Test Match Special - View from the Boundary – Paul Sinha

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Jonathan Agnew takes a View from the Boundary with comedian and professional quizzer Paul Sinha. Best known as the “Sinnerman” from TV quiz programme “The Chase”, Sinha shares his love of cricket including memories of watching India win the 1983 World Cup Final and his own batting performances as a medical student.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The Dakar Rally is the ultimate off-road challenge, perfect for the ultimate defender, the high-performance Defender Octa, 626 horsepower twin turbo V8 engine and intelligent 6D dynamics air suspension. Learn more at landrover.ca. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallata or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know

you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's and C's Apply. from BBC Radio 5 Live. Time for our view from the boundary guest. She's a comedian, a writer, a professional quizer, former doctor, and I'm told he enjoyed his finest cricketing performance as a medical student.

Regular voice on a wide range of radio programmes, possibly best known as the Sinner Man on the hugely popular TV quiz show, The Chase. Paul Sinner, lovely to see you here. This is a genuine honour, privilege, all these words. Settle down. I've been a lot of cricket games over the years, ever once had a decent view of the action. This is the very first time.

What do you think? You are very lucky people, aren't you? Well, we are. Actually, we are. I mean, we just, I can actually see what the ball is doing. Well, that's the thing. There's one cricket ground in the world where we do end up commentating sideways on and also the added complication of it being behind smoked glass and that's at a cricket ground in Napier New Zealand where you can't see what else going on. So we kind of do need this a bit to help You are blessed people with your good fortune. No doubt about that. Well, what have you made of today?

Because you've been watching, haven't you? Yeah, it's been, I didn't know what, I assumed it's going to be a fairly dull morning and that Rahul and Neer were going to sort of struggle for two out towers playing very patient cricket. But they both got out. One of the, I mean, Bradencast was very unlucky, really, to take so long to get a wicket. He was unrewarded of some brilliant bowling. But I turned to my husband, Ollie, when Pant came and said, by the way, this is the person that people have paid good money to come and see.

today. And boy has he delivered so far. He appears to be playing a totally different game. I call it a T-10 international in his head rather than a T-20. In his head. Yeah. I mean, he tried to smash his first delivery out of the ground and I was like, please don't do that. I would have nice to watch you this afternoon. He is. Does Ollie like cricket, by the way? He's going to drag around by me. He's very much a cricket skeptic. I keep saying to him, it's a sport that Neville Carter, C.L.R. James and Mark Still love. How can there be anything wrong with cricket? Well, I know. But you do find that some people do need to persuade them. It's one of those things. If you didn't grow up with it, it's very tough to get into in later life.

Whereas I'm very lucky. From the moment I can even remember life, I knew about cricket. My dad was a massive fan. From a West Bengali community, all his friends were massive fans. But perhaps most importantly of all, India won their first test series in this country in 71 when I was one year old. and it's a memory emblazoned in the minds of Indian cricket fans who came here and lived here they all remember Bagwat Chandra Saker's Sixth at the Oval in 71 as though it's part of Indian the biggest part of Indian history ever yes yes it didn't go quite so well a few years later though did it no thanks for reminding me I'm gonna throw that in I say reminding me but I've never been unaware of it was my parents story that they've told more often than any other

right is that my dad once finished work early to go to lords to see india uh batting in the afternoon with my mum by the time they got there india were 42 all out i did write it down so that was in reply to the small matter of 629 wasn't it yeah it was that's the indian team i first remember likable uh likeable very good batsman in did well it's decent batting conditions but conditions like this i was watching the players earlier thinking this indian team the indian team the Indian teams of the 70s would have collapsed in these conditions. So they didn't deal with seam and swing bowling particularly well. It just wasn't their things.

See them back with such maturity today, apart from Pant. It was quite something to watch. And Gill, Pant will get the headlines, but Gill is playing a different game to everybody in this test match. He looks so utterly at ease and able to impose his own style on the game. And his technique thus far, Touchwood, has been totally, has made his batting sort of unbroachable. Yeah.

