Any discussion on whether England should continue their tour to India needs to consider the following points: the team had been staying in the Taj Mahal hotel the week before.
All the white kit, including blazers and caps, was locked away in a room there when the fanatics attacked.
The Middlesex team were due to check into the same hotel a day after the siege started, and the England high performance squad were meant to be staying in Mumbai last week, but for some reason had their training camp switched at the last minute.
During 2008, India has witnessed blasts in Jaipur (during the IPL games), Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Guwahati (during Australia’s tour), and now in Mumbai.
If this was Pakistan or Sri Lanka, of course, there would be no discussion; the tour would have been cancelled straight away.
However, India is an economic powerhouse, has a grip on the international game, and has the England players falling over themselves to express their desire to play in the lucrative Indian Premier League.
Now, the Champions League, in which Middlesex were about to set out to join, has been temporarily postponed, whilst the rival Indian Cricket League has been cancelled.
If these are troubled times for India, it is only natural that the sport many consider akin to a religion will share in any grief.
This would not be the first time that England has been unable to fulfill its obligations in India.
They were due in the autumn of 1930, but plans were scuppered following a nationalist revival in which Congress issued an Independence Pledge that denounced the British for having “ruined India economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually.”
To submit further to their rule was “a crime against man and God.”
England was also due to set sail in the autumn of 1939 but was prevented by the outbreak of war.
Within three hours of the England team landing in 1984, India’s
4 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
Rohini Iyer 7 months ago
Jon i have to contradict your saying that the indian cricket team is thinking about cancelling its tour to Pakistan because of blame game tactics....its a proven fact that the terrorists were from pakistan....and even before this attack in mumbai, the indian team was reluctant to go to pakistan....
as far as i think, the english team should not cancel its tour.....its the only way of not bowing before these cowards....
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Jon Gemmell 7 months ago
Rohini, I get my information my CricInfo, and I quote: "India's scheduled tour of Pakistan in January stands closer than ever to being cancelled after reports suggested the government wanted to take a tougher line against Pakistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai." It seems pretty clear to me.
Is it a proven fact that the terrorists were from Pakistan? I didn't know that. I know that the only survivor is a Pakistan national. I didn't realise that all the ones that had been killed were as well. There was fear in the UK that one of the terrorists could have been a British subject. If he was, would you still have supported England's tour?
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Rohini Iyer 7 months ago
yes Jon its a proven fact that all of them were from PoK.....india's main terror threat is from that side....as reagrds the indian tour to pakistan, indian politicians and govt should have better ways to take a tough stand against the terrorists....if they are from pakistan it doesn't mean that all cricketers are terrorists, does it.....they too suffer the way we are doing now.....the indian cricket board has gone stark mad.....
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CS 7 months ago
Jon,
I don't think that ENG, SA and AUS not playing in India will severely affect anything other than cricket's commercial twenty20 potential for the boards of the countries involved. I believe the IPL is financially self sustaining, so while greed has no bounds for the BCCI the sport will be much better off promoting cricket in other countries by having these powerhouse test teams play more games there rather than rotating between India, AUS, ENG, SA etc. I'm not convinced the money the boards will make from the CL Twenty20 will be used to truly globalize the sport anyway. Twenty20 in the Olympics? Yeah, right!
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