. As most Asian-Britons come from the West Midlands, it’s no surprise that Worcestershire has a large number of them in its squad.

Many counties have openly stated their desire to attract players from all communities and even implemented strategies to bring this about. The Yorkshire Cricket Board’s Black and Ethnic Forum — Yorkshire is the snootiest and most racial of all counties — might point to the 2004 selection of Ajmal Shahzad.

These are the outcome of Britain’s second generation of South Asians retaining their passion for cricket.

“There has been an opening-up of the mind. The first generation of Asians were busy setting up shops and earning a living. The second generation is more affluent and more British. Their acceptability has grown in the last 15 years,” says Bhogle.

The influx has raised the debate of loyalty. Bhogle recalls the vociferous support the Indian team enjoyed on its last tour to England in 2002. “Every game was like a home game.” On Pakistan’s tour of England last year, thousands of British citizens shouted for Inzamam-ul-Haq’s team. Things became ridiculous with Pakistan fans calling Sajid Mahmood a “traitor”.

The family members of some players have been reported to continue supporting the countries of their origin. But things are changing with the passage of generations and the entry of players of Asian origin in the national team as well as the playing elevens of counties. And now, there are signs that British Asians have begun to provide their full-throated support to England.

If this trend picks up steam, cricket in England may recover lost ground. First, because of the sheer numbers Asians constitute a very large ethnic group. Secondly, the moneybags chasing cricket in the sub-continent may begin to look upon England as viable market.

The next logical stop, of course, would be the United States. It is a long shot, but the first signs have emerged. On a recent visit to a US university to deliver a lecture, Majumdar, emerging out of the Boston railway station, was recognised and stopped by a hotdog seller, Kundan Govindass. Govindass leases out his stall to someone else between May and September, when he devotes himself to the local cricket tournaments.

Pramod Mistry, a California-based tour operator appointed by the International Cricket Conference and a friend of Majumdar’s, has his packages to the World Cup sold out. “At least 20,000 from the US and 15,000 from Canada will go the Caribbean for the World Cup,” he says.

But the most telltale sign came a few years ago. The serving US ambassador to India at that time, in a speech to Confederation of Indian Industry, said President Bush had developed his foreign policy much the same way as the captain of a cricket team approaches an international Test match. The President, he said, was not interested in limited overs.

The game has entered the lingo of the top echelons. What next? Shouts for LBW?