I think the big difference between the India then and the India now is actually they're much more competitive, aren't they? Well... I think meek is the wrong word, but they just seemed like, you know, in the 70s coming here, apart from the 71, as you mentioned, but they just seemed like they're quite an easy rollover.

It felt like, as I said, I used the word likable with good reason. Yes. A likable, but very sort of unpowered when it comes to the bowling department. Yes, Abidaleigh. Handling in... Asson Garvey, I remember.

That's right. And there were a team that faced a lot of 500 and 600 totals. It doesn't seem to be like that now and it's really great to see India's... Because I thought India's bowling

would be weak in this game because of the absence of Bumra. But actually, they put up a decent fight in India's bowlers. Well, they're transformed. I mean, the pace attack of India now in this modern squad compared to the ones we're talking about

the Jumbaal. You see it getting boycotter. Before my time, but my dad tells me a lot about Solcar's fielding. Brilliant fielder. He was, around the corner. But a very slow, left-arm, medium pace of getting boycott out. Yes.

I think he finished boycott. He didn't play in that 74 game. Couldn't deal with the Indian bowling. Too terrifying for him. So what is it about this great game then, does it for you? I think the most important thing is to be brought up with it. Because when you're brought up with it, then you know about the little nuances, the things that become in jokes with people that love cricket and so I feel very blessed in that sense but I still love test

cricket because for me it's the closest thing to chess I play chess a lot as a school kid and for me it's the closest thing for that in that it's not all over in a couple of hours and one mistake doesn't change the whole thing as we see in these two test matches you never quite know what's going to happen next I don't think anybody saw jb smith's innings yesterday happening and for an innings of such luminous brilliance to sort of rest the initiative from India just like that you never quite know what's going to happen next and that's the one of the things I absolutely love about cricket but I'm very much an evangelist for test cricket because we all know it's the cricket for the connoisseur test cricket

it's the best format isn't it it's the most challenging form it's like it's like watching the world snooker championship safety safety battles there's so much drama in the the stuff that isn't necessarily going on or isn't happening. But where this game is so well-balanced this morning, I didn't just find Rishab Pant fascinated to watch this morning. I found all of it fascinated to watch, because I knew where the state of the game was and why everything was so important.

Do you worry about the future of test cricket? I worry about the future of every sport on the planet. As finances take a stronger grip on the way international sport is run, yeah, I worry about all sports. I'm worried that they might follow suit as football has done and have a 54 nation world cuff in a couple of decades' time. I worry about that sort of thing. But for me, the most important thing about sport is it matters.

Sport matters, and that's when you get passionate about it. When people say to me, what are your favourite memories of cricket? It is not necessarily an innings of 160 and a one-day international that turned the tables around, not if that one-day international was forgotten the next day and cast of the dust of the history is it didn't matter. World Cup games and test series

for me are the stuff that matters. Yes. Well, that's interesting. And then you should talk about the finances of it as well. So what's, explain your worry there that it simply gets... The amount of money flowing into the game is going to mean that people play cricket will not out of love as their primary passion

but for making a decent living and allowing administrators to make a decent living as well. Yes. We know that's where so many sports are going these days. Yes. I'd hate to think that cricket would fall that way, but it might do. Yes, yes. And the ebb and the flow, how do you follow it?

I've always admire people who, you know, we are very lucky. We get to see every ball of every test match. And so therefore, it's no effort for us to keep, you know, up to date with the test because it's there, it's in front of our eyes. But how do you keep up to date with it? You might get to see a day here or a day there or something. I find it increasingly difficult. I think back to when I was a teenager, and in the summer holidays,

I'd sit on C-Fax all afternoon and follow the scores. 3-4-0, I think, wasn't it, the page? I remember spending an whole afternoon watching Graham Hick score a quadruple century for Worcestershire on the C-Fax. Well, that is sad. And that was one of the greatest afternoons in my life. 986, wasn't it, Andy, I think. But you can't sit and watch C-Fax.

