Veteran sports writer Sharda Ugra hits it ‘Out of the Park’ with Gideon Haigh in the inaugural episode of her show on all things cricket World Cup, where they talk about the sport, the fanfare, the festival and the politics implicit in all of it.
Ugra will be with The Wire to help us all enjoy the World Cup, feast on the games, but also tackle the tough deliveries, handle the inseam, manage the spin, detangle the issues involved and well, enjoy the world cup, being hosted by the sub-continent for the first time since 1996 and the first time by India.
Haigh, an Australian writer, is the author of 48 books on a variety of subjects, and is a well known global name to write incisively and piercingly about the sport.
“The egotism, the monumental egotism, of Narendra Modi being felicitated, basically by Narendra Modi’s cronies in the stadium bearing his name in front of a selected audience, of mostly supporters, was as egregious and as offensive as it sounds,” he tells Ugra in this interview.
When Ugra asks him about the “shadow” of this factor in all the events held under the world cup umbrella, Haigh pulls no punches.
“Modi Stadium is a kind of metaphor for the BJP’s inroads into the BCCI and the dark heart of Indian cricket. You know, it’s a huge statement. It’s a massive display of egocentricity by Modi to put his name to it,” he says.
Click here to read Haigh on the India-Australia match at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
In the coming days, Ugra will have a whole team of fellow-stars with her to talk to, chat with and make sense of the twists and turns.
Follow her show here.
