The match against Afghanistan could well have ended in an upset. We won only by one wicket, and I suspect that Naseem Shah reminded the Afghan bowler (perhaps in chaste Pushto, or perhaps fluent Dari), what the Bombay Bookies had decided the result of the match was supposed to be. Pakistan may well have lost to Bangladesh in a World Cup and got them Test status, but Afghanistan already have Test status, so losing to them wouldn’t have helped anything. But anyone betting on Afghanistan at the beginning of the match would have got excited towards the end, while anyone betting on Pakistan towards the end of the match would have got very good odds. Which is what the Mumbai Matchfixers probably got. The pathetic way Pakistan played against Sri Lanka showed that the game with Afghanistan was in the book.
The Pakistan team is lucky to be playing away from the floods. Which would be worse: a match not washed out, or a washout? Floods have been the reason why by-elections in 11 of the seats PTI MNAs have resigned from, have been postponed.
That was not the reason Liz Truss became Leader of the Tory Party and thus UK’’s PM, even though no one knows the UK better than Imran. I think it’s a sign of times to come that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sumak didn’t make it, because right towards the end he was confronted with his sin. It wasn’t just being Indian, though that couldn’t have helped him in the Tory Party. It was that he was the traitor whose resignation from the Cabinet made Johnson resign. Nobody likes a traitor, you see. The appointments Ms Truss has made make me think the first British PM of colour will have ancestors from Africa. She’s made sure that none of the three great offices of state, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Chancellor has not gone to white men.
Well, it seems being a white male is a little out of fashion, but the new King of England, Charles III, and replaces a woman, Elizabeth II. Charles had once given the impression that he would use his given name George, as his regnal name, after his grandfather, but he’s reviving memories of the Merry Monarch, Charles II, the last King to bear the name.
Charles is not the best of names really, for Charles I, Charles II’s father, was beheaded. Charles II actually returned after long years in exile. I wonder if the years after divorcing Diana, and then her death.
Well, the general impression is that the straitlaced Victorian Age was succeeded by the much more relaxed Edwardian Age. Well, Elizabeth was older than Victoria when she ascended the throne and reigned six years more than she did. Charles is thus the oldest person to become British monarch at 73. The UK has a constitutional monarchy, but even so, Charles, like Edward VII, is probably going to spend a brief time in a job he’s grown old waiting for. Charles has been,
If nothing else, more discreet than Edward, who was a notorious character before becoming King. Edward did have the advantage of a very proper queen, Alexandra, who had been a Danish princess. Charles has Camilla, the daughter of a retired major. Interestingly, through her mother, she is descended from one of the mistresses of Edward VII, Alice Keppel.
She too had been married to an army officer. Queen Camilla, as she now will be, was once married to Andrew Parker Bowles, who retired as a brigadier. I’m not surprised the British have never had a military coup. They’re probably too busy with wives and daughters.
Of course, Imran knows much more about the British and the Army than I, but still his specialized knowledge that there is a weak, unpatriotic lieutenant-general whose name will be submitted for appointment, doesn’t make sense. If such a person can get through the Army’s winnowing process, then something is wrong with the process. Imran has to enlighten us whether the weak link is one of the steps, or the entire process.