You can, if you love the game, a lot. And one of my favourite memories is that India's famous test win against Australia and Eden Gardens in 2001. The VVS... The night before I was doing the Ging of the Belfast Empire and had a flight to get and I popped into an internet cafe and sat there and followed the game in Belfast

on quick info... Ball by ball. Absolutely ball by ball. Have you been to Calcutta? I mean, you're... I've been to Calcutta. You're West Bengali, aren't you? Many times. I've only been to Eden Gardens the once.

Right. How did you find it? I mean, it's an intimidating ground. It's vast, isn't it? It was very, very hot and there was very little refreshment available. And it's a difficult experience. I watched, it was in 1980, and it was to celebrate 200 years, I think, of the, or 100 years of the Bengal cricket club. Right. A touring English team came up. I remember, I think Clive Radley and maybe Frank Hayes were...

Oh, nice, okay. It was a likeable mix of England players playing against Bengal. And of course, Bengal doesn't have a rich... even though they've got Eden Gardens, they don't have a particularly rich history of producing great international cricketers. No. Sarah of Ganguly, he's very much seen as a hero.

I mean, Indians have become obsessed with cricket, haven't they? So it is... You've noticed. Yes. But it's that... I mean, when I went to... It's 1984 Artour, India, with a Gower tour. And yes, they did have enormous crowds.

But it didn't feel quite the same obsession that there is about... cricket then that there is now driven by TV I guess driven both by TV and the introduction colour TV as well yes it was back in the day it was only black most people only have black and white TV Dordashan Dordashan yes amazingly the most popular program on Dordasham when I was a kid was are you being served it was so popular in India because they thought that's what all British people were like well I've been before Captain Peacock and everybody else but I think more than

anything else the various one-day formats have made cricket more digestible for people with a short attention span. Yes. And do you think that's true? Do you think people do have shorter attention span? No doubt about it. Do you think so? We're not just telling them they've got shorter attention span.

No, no, no. Can we move on? I'm bored of this sort of strand of conversation. No. These people are we're telling the youngsters they've only got short attention spans, but a lot of our listeners are students. They're doing their revisions for exams and so on.

I think you find that a lot of you, your listeners are people for whom their parents taught them to love cricket at a young age. I think that's true. And I think that's one thing I've noticed, especially when I talk to a lot of people in the quiz community, you don't really do cricket or get cricket. It's what they've all got in common is that none of their parents ever said, you've got to love cricket, it's amazing. And that's why I feel blessed.

We're all products of how we were brought up and who brought us up. And cricket has always been part of my life. My dad took me to see the, no, no, no, no, it didn't take me, went to the 75 Cup final, World Cup for Idol. Oh, right, okay. Clive Lloyd. And then, 79, you took me to see England play West Indies at Lords, Viv Richards' Masterclass Winnings, and Collis King.

Yes. In 83, I went to see India win the World Cup. You were there? I was there as a teenager. Oh, wow. Well, that would be special. Because my headmaster, Hugh Woodcock, was John Woodcock's brother. And John Woodcock gave him his four tickets to get to your students.

I'll have one. Lovely writer, John Wood. Amazing writer. Yes, for years. So I've always kind of been surrounded. about people who love cricket. I had no choice. I was always going to love cricket.

And I sort of, it sounds a bit patronising, but I sort of feel a bit sorry for people that don't get cricket, because it is so rich. It is not just about flanneled fools and playing the game. There's so much more to cricket than that.

I think a lot of people in this country get into cricket through, actually, their first encounter is on the radio, because by your saying, they are, you know, the parents in the car, perhaps with the radio on, And I think that is often the first introduction to cricket. So it's not on in the first place.

And they might well go off and play something. And this again is something I remember very clearly because when I was 11, I was on a school walking holiday in the Y Valley when Bob Willis took eight wickets ahead. Ah, right. There's so many of us sat around the radio listening and cheering England on.

Loers commentating at full tilt, I think, of that game. At the end? Yeah, in 1981, yes, he was. So I've always been experienced the radio side of it as well. It's the television side. How is your playing? We haven't actually touched on that yet. You mentioned my highlight.

