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Colonial hangover in sub-continental cricketers?

ManFan

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I have noticed that when SC players are interviewed, they always speak in English. Now some can't really speak it fluently yet continue to embarrass themselves. Even fans online state that, " Wow he speaks English really good " or " Let's make him the next Captian cause he sounds educated ". Why don't these players speak the language they aren't comfortable in? When England tour India or Bangladesh, do they attempt to speak Hindi or Bengali? This culture needs to change especially in Pakistan. It is just embarrassing to watch and takes away from their performances on the field.
 
English is a global language and you need to speak it well to communicate. Try getting a job in Canada or the US if you can't speak English properly.
 
It's inferiority complex of desi people towards the language of their colonial masters.

Look at any football documentary, most players are communicating in their own languages. Has anyone ever seen Messi giving interviews in English or Nadal trying to improve his command on the language to impress anyone?

But hey Umar Akmal and Inzamam need to be fluent in English.
 
Cricket is the only sport where players are under some obligation to speak in English. As if since England is where the sport was developed so need to speak the language of the natives.
 
English is a universal language.

How do u expect the world to understand what you are saying if not by using a universal language??

Perfect english speaking skills arent required imo but u need to have a guy who can translate your words in english standing next to you. Just so that the rest of the world understands what you are saying.
 
If English wasn't taught in our schools then it was perfectly ok if we did not speak it..

But if the language is a part of our education system, the inability to speak it means that that particular person has not been schooled properly.

by the way Imad Wasim is pretty fluent in English.
 
I never understood the English Medium and Urdu Medium system? I think it just confuses a lot of kids.
 
In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and a few other commonwealth countries higher education is conducted in English. This means knowing English is a good indicator of whether a person is educated or not.
 
English is a global language and you need to speak it well to communicate. Try getting a job in Canada or the US if you can't speak English properly.

They're not looking for jobs in Canada or the US; they're playing cricket for their country, often in their country.
 
By the way a player is always asked before hand in which language would he like to be interviewed

By the way Cricket itself is a British Game.. the ODI world cup that England has never won till date
 
I like the French who would go out of their way to avoid speaking in English. English is just any other language but has become a sort of status symbol in SC.

French is language during the ongoing French Open.
 
In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and a few other commonwealth countries higher education is conducted in English. This means knowing English is a good indicator of whether a person is educated or not.

Only higher education isnt education. This english shows how educated you are is nonsense.

English is absolutely required to communicate to the world. Players dont need to know english themselves but someone should be the designated translator in the team so that the world understands what that player is saying. Thats about it.
 
If English wasn't taught in our schools then it was perfectly ok if we did not speak it..

But if the language is a part of our education system, the inability to speak it means that that particular person has not been schooled properly.

by the way Imad Wasim is pretty fluent in English.

If i am not wrong, isn't it Imad Wasim born and brought up in England?
 
It was because of English that India could become the IT superpower.

Still India is a third world country like Philippines, where English is prevalent.

It's not as if India has turned into a First World Country due to English while Japanese and Chinese are begging for survival.

If you see it's the opposite, but keep equating English necessary for being a successful Nation.
 
Still India is a third world country like Philippines, where English is prevalent.

It's not as if India has turned into a First World Country due to English while Japanese and Chinese are begging for survival.

If you see it's the opposite, but keep equating English necessary for being a successful Nation.

Dude I am a late 70s child and I have seen the rise of the country post 1990s. It was almost a stark situation before that..

India is not yet a first world nation. But I have seen the Gaint strides this Huge and Diverse nation has accomplished in the last 3 decades..

.. English and the Indian education has to get credit for that.
 
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Only higher education isnt education. This english shows how educated you are is nonsense.

What is nonsense about it? There is a clear correlation between education and fluency in English in the subcontinent.
 
Indians are very protective of their 'regional' language, Indian Punjabi's simply hate to converse in Hindi, Same with Kashmiri, Tamil, Marathi and so many other ethnicities. India does not have any national language, English and Hindi are official languages. Hindi is not imposed on Indians like Urdu is on Pakistanis. Only 9 states in India out of 29 have Hindi as first language, 40% Indians have Hindi as first language. It is very difficult to create any consensus on which language should be national language. After US, India has highest population of English users (second and third language) in the world. Regional movies earn huge money, there are 100s of regional language newspapers and TV channels. So English satisfy our need to communicate with each other, without English I cannot communicate with South Indians.

