Mar 10, 2004
India’s first cricket tour of Pakistan in 15 years brings political opportunity and danger in equal measure The Guardian, 10 March, 2004 India’s superstar cricketers – among the country’s most famous faces – will today visit Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at his Delhi residence, to receive his official blessing before boarding a chartered flight… Read more
Feb 25, 2004
Indian Express, February 2004 For some years now, the absence of India-Pakistan cricket has been the hole in the heart of the world game. It deprives cricket-livers of an attractive, exciting fixture and it undermines the sub-continent’s claim to be the game’s progressive new power house. More importantly, it is a constant reminder of the… Read more
Dec 18, 2003
The Guardian, 18 December 2003 This time last year British fans starved of victory on the field could console themselves with the thought that they enjoyed superiority in at least one corner of the sporting realm. While manifestations of race hate had mostly vanished from British arenas, they were flaring up with increasing violence across… Read more
Nov 16, 2002
Mike Marqusee on Donald McRae’s evocation of the hurdles faced by Joe Louis and Jesse Owens The Guardian, 16 November, 2002 Review of In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens by Donald McRae, Scribner. In 1936, under the irritated gaze of Hitler and the Nazi high command, the sprinter and long jumper… Read more
Jun 6, 2002
The Guardian, 6 June 2002 It may be hard to remember amid the World Cup clamour, but the beauty of football, like other games, lies in its sublime pointlessness. It is an end in itself with no higher purpose. The paradox is that precisely because it is utterly trivial, sport becomes saturated with meanings. Tomorrow’s… Read more
Feb 9, 2002
Mike Marqusee cheers Dancing Shoes Is Dead: A Tale of Fighting Men in South Africa by Gavin Evans, a hard-hitting memoir of South African boxing The Guardian, 9 February 2002 Ever since the ringside cry of “Don’t let the nigger win!” went up at the epic 1810 bout between the black American ex-slave Molineux and… Read more
Dec 21, 2001
The Guardian, December 21, 2001 If any of the England cricketers currently struggling with the spin bowlers in Bangalore have had a chance to see Lagaan, the Bollywood crossover hit about a Raj-era grudge match between heroic Gujerati villagers and dastardly Anglo-imperialists, they’ll know that they are merely bit players in a long-running national psychodrama…. Read more
Dec 1, 2001
BBC History Magazine, December 2001 Asked if ‘Ali’, the soon-to-be released Hollywood epic starring Will Smith, would be ‘controversial’, screenwriter Eric Roth responded, “Are you kidding? It’s about Muhammad Ali. Do you really think all the things he stood for don’t matter anymore? His name is still a lightning rod in American society.” Roth has… Read more
Oct 1, 2001
Indian Express, 1 October 2001 The fearful events of recent weeks have brought to mind an extraordinary cricket match I was once privileged to witness in a rural hamlet some miles outside Quetta in Pakistan. A wicket had been marked out on a dry, pebbly flat, and a boundary demarcated with little red and yellow… Read more
Jun 3, 1999
Daily Telegraph, 3 June 1999 In south Asia, the significance of the departure of the host country from the World Cup is that it clears the way for a renewal of the India-Pakistan rivalry at Old Trafford on June 8. The cricket contest between the subcontinental neighbours must be the fiercest derby in world sport…. Read more