Well, this is, you know, so is that your highlight? What is your finest playing? Well, I always wanted to be a cricketer. And I think my teachers wanted me to be a cricketer because they wish that their Asian student would be the deadly leg spinner that could burst through rival teams' batting lineups. But I just was never,

I was never quite bad enough to be entertaining. And I was never good enough to be used to. I was fundamentally just nondescript to cricket. And luckily I went to a medical school where the second 11 was made up with drinking pals rather than people that took the game seriously. Occasions cause us a lot of problems we found ourselves in the wrong tournament

in the back of a 300 for one score from the other. We played a team once that retired after 30 overs which was just two one-sided. Oh. A 300 for one. That's disappointing. But we also played a lot of drinking medical school teams.

And I actually came in once at 20 for four and left 76 not out and the team at 223 for 9. That's the one we're talking about. That's the performance. That's the game. And the only thing that was different in that game was I was drunk.

Which meant that I'd lost the yips. I lost that anxiety to go for shots. Maybe that's a... Maybe that you should have... We can't say that. We can't advise... I think Richard Pant might be on some sort of... If it looks like it.

It looks like it. Oh, right. So unfortunately, his finest cruelly performance, I mean, do you have to remember much about it then? I do. Nine boundaries, one of which was quite good, and the other eight was sort of a mishit or very streaky shots. It doesn't matter, does it?

No, of course it doesn't. Seventy-six, not out, tells the same story. Yeah, and the beauty of, well, all sports, I think, of cricket. I say the youngsters have come up, you know, it doesn't matter if you're not good at it. Just enjoy playing, and then you can, like, I don't know, you might drift off to unpowering, you might be scoring, you might just go and watch cricket.

There's just so many ways of being involved in sport. And what was nice is by playing for my second 11 at medical school, it means I'd played for my second 11 at medical school. So when I applied for jobs in medicine, I had something on my CV that actually sounded quite interesting. Which consultants didn't realise represented absolutely nothing at all other than a propensity for drink. It does seem to say you have an extraordinary life, Paul,

because you've sort of come into comedy late, haven't you? because you were a bit, you mentioned it a few times. You were actually, you were a doctor, weren't you? I was a GP to 2007, yeah. Well, you're serious, GP. I mean, I'm looking at you. I was a competent GP. There's no lingering stench around my life as a GP.

But I'm just thinking. And it wasn't my dream. But there always that sort of comedic angle to someone going in there with an ingrowing toenail or haemorrhoids or something. Were you serious? I was able to separate the two because it was fine. No one ever came in and told me that, felt like a pair of curtains, which was fortunate.

But there were occasional moments when people would say to you, oh, I think we saw you on stage the other day. And it'd be genuinely awkward. Because every comedian knows, when someone tells them that they've seen them on stage, you want to know whether they found you funny. Your ego kicks in,

and the follow-out line to this is? And when there is no follow-up line, you're going, oh, they didn't find you. Perhaps it wasn't very good. Yeah. No. Because I would want, I think I'd want my GP to be quite serious. I was always serious as a jeepra.

It's that cognitive distance part thing that I was able to do that quite easy. They have very much two totally different jobs. And they always felt like different jobs to me and I never really had any trouble separate the two. The difference was that medicine wasn't my dream. It wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and that was the big difference.

And you knew that? I knew that for a long time. So how did you break out? Eventually is the answer to that. By eventually having enough gigs in my diary to go, I think I can take the leap. Right. That's how I broke out. So you were performing while you were a GP then?

Seven years, yeah. Wow. 2000 to 2007, I was both. Because that's, I mean, after speaking stand-ups and still on that, but they're pretty quite late night. So then you're travelling off all over the place to go and fulfil those dates, and then you're going to give it back behind your desk, welcoming people with, you know, whatever it may be. Luckily, I wasn't a hospital, doctor, although having...

Having been a hospital doctor before, at least you're used to the sleep deprivation. But it was a bit odd. Some days I'd do like two or three surgery who uses a GP, then drive to Cardiff to do 20 minutes of comedy, get very few laughs, get back in the car, go back home and start a new sort of a family planning clinic the next day. Yes. And it was a bit odd, but I'm not ungrateful for the lifestyle. It gave becoming a locum GP, gave me the freedom to devise a timetable for getting better as a comedian.

