Kit off is not on

The front page of today’s local section in the Hindustan Times shows a sneering blonde English ladette giving the cameraman the bird.

This follows a minor kerfuffle yesterday when, in one of the few moments of sunshine, English girls in the stands stripped off to bikini tops. “English fans were a major draw for the crowd” , said the piece. And you felt they weren’t talking about the Barmy Army beer guts.

Greeted by whistles and unwanted attention, the visitors soon covered up again. This sort of thing is not done by respectable Indians. Despite that, the piece was still accompanied by a particularly large photo of one of the offenders.

The visitors should have known better. In India kit off is not on. But the incident and the following report seemed a curious parable, an example of modern India’s relations with the west: half drawn in, half repulsed.

There was no such problem today. The crowd was pretty thin, not wanting to stump up a minimum of 200 rupees to get in – the price of a meal in a decent restaurant. And the mizzle deterred even the most determined sunbather.

On another note, after Sri Sreesanth’s break-dancing, we learn of another Indian dancing king. Everyone remembers their first love and Yuvraj Singh’s was ... rollerskating. Inaugurating a roller rink at a local school, Yuvraj is quoted as saying: “I am not new to rollerskating: in fact I have a long relationship with the sport.”

He goes on to reveal that he won a title in his early days. “I was very passionate about skating and used to practise pretty hard. I think I was quite good at it: perhaps better than quite a few senior guys, who would often push me out of jealousy.”

So what happened? Well, according to Yuvraj, his father had no truck with such nonsense and threatened to break his son’s legs if he ever saw him on skates again. “And to save my legs, I had to give up skating and play cricket.”