They all want to call their sons Sachin

Or it might just be the odds; the number game that Englishmen take to with the kind of passion they don’t show in their cricket! I don’tunderstand how they work but I knew what Michael Holding meant when he said that at 5-1, England would attract patriotic money. West Indies are 9-1, suggesting that a fan rather than an analyst offered the odds; and for some completely weird reason Sri Lanka, in spite of being defending champions, have slipped out of everyone’s consciousness.

Australia and South Africa are everyone’s favourites and not interesting enough to commit hard earned money to and Pakistan are rapidly rising in the charts as well. And being a sport of twelve countries with three completely inconsequential teams, it leaves few others to put a few pounds on. I don’t bet but if I did, the prospect of getting nine times my money (at 10-1) would be greatly appealing.

The other thing that I have heard mentioned (thrice on one programme on Sky!) is how India will never be short of support wherever they play. That assessment has to be spot on because the passion among Indians of all varieties here is quite unbelievable. There is therecently arrived Indian who speaks Tamil or Marathi and who complains he cannot watch ESPN and Star.

There is the slightly more experienced Indian who watches cricket on Zee, still brings food in a steel tiffin carrier but puts in a six pack of Heineken with it. And there are the others who watch soccer on Sky sports, carry visiting cards with Indian names on them and have good natured slanging matches with Pakistani supporters in a north England accent.

And they all want to call their sons Sachin. At Harrogate I met a man who seemed to lose hair faster than I do, and to whom therefore I presented my best smile. His son was still in a pram but had the Indian flag on his cheek (I didn’t know they had Johnson’s Baby Zinc Cream; or did they have a special World Cup launch?) and in a few months would discover that his doting father had decided to call him Sachin Ramesh! Did the mother have a choice? I think not.

And I keep meeting this chartered accountant wherever we go who reluctantly, and out of wifelylove, agreed to let her call their son Rahul ("at least there would have been a cricketer’s name somewhere" he said). The day the little baby was to acquire a name, while only half a kilometre from the registrar’s office, he made one final effort. The wife agreed to think it over and the decision was greeted by the biggest turn of the steering wheel. A week later, Rahul had given way to Sachin. And even as he told us this, a Sachin and a Rahul put on a wonderful partnership and both hit sixes over cover in his direction!

Not surprisingly, the India matches were the first to be sold out. As you can see, there’s lots of us everywhere.