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New Delhi, Feb. 12: They have long fielded “bouncers” in Parliament. Now they will take the field and face some real ones.
Indian parliamentarians will square off against MPs of the UK’s House of Commons in the first such T20 game.
If Anurag Thakur, who will lead the hosts, can pull off a win in the April 13 game, he will have gone where the M.S. Dhoni-led Team India couldn’t last year when they drew a blank in England.
“Our team is very strong and we have several former cricketers like Mohammed Azharuddin, Kirti Azad, Navjot Singh Sidhu, all MPs. We have also young MPs who are good players,” said Rajiv Pratap Rudy, secretary of the Constitution Club of India, which is organising the match as a goodwill initiative.
Rudy, who will do the commentary, said the match would be held at the picturesque Chail cricket ground in Himachal Pradesh, 49km from Shimla. “The House of Commons’ MPs were very keen to play a match with us. They sent us the proposal in December. Recently, we finalised the dates and intimated them,” the BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar said.
If the prospect of such a game makes the players feel like they are on the top of the world, they can’t be accused of overreaction: at 7,500 feet, Chail is one of the highest cricket grounds in the world.
A bit of history will be at play too. The ground was built by the cricket-loving Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh in 1893. He decided to build his summer capital in Chail after the British restricted his entry into Shimla in 1891.
Most of the Indian MPs are upbeat about their chances but acknowledge their rivals aren’t rookies either.
“We know that some of the players in the UK team are very good and are physically fit. But we have some big names in our team who would live up to their reputation and would prove too good for the opponents,” said one MP.
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