Yes. And is it all about confidence? I mean, stand-up. A lot of it is, but I would say that for any job. I mean, the people put comedians on a pedestal because they couldn't do it. But there are so many jobs that we can't do. I always use the airline pilot analogy. An airline pilot has the lives of 200 people maybe in his hands when he lands a plane. But for him, it's the easiest job in the world. Through hard work and experience, he's made that the easiest job in the world.

So, yeah, we all do jobs that other people look at us and go, I couldn't do what you do. We're not special. Yeah. Apart from Richard Pants. But again, just to know that your material is good, does that only come about just through doing it? I mean, when you sit down and you write a show,

you've got Edinburgh coming up. I'm writing an Edinburgh show at the moment. Yes. And where do you start? Is it literally a blank sheet of paper or Trump? Blank sheet of paper and some ideas as to what you want to talk about. And I walk on stage at this stage in my show and I tell some jokes, and some of them don't go well

and I think to myself I really thought that was going to go well and some of them do go really well and you think to yourself I had no idea that was going to be one of the good ones you just don't know Does it change per night?

Very much, very much changes per night you start losing confidence of the jokes that keep failing again and again and gaining confidence to the ones that are doing quite well so it changes every night. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges.

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to just sort of one bad night think, well that's it. You know, I'm not going to go through an ordeal of actually not having a good night. The last time I went to Edinburgh, one two three four five the fifth last gig was horrific it was in Bolton it wasn't therefore I was tired I did deliver it well they were tired as it was a sunny Friday night we made no connection with each other at all and I spent quite a lot of time crying my eyes out after the gig game that was appalling and it was fine the next day

with almost entirely the same material you got back out there again got back out there the following day and it was absolutely fine it was just a little bit of exhaustion and not not being confident enough in your own delivery the show cause a sort of, you can't let disaster direct everything that you do. You learn from it by all means, but have faith in what you do. And what about the quizzing then? Come on, because I sit down there, if I'm around and I love watching the chase, for instance. I have a well chosen option.

Well, I watch the other lot sometime. I've actually been on the other one. We had a TMS one. No, I've got the final. I've got my little pointless truth. but I haven't because they do celebrity chase ones

are they? They do. Michael Vaughn's been on it I think and I've been fortunate enough to play against a few cricketers

I've played against Phil Tufnal all right who won right well he's brighter than he likes to

and then depression that he is I've played against blowers who did not win but he was an absolute delight

right I played against Michael Vaughn and Mark Ramprakash and the less said about their general knowledge

the better I would think that's probably they did not cover themselves with glory no so you've

So where does the obsession come in? Because I expect to be a quizer. You do have to be quite obsessed, don't you? With trivia? All sorts of stuff. There's two sorts of quizzes. There's quizzes that do it for fun and quizzes that do it not for fun,

but because they take it very seriously indeed. And that's me, the second category. And so there is a degree of obsession. There's a degree of learning things for no other reason than it might come up in a quiz. Cricket's a great thing to be into, isn't it? was cricket turns over new facts all the time.

My favourite cricket fact because I read it in Wisden Cricket Monthly in 1983 and therefore no one's ever seen this fact before or since and I always tell Andy Zaltzman about this one is that in 1983 in the second test with New Zealand versus England all 20 England wickets were taken by bowlers whose surname began with the same letter

because Richard Hadley didn't take a single wicket in the test match. So it'd be a sea that one, It'll be a C, very good. Jeremy Coney, you and Chathfield, Lance Cairns. And the only time that's ever happened was Laker and Locke in 56, when Laker took 20 and 19 and locked at 1. So it's only happened twice in history. He's nodding over there.

It's the only question I've ever caught Andy out with. Literally the only... Oh, I got that one, right? It's literally the only question I've ever asked him, where, to be fair, I asked him a more difficult version of the question than I just asked you. Because Andy's very, very difficult to beat. Well, I know, I'm sure.

He should have him on the chase, actually. No, I don't think so. He'll win very easily. Okay, fair enough. But where do you start? When you go, you get into quizzing, what is the starting point? Because he does, I mean, it's taken very seriously.

