Sikhs
Everybody knows that Monty Panesar, the England spin-bowler is a Sikh. He has a beard, wears a turban and adheres to the rules of his religion. But England played two Sikhs in the last Test Match in Cardiff, as Ravi Bopara is also a Sikh.
I first came aware of Sikhs, when as a child I was watching the Commonwealth Games of 1958 on the television. Milka Singh, running for India, won the gold in the four hundred metres. I can’t remember him in the Olympics in Rome, where he ran barefoot with his hair streaming behind him and became the darling of the crowd and favourite for the gold. He came fourth in a photo-finish. Now he is most remembered as the father of the very capable Indian golfer, Jeev Milka Singh.
I am not a religious person, but I do admire what Sikhs stand for. Unusually, their religion doesn’t have an afterlife. Perhaps this is why they work so hard for success, as it only matters what you do on this earth!
But the principles of the religion are very much what I stand for; women are equal, there is no priestly class, anyone can join, regardless of race or gender etc. Only when it comes to God, do we disagree, but then if you live your life well and for the benefit of others, who cares?
But there is one Sikh tale I want to get to the bottom of.
Jimmy Langley, was an officer in the Guards, who lost an arm at Dunkirk and then evaded the Germans before returning to the UK through Spain and Portugal. He later organised the escape routes for hundreds of airmen, who were shot down in occupied Europe. These tales were then documented by the BBC, in the series Secret Army, for which he was an adviser.
I met him about twenty years ago, on a ferry from Harwich to the Hook, when he was promoting his autobiography about his wartime exploits. He kindly signed a copy and we chatted for a few minutes.
A couple of years later, I bought another of his books called MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939-1945, which he had co-authored with M. R. D. Foot.
In that book, one short sentence says that the first “Home Run” by British forces from Germany was by two Sikh sergeants in the Pioneer Corps.
That must have been some tale.
I Was There!
There is an old Max Boyce song or tale about Llanelli beating the All Blacks, 9-3 in 1972. Upwards of 50,000 Welshmen claim that they were in Stradey Park that day, when the figure was probably around 20,000.
My only real “I was there” moment was that I was in Trafalgar Square on July 6th, 2005, when London won the right to hold the 2012 Olympics. I was on the steps of St. Martins-in-the-Fields and I have the pictures to prove it.
So how many fervent Welshmen will claim that they were in Cardiff, when England played their “Get Out of Jail Free” card yesterday. Read Tom Fordyce for an excellent piece on how the bowlers batted out a draw. I couldn’t possibly claim it was a well-deserved draw could I? But then it is always worthwhile to rub an Aussie’s nose in it.
I listened to the story unfolding in the car between Dunkirk and Rotterdam, not on the BBC’s Test Match Special on Long Wave, but the regular Five Live broadcast, with Mark Pougatch, Alex Stewart, Jason Gillespie and Pat Murphy. It was nail-biting stuff. Not that I do that anymore.
At one point, I went through a tunnel and there was cheering on the other side. Had England lost a wicket? No they’d scored a four. Everything was cheered and even after a dot ball, you’d think that England had won.
So it was all great fun! But I can’t agree more with Jason Gillespie, when he suggested that a bit of pace, rather than two spinners might have blasted one of Anderson and Panesar out. But then that is just a what if!
Panesar, like all good Sikhs, showed his honourable fighting qualities and has given the selectors a real dilemma. They probably need to drop one of the spinners, and he would have been the most likely, as although they both bowled badly in Cardiff, he is the lesser batsman.
But can they drop one of the heroes of Cardiff?
The Anonymous Widower 