There is nothing colonial.
 
about speaking English it is our educational system I blame, English is second official language but the way it has been taught from primary level completely useless, all you do is that just read the textbook and memorize, nothing sorts of teaching in practical way, may be that is why we Bangladeshis are not fluent in spoken English. At this regard I found Indians are very fluent.
 
South African Indians have their own blend of English and an accent which is very different from the accents in India.

 
I understand your point but I was talking about cricketing matters.
 
Remember Shahid Afridi labelling Irfan Pathan a fake Pathan due to his inability to speak Pashto? Same way Indian Punjabi's look down upon anyone speaking Hindi/Urdu in Indian Punjab. It is seen at par with terminology you use in Pakistan, a burger kid. So English is fine lol.
 
I understand your point but I was talking about cricketing matters.

Its okay for Bangladeshi's to address in Bengali and to some extent Sri Lankans, even Pakistan as a whole has adopted Urdu. But India is too diverse and Indian players preferring Hindi will have deep repercussions.
 
Cricket is no football, among many other advantages, the one I can think of on top of my head is that these players play in leagues worldwide and to have good english helps in communicating better with other team mates and gel together as a team.
 
Indians are very protective of their 'regional' language, Indian Punjabi's simply hate to converse in Hindi, Same with Kashmiri, Tamil, Marathi and so many other ethnicities. India does not have any national language, English and Hindi are official languages. Hindi is not imposed on Indians like Urdu is on Pakistanis. Only 9 states in India out of 29 have Hindi as first language, 40% Indians have Hindi as first language. It is very difficult to create any consensus on which language should be national language. After US, India has highest population of English users (second and third language) in the world. Regional movies earn huge money, there are 100s of regional language newspapers and TV channels. So English satisfy our need to communicate with each other, without English I cannot communicate with South Indians.

There is nothing colonial.

The Diversity of India is mind boggling.. don't even try to quote India and Indians if one has not been lived here.

One lifetime is less to see and experience the complete India.

by the way the only two things that have unofficially united India in these 70 years are Cricket and Bollywood.. the South are not Bollywood fanatics but thanks to ENGLISH there been a thread of communication between the rest of India and the South.


And mind you South Indians place very High Regard to education. Srinath and Kumble are from South and both are Engineers by education.. also South Indians would Invariably be very fluent with English.

Few South Indian cricketers- Kumble, Srinath, Rahul David, KL Rahul, Robin Uthappa, Venkatesh Prasad, K Srikanth, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay are a few names.. all of whom are very fluent in English
 
Can you explain your last sentence please?

Indian Punjabi's are anti Lucknow Tameez and Tehzeeb, we don't like polished personality, air of gentleness comes across as superficial to us. Indian Punjabi's take pride in being paindoo's, Punjabi is treated with respect as mother tongue. We listen to Punjabi songs and read watch Punjabi content, in-fact we export songs and actors to bollywood. They copy us.
 
Indians are very protective of their 'regional' language, Indian Punjabi's simply hate to converse in Hindi, Same with Kashmiri, Tamil, Marathi and so many other ethnicities. India does not have any national language, English and Hindi are official languages. Hindi is not imposed on Indians like Urdu is on Pakistanis. Only 9 states in India out of 29 have Hindi as first language, 40% Indians have Hindi as first language. It is very difficult to create any consensus on which language should be national language. After US, India has highest population of English users (second and third language) in the world. Regional movies earn huge money, there are 100s of regional language newspapers and TV channels. So English satisfy our need to communicate with each other, without English I cannot communicate with South Indians.

There is nothing colonial.

Majority of Indians of different backgrounds communicate in Hindi, look at the Indian Cricket team.

Jaddu, Bhajji, Yuvi, Dhoni, Raina, Rohit, Dhawan, Bhuvi, Pandya.... All communicate in Hindi on field not English.

That's the same in cosmopolitan cities.
 