The starting point is to get on the internet and find out what's out there. I didn't know there was a whole world out there. Quiz leagues, online quiz leagues, since lockdown quizzes grown exponentially. local quiz leagues. It's not just about your local pub quiz. There's like a quiz league is like five aside for nerds. You play your games and then they all get inputted into a computer and there's a website that tells you who are the best players of the week and what are the star performances and there's league tables. And in fact, Andy once played for my team, the Grey Monks. And unbelievably, he can get eight individual questions. The answer to his very first question was Herbert Suckler. Oh no. The jammiest man.

I'm not sure, he did tell him about this. I'm not sure he got a lot right after that though, did he? He got four out of eight and four of eight is very respectable for Debbie Tong. Yeah, but isn't it interesting how this obsession with sort of that sort of thing connects with cricket? Because cricket is quite a data-orientated sport, isn't it? If you want it to be. It always has been. If you want it to be.

But it was very much if you wanted to be. And as I grow old, I'm 55 now, I'm not into cricket stats in the way that I once, once you, you know, you know. used to be. I'm much more into the excitement and the aesthetics of cricket. Tell me, I'm a little bit older than you and I'm just forgetting everything these days. How do you remember? How do you

remember these minutiae things that you have to? Have you got a technique? Honestly, you've got a technique? Honestly, you don't. You just keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. You can't remember it all. There are too many facts in the universe and too many facts in the world. You've just got to try and learn the ones that make you happy,

the ones you think might come up. for instance, like the fact that earlier a few months ago we had Canadian general elections and Australian general elections. And so I sat down and learned that the defeated candidates of both because I knew they were going to come up. And lo and behold, in the last three weeks has come up four or five times. Oh really? Different quizzes that I've done. So anticipating what might come up, but you can't learn it all. It's just impossible. So try and focus on the facts that you're interested in because you've got much more. chance of learning them and them staying in your long-term memory, the ones you're not.

Right. And yet the chase is so varied. I mean, the questions that they get thrown at you, the, well, how many, half a dozen of you on there, I mean, they get for you. And there's an expectation you're going to know the answer. Yeah, there is. And at the same time, though, when you watch the final chase, most of the questions are reasonably straightforward. The game is won and lost on the selection of hard questions that you get in that final chase and you just don't know what subjects they're going to be on so you just

keep your fingers cross hope for the best and try and really concentrate at that point and not lose focus because if they ask you what the capital of Romania is I'm going to say Bucharest a hundred times out of a hundred but if they say for which film did so and so win an Oscar and that person's won like there's been

in a million great films you've got to be ready for that question and try and remember what on earth the answer is and to rolodex your brain when it happens and not have a, what we call in the business a brain fart where you suddenly go absolutely blank. Blank. How do you avoid that?

Because it's very easy, when you're having quick fire questions thrown at you, and I did that mastermind last year, it was horrendous experience largely, because the questions come, bang, bang, bang, got Gerald Clive smiling at you and everything's black and they've got the light of shining on you and it all goes a bit. You weren't expecting any of that. You've not seen the show before. Well, I had seen it before, but you don't get a trial run, do you? No, you don't get a trial run.

You don't sit in there and you... And that's one of the big advantages we have over the contestants, is they're not used to the pressure. Correct. And the studio and all the lights and all that stuff. You don't get a trail around, and how do you avoid a brain fart? You can't. You just don't...

Your brain, I'd say it's like when Badgeo hit that free kick over the bar in the 94 penalty shooting in Italy. Who would have thought Badgio, a player of... such a virtuosity would do that. The answer is anything, anyone can do it at any time. Your best bet is simply to get a decent night's sleep as many nights as possible and not turn up hung over to the show. Those are your best bets for not having a brainfall. Well, I'll bear that in mind next time. Tell me quickly about the sinner test because that's a really interesting thing. And I know you wrote this and this is all about the, well, it's

kind of the Norman Tebitt thing, isn't it? Yes. And you're quite a classic case. really, first generation, as it were, immigrant parents and so on, and you love Indian cricket. And so that kind of that Norman Tebitt business of those years ago was kind of, I suppose, pointing people like you, I suppose. If you're born here, you've got to support England was kind of what he was saying, isn't it? Which is, he has retracted from, to be fair. But you wrote the Sinha test yourself, didn't you? About your experience of that. And it was, I hope, a nuanced look at the whole thing. The main conclusion was, support who you like, it doesn't really matter.

