In the ongoing Bangla vs West Indies test match Abul Hasan became the first #10 to score a century on debut (in more than a century). What is even more impressive is that he scored more runs than the top 5 batsmen…combined.
Expanding on the Thakrey test of “cricket loyalty” (sports is politics is war) which team should Indians support? Bangladesh is a neighbor while West Indies can be most comfortably accessed through a tunnel via the center of the earth.
But sometimes things are not that straight-forward. Bengalis (in India) may support Bangladeshis off course. But West Indies have two star players Sunil Narine (Narain) from Trinidad and Veerasammy Permaul (Peramul) from Guyana. Will the Tamilians and Biharis cheer for their “non-resident” brothers?Incidentally the Tam/Bihar people are called “East Indians” over there.
BTW Guyana is the only English speaking country in …Latin America. It is off course tied closely (culture wise) with the West Indies island nations which includes Trinidad. The current PM of Trinidad is Kamla Persad Bissessar who is also credited with a #1 of her own: she is the first female PM of Trinidad (& Tobago).
Kamla-ji (I use it advisedly) recently visited her family village in Bihar:
“Looking resplendent in a red sari with floral borders and a matching colour flower tucked in hairs, Kamla, 60, seemed to face no language bar as she made a forceful speech in English, starting with ‘Bhaiyon aur bahno, Pranam’ and told the people how she traced her roots to this village. “Your granddaughter has come here. I can see one hundred thousand people here to greet me. I say ‘dhanyavad’ for this love and hospitality,” she said.
The visiting VIP’s great grandfather Ram Lakhan Mishra from this village had set out for the Caribbean islands in 1889 as Girmitia labourer. He had boarded Volga ship from the then Calcutta on October 21, 1889.
“Whatever I am today is because Bihar is in my DNA and whatever my ancestors taught me,” she said as villagers from Bhelupur and surrounding villages cheered her lustily.”
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (a fellow Trinidadian) should write a book on Kamla and Sunil. While the girl from Bihar has become queen of her country, the boy became the king of IPL T20 as part of the victorious Kolkata Knight Riders. But Sunil still has a job to do before he can rest on his laurels, get Abul Hasan out cheaply in the second innings.
regards
Belize is also English speaking.
I wonder why football aka soccer isn’t big in the SubCon. It’s not a sport where one needs to be tall and or big. You need little to no equipment to play it.
Wonder if it’s just a case of people doing what other people are doing who are doing it because the national sports stars are cricketers.
Sharp catch mini. I was trying to say South America, but then Latin America does continue north till Mexico. Belize is in Central America.
regards
Just next door, Suriname is not English speaking but the largest ethnic group are “Hindustani”.
In Guyana, the majority was “east indian” sometime back. Now both the “east indian” and “african” population is declining (as percentage). The adivasis (ameri-indians) are rising. It appears whatever you do, the indian population (east, west, red) keeps rising.
regards
It’s not just those who are playing but all those who could’ve played but were left out–plenty of brown names there as well. There was a documentary floating around about the twice-emigrated browns of the caribbean in which they interviewed a writer named David Dabydeen–he talked about the disconnect between India and Guyana, especially regarding the origin of his surname.
Persad is Prasad is straight-forward. You can guess a Vishweshar (Shiva) in Bissessar.
Alvin Kalicharan (worshipper of Kali) another cricketing great is a pure Bengali name.
In both instances the first name became the last. I wonder if there are some strange things going on inter-generation naming wise. In India a Tamilian (now) takes his last name as his father’s name. But perhaps this procedure got frozen at some point and the last name stayed on as family name?
Then you have a “normal” Sunil, or for example Rohan Kanhai (Kanhai = Krishna). It is interesting that Sunil Gavaskar (which is probably the inspiration for Narine’s name) has a son named Rohan.
regards
Here’s something I wrote a few years back when there were 6 Indians in the West Indies squad; it’s also about South Asians in world cricket generally.
http://eurasian-sensation.blogspot.com.au/2009/12/west-indians-now-more-indian-than-ever.html
Excellent article, an update for 2012:
“These are not especially good times for the side that utterly dominated world cricket in the 70s and 80s”
West Indies is a world champ albeit in T20 cricket. For purists who complain about “gilly-danda” cricket, well it is great that cricket is adapting to the real world. Arguably 3 hours of cricket is more exciting than 2hrs of 1-1 footy (also a tie in cricket is immeasurably more exciting than a draw in footy).
All in all, happy days are back again. When West Indian pacemen used to bowl, it was Gavaskar who noted that the batsmen would immediately (an unconsciously) start sliding towards silly point.
regards
+1 definitely see this trend here in the UK too where football is black (Afro-Carribean) and cricket is Brit-Asian. Ironically it also mirrors some of the class faultlines of the respective sports.
Yeah Cricket and Rugby has upper class aura/snob appeal around it while Football is working class / masses.
Football > All