Majority of Indians of different backgrounds communicate in Hindi, look at the Indian Cricket team.

Jaddu, Bhajji, Yuvi, Dhoni, Raina, Rohit, Dhawan, Bhuvi, Pandya.... All communicate in Hindi on field not English.

That's the same in cosmopolitan cities.

They all are from Hindi belt, Ashwin and Dhoni prefer English withe each other.
 
They all are from Hindi belt, Ashwin and Dhoni prefer English withe each other.

Yuvi, Bhajji are from Hindi Belt?

Sachin is from Hindi belt?

People of diverse backgrounds in Mumbai and Delhi communicate in Hindi with each other.

Your PM Modi addresses the Nation in Hindi most of the times .
 
Indian Punjabi's are anti Lucknow Tameez and Tehzeeb, we don't like polished personality, air of gentleness comes across as superficial to us. Indian Punjabi's take pride in being paindoo's, Punjabi is treated with respect as mother tongue. We listen to Punjabi songs and read watch Punjabi content, in-fact we export songs and actors to bollywood. They copy us.

Udata Punjab eh?

Punjab is a great place and Punjabis are awesome but please thand rakh bhai.... India is just too mind bogglingly diverse to see through only a Punjabi lens.
 
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Yuvi, Bhajji are from Hindi Belt?

Sachin is from Hindi belt?

People of diverse backgrounds in Mumbai and Delhi communicate in Hindi with each other.

Your PM Modi addresses the Nation in Hindi most of the times .

Hindi is their second language and it is a tactic to use Hindi, a foreign language for other teams. Mumbai is a metropolitan city, only 20% Marathi people live there, used to be 52% in 1960. There are Bhaiyya's everywhere.

PM can use Hindi as it is one of official language, imposing is a problem not usage.
 
Yuvi, Bhajji are from Hindi Belt?

Sachin is from Hindi belt?

People of diverse backgrounds in Mumbai and Delhi communicate in Hindi with each other.

Your PM Modi addresses the Nation in Hindi most of the times .

True but even our PM who has the guts to address the International audience in Hindi knows that for Business English opens doors way faster
 
True but even our PM who has the guts to address the International audience in Hindi knows that for Business English opens doors way faster

Both languages have their own importance, one on National Basis other Internationally.
 
Its okay for Bangladeshi's to address in Bengali and to some extent Sri Lankans, even Pakistan as a whole has adopted Urdu. But India is too diverse and Indian players preferring Hindi will have deep repercussions.

Speaking english is good. Atleast its a level playing field for Indians from all parts. Or else you'll see faux nationalism creep into cricket interviews as well,
 
Both languages have their own importance, one on National Basis other Internationally.

in India both has never been imposed.. Most have taken to Hindi in addition to their mother tongue.. And thanks to education English has also found its place.

in any case no language has ever been imposed in India.. a country where there are about 1600 total languages and dialects spoken
 
What is nonsense about it? There is a clear correlation between education and fluency in English in the subcontinent.

Bro, there are educated people in subcontinent who dont speak english. These are people who have studied in urdu/hindi medium or other local languages. Only higher education is not education. If you study in an urdu medium till high school and then leave studies forever, you would still be called educated. Unless you have some other lofty standards for being called educated. Bad english is not always equal to uneducated. Thats why i said it doesnt make sense to declare a bad english speaker as uneducated.
 
It is only polite to answer back in the language the question is asked. Can understand westerners asking questions in English as it's the only language they mostly understand. If the likes of Ramiz and Shastri want answers in their own language then they should ask the question in that one.
 
The difference being we are on a forum while the cricketers are on a field.
 
I can't stand it when Indians try and speak english tbh. It sounds like someone destroying the beauty of English one word at a time and i always wished they had more pride in speaking their own national language but apparently they don't have one.
 
Indian Punjabi's are anti Lucknow Tameez and Tehzeeb, we don't like polished personality, air of gentleness comes across as superficial to us. Indian Punjabi's take pride in being paindoo's, Punjabi is treated with respect as mother tongue. We listen to Punjabi songs and read watch Punjabi content, in-fact we export songs and actors to bollywood. They copy us.

Good point. Explains the rot in bollywood which is only mirroring the rotten state of punjab. From the highs of balraj sahni, amrita pritam and gulzar, now they have the no name misogynist weed smoking paindoos singing about audi, kuriya and sharab.
 
I can't stand it when Indians try and speak english tbh. It sounds like someone destroying the beauty of English one word at a time and i always wished they had more pride in speaking their own national language but apparently they don't have one.

What an ignorant post! Outside of the native English speakers, the Indians are the best when it comes to being comfortable with the English language.
 
From what I understand, English has an official status as the joint national language particularly in India, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan; and English is understood and spoken in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well. Not everything has to be based around a colonial hangover.
 
The point raised in the thread was why subcontinental players unnecessarily speak English during cricket post-match interviews or other cricket related coverage. I have lived in Pakistan and can state that there is an inferiority complex and colonial linkage to the perception that if you speak English you appear more educated. Nothing wrong with English but just my two cents.
 
The Diversity of India is mind boggling.. don't even try to quote India and Indians if one has not been lived here.

One lifetime is less to see and experience the complete India.

by the way the only two things that have unofficially united India in these 70 years are Cricket and Bollywood.. the South are not Bollywood fanatics but thanks to ENGLISH there been a thread of communication between the rest of India and the South.


And mind you South Indians place very High Regard to education. Srinath and Kumble are from South and both are Engineers by education.. also South Indians would Invariably be very fluent with English.

Few South Indian cricketers- Kumble, Srinath, Rahul David, KL Rahul, Robin Uthappa, Venkatesh Prasad, K Srikanth, Dinesh Karthik, Murali Vijay are a few names.. all of whom are very fluent in English

Both of you are correct. Cricket is definitely keeping us together. Can't say South Indians are very fluent in English, only the educated ones are and they tend to migrate more so it creates a perception that we speak better English.
 
I can't stand it when Indians try and speak english tbh. It sounds like someone destroying the beauty of English one word at a time and i always wished they had more pride in speaking their own national language but apparently they don't have one.

Pakistanis don't speak better English either. All desi accent sound funny to the foreigners. I never even knew I had an accent till I came here :trump
 
It is only polite to answer back in the language the question is asked. Can understand westerners asking questions in English as it's the only language they mostly understand. If the likes of Ramiz and Shastri want answers in their own language then they should ask the question in that one.

Actually Shastri talks Hindi/Marathi to Indian players during presentation in Indian bilaterals, especially to guys who are weak at English like Jadeja and Umesh etc.

But then he goes full ret@rd and talks Hindi to Ashwin of all people ! :facepalm:

I can't stand it when Indians try and speak english tbh. It sounds like someone destroying the beauty of English one word at a time and i always wished they had more pride in speaking their own national language but apparently they don't have one.

Yeah, so the Irish, Scots, Aussies and Jamaicans are all speaking pure Shakespearean stuff I suppose.

Indian team has many sikhs- dhawan, kohli, yuvraj, bumrah, dhoni and no Muslims

Kohli and Dhawan are punjabi Hindus, not Sikhs. They have the Punjabi culture in spades though. Yuvi, Harbhajan have been the only sikhs in recent times. Shami, Irfan, Parvez rasool have all been muslims.

The only valid accusation towards Indian cricket is the lack of representation from the North East, but the BCCI does very little to grow the game there . SO it's a blemish on the whole of India.

From what I understand, English has an official status as the joint national language particularly in India, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan; and English is understood and spoken in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well. Not everything has to be based around a colonial hangover.

English was the No-nonsense option when choosing a commonly acceptable language. It was alien to all Indians. Pakistan did the same with Urdu, which is actually a language from Uttar Pradesh in India. It wasn't spoken anywhere in present pakistan pre-independence.

If you were to go by the "most spoken" metric either Punjabi or Bengali should've been the national language of Pakistan.

-
 
The OP is suffering from colonial hangover too, why did you create this thread in english?
 
" Colonial Hangover " is not meant as an insult. This thread is not about ridiculing English or disapproving people speaking it. It's rather about subcontinental players who despite not knowing how to speak English, continue to speak it in cricket interviews, embarrassing themselves when they