That's the main thing. I support India cricket marginally over England. It's a marginal thing. And mainly it's because my dad's still alive and the joy that Indian cricket victory brings to him is something that's very precious to my eyes. And so that's the main reason. I'm kind of more an India fan than an England fan.

But if they were playing at football, I'd support England every time. When I watch the Olympics and there's Team GB versus India at anything, and it happens mostly in hockey, I support Team GB all the time because when it comes to the Olympics I'm Team GB. When I watch rugby Union, I am first of all

Northern Hemisphere versus Southern Hemisphere, I'll support the Northern Hemisphere team but if Northern Hemisphere teams are playing each other I'm kind of more Welsh and Scotland than England just because there's something romantic about the notion of a Celtic nation that's never won the World Cup winning the World Cup

so it's different for different sports for me. I'm a South London and the sports Liverpool FC, but I still celebrated with my local team, Crystal Palace, won the FA Cup for the first time this year, as though it was actually my team. We all have our little peccadillos, the ways of looking at sport, and sometimes it's not about us. It's about how we were brought up, how precious it is to other people. If, particularly if you don't necessarily care who wins or losers,

it doesn't matter at all who you can sport. Just enjoy the experience and enjoy the fact that sport is great. Yes. Oh, here, here. I mean, you, but you are, motivated to write about it. That suggests, were you kind of offended by the notion that you should be doing this? You were born. So you know what it was? A radio producer said, I want to do a show about the synodest.

I said yes. Sometimes pragmatism takes over. You did it for that money? Well, I did it to get on the radio. It wasn't the money. This is radio for me. Oh, well, there's going to. Definitely wasn't the money.

Here we are now. Okay. Are you going to get the chance to see any more cricket? in this series or not i'll go to the end of a festival it's going to be impossible an email from a listener what what your memories of the world cup final i mean 1983 feeling very smug because when the headmaster gave out the tickets the semi-final hadn't taken place yet oh and everyone assumed that england would be india in the semi-final and so i was laughed at for saying i'll get i'll have a ticket sir

i was laughed at for putting my hand up and saying that so a feeling smug be um it was all very strange match because India only got one eight three and West Indies got to 55 for one and Viv Richards was looking at his usual Lord's Imperious Best. He had a track record at Lord's second to none and it just looked like the game

was going to be over in a very dull way. I went to the 99 final Australia, Pakistan where Pakistan underperformed with a bat and Australia got the runs very easily and it looked like it was going to be like that match, a very underwhelming match. And then suddenly India's slowest scene bowlers

Yes. Madalal Mahindah Ammanagh, Roger Binni. They turned into Wes Hall, Joel, Garner, Malcolm Marshall in the West Indies batsman's eyes. And they just started giving their wickets way to really stupid shots. Yes. And so it was very surreal. No Indian fan generally thought that India could win the game by only scoring 183. The only way they were ever going to win was to get a really big total.

And it didn't happen. I remember Chris Martin Jenkins saying it's one of the greatest upsets in all sport. Now, he might have got a bit slightly carried away with that, but that clearly to him was how that felt for India to beat. I think for India to win the, because they had beaten the West Indies earlier in the tournament, in the group still. Right. June the 9th, 1983.

They haven't going to show off with that sort of quick-quizzy data to me, you know. And so I don't think the result was that shocking. I think India winning the tournament from the beginning. was the big surprise. Because they'd only won one World Cup game before against East Africa in 1975. That was the only time they'd won a World Cup game. So no one had India down on their list

of possible winners of the tournament. So when you take it from the beginning of the tournament, he's right. It's one of the big shots. Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for listening to this episode of the ChmS podcast. Subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode, including a profile of India's captain,

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