Michael
Herbert Rudolf Knatchbull, 5th Baron Brabourne, [ 1894 – 1939 ] was a British peerand soldier, the son of the
4th Baron Brabourne. Knatchbull was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the
Royal Artillery, served in the Gallipoli Campaign, rose to heights, was awarded
the Military Cross for his "distinguished service in the Field during the
operations at the Dardanelles." In 1933, upon his father's death, he
succeeded as Baron Brabourne following which he was made Governor of Bombay and
was invested as a Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian
Empire. Have
never read this before !
Television news channel Al Jazeera has hit out
at the manner in which the ECB and CA dismissed allegations of spot-fixing
involving their teams in its documentary, The Munawar Files, adding that the
ICC had failed to answer questions about the alleged "match-fixer at the
centre of our investigation" Aneel Munawar. The documentary, the second on
corruption in cricket by Al Jazeera, claimed that up to 15 international
matches - several of them Tests - in the 2011-12 period had been subject to
spot-fixing. Munawar was also at the centre of their first documentary, which alleged
that the Chennai Test in December 2016 and the Ranchi Test in March 2017 had
been subject to spot-fixing by England and Australia players.
In
its race to corporatise, centralise and improve team performance over the past
seven years, Cricket Australia's leadership lost sight of the fact that sport
is not a business, and that cricket in particular is judged by the way in which
its participants abide by the spirit of cricket as much as by how often they
win or lose. These are among the key findings of the Ethics
Centre's independent review of CA, released on Monday. Composed by Dr Simon
Longstaff in conjunction with a player review conducted by the former Test
batsman Rick McCosker, it has exposed the governing body as
"arrogant" and "controlling", while casting back to the
introduction of more outwardly corporate structures and goals by the 2011 Argus
review as a key point on the road towards the Newlands ball tampering scandal.
Equally, the review
has outlined clear divisions between CA's Board and executive, its state
association owners, and the players represented by the Australian Cricketers
Association. Critically, CA's overarching strategy for 2017-2022 is shown to be
missing strong links to the spirit of cricket that underpins behaviour within the
game, with the review also identifying a consistency between the corporate
behaviours of CA in dealing with stakeholders and sponsors and the moral decay
of the national team leading to the choice of David Warner and Cameron
Bancroft, with Steven Smith's tacit support, to use sandpaper to try to gain
reverse swing in Cape Town ! ~ among
42 recommendations outlined by the review are the desire for Australian cricket
to establish an ethics commission to oversee the ethical health of the game in
Australia !! ~ sounds pretty interesting !!!
That Governor
described in 1st para inaugurated Brabourne Stadium, built on a
piece of land reclaimed from the sea which Lord Brabourne, Governor of Bombay,
presented to the Cricket Club of India after being tempted with an offer of
immortality in the bargain. It was officially opened on December 7 1937
following with a match between the CCI and Lord Tennyson's team. The idea that
the ground would be the Lord's of India was the brainchild of a Goan, Neville
de Mello. It was as exclusive as its English counterpart and every bit as
luxurious - Frank Worrell once remarked that it was the only place in the world
where he could watch cricket in his dressing-gown and remove it when it was his
turn to bat. It was also a multi-sport complex which hosted international
tennis. The first test here was played
in Dec 1948 between India and West Indies while the last one was against Sri
Lanka in 2009. It first hosted an ODI
(Australia Vs Pak – 1989) – and today’s match against Windies was played here
at Brabourne.
I have written
disparagingly about him, dismayed about the vast support of statements like ‘you
are seeing India’s talent on screen’ by sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and
Manjrekar even when he had stings of failure .. but not often does a knock of 162 get lamented as a
missed double-century. One cannot wonder
counting as this happens to be the seventh - though, three of the previous six
have been double-hundreds, the man is Rohit Sharma.
West Indies finally
managed to deny Virat Kohli a century, but Rohit and Ambati Rayudu made use of
excellent batting conditions to take India to 377 and a 2-1 lead with one match
to go in the series. Rayudu managed to score the first century for India from
outside the top-three slots in the last 21 months. Scorecard reads : India 377 for 5 (Rohit 162,
Rayudu 100) beat West Indies 153 (Holder 54*, Khaleel 3-11, Kuldeep 3-42) by
224 runs. Though Ambati Rayudu played a
supporting role to Rohit Sharma for most of the day, the significance of his
hundred cannot be understated. It was
the completion of a circle in some sense: for a while after he had accepted
BCCI's amnesty offer to return to recognised Indian cricket, Mumbai was
Rayudu's home in the IPL.
Closer to home, in
neighbouring Lanka, former captain Arjuna Ranatunga was arrested over his role
in a shooting that killed one and injured two others in Colombo, during Sri
Lanka's unfolding political crisis. He has since been swiftly produced before
the Colombo magistrate, and was subsequently released on bail. Ranatunga had
said his security detail had discharged their weapons in order to protect him
from a mob that was intent on killing him, at the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation
(CPC) offices. He had to be extracted later from the premises by Special Task
Force - elite police - officers. But after almost 24 hours of pressure from a
CPC trade union, which had threatened a fuel strike, Ranatunga was arrested today
afternoon.
Ranatunga, who was
the country's Minister for the Development of Petroleum Resources, said he was
attempting to retrieve belongings from the CPC offices, when it was surrounded
by a mob aligned with the opposite political party. "They came to kill me
- I state this responsibly - and you can check the CCTV footage,"
Ranatunga said following the clash. "For the first time, I feared for my
life. I thought of my children and my family." After Ranatunga was dressed
in a helmet and camouflage, and escorted from the premises by the Special Task
Force, dozens of regular police were deployed in order to pacify a
still-agitated crowd. The three wounded had been taken to hospital but the news
of one of the men, aged 34, succumbing to his injuries prompted a demand over
Ranatunga's arrest from the trade union. Ranatunga first stood for office in
2001, and has held various cabinet portfolios since. He is a member of the
United National Party, whose leader, Ranil Wickramasinghe, is in the midst of
the ongoing political wrangle.
The man who led
Lanka to that famous WC victory in 1996 scored 5105 runs in 93 Tests with 4
centuries and equal no. of tons in 269 one dayers, where he totalled 7456
runs.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
29th Oct
2018.
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