I never thought the day would come when I would feel sorry for Narendra Modi, but I did. No matter that the match was in the book, or maybe not. Everything was predicated on India winning the cricket World Cup. They didn’t. In fact, they got beaten quite badly. Not just by six wickets, which is a considerable margin, but in 43 overs, which meant that it was done at leisure. Well, India learnt the hard way that you don’t set Australia a total of 241 and get away with it.
It was that total which gave the impression that the match was in the book. But then, would even the Mumbai Matchfixers put the match in the book with Modi there to watch the final, which was happening in Ahmedabad, not exactly the centre of the cricketing world, but Modi’s home constituency, which he represented as an MLA and then CM. It was also part of his Lok Sabha constituency in 2014. But he also contested in Varanasi in UP, and you can hardly find a safer BJP seat, won it, retained it, and gave up the Vadodara seat. He contested only Varanasi in 2019, and won. It seems in India there’s none of that nonsense about the leader contesting a seat in every province. I mean, there are 28 states, so it would indeed be an uphill task to fight 28 seats.
Which reminds of the character back in the last century who gilded papers in every seat. And then threatened to commit suicide. Unless the other candidates paid him something. You see, if a candidate dies, the poll is cancelled, and a new date announced. There was no suicide, otherwise you would have had a fresh election date for the whole country.
It was supposed to be a grand climax, taking place in the Narendra Modi Stadium, which was not a new stadium (the BJP was too tightfisted for that), but just the Vallabhai Patel Stadium renamed.
That reminds me of the renaming in FC College of various hotels. The student leader doing the renaming of all the ‘foreign’ names ran out of an appropriate ‘Islamic’ name for the Ewing Memorial Library. Ewing was an old Principal of the College, so the suggestion from the crows of the Mir Yaqub Memorial Library was not all that bad, for Mir Yaqub was a Principal, but being very much alive, the ‘Memorial’ was unkind. The student making the suggestion proposed that Mir Yqub be scragged, so that the ‘Memorial’ could be retained.
Similarly, before Modi has a stadium named after him, he should no longer be with us. Of course, he might have something to say about it. The FC Principal chose life, and the Library remained the Ewing Memorial Library. Mauve Modi will think for the greater good of India? I’m sure the Mumbai Matchfixers can work out something. Assassinations are not something they routinely deal in, but they can manage if they need to.
But Modi tried so hard. I mean, the whole point of having henchman Amit Shah’s son, Joy Shah, become BCCI secretary was so he would do the raszzledazzle with the wickets. It didb’t help, for rhe Aussies steamrollered India.
I suppose Modi’s solution should be have a Kshatriya captain, though at a pinch, a Vaisya would do the trick. The Brahmin boy, Rohit Sharma, got rolled over. It was a Jat who got India its first Cup back in 1983, Kapil Dev Nikhanj, a Punjabi Jat, whose father had migrated to India from Dipalpur in Okara. The next winner was M.S. Dhoni, who was a Rajput from Uttarkhand. Jadeja is good, because his wife is a BJP MLA. He would have had some regard for Modi’s honour.
He only made 9 and didn’t take a wicket, something which that traitorous Muslim Muhammad Shami and that no-good Sikh Jasprit Bumrah did. Apparently Australia was involved in some sort of conspiracy against Modi, throwing its wickets away on the treasonous, and carting caste Hindus all over the ground.
Modi’s hopes of contesting next year’’s election on the basis of the World Cup have been dashed, but we shouldn’t get too chuffed about it, because his next go-to option is a war scare with Pakistan. The only hope we have is that he doesn’t actually have to win anything. Modi knows that war is an expensive business, and India doesn’t have the money. Nor do we, but then we’re not going to war. If attacked, of course, we’ll have to ante up, but Modi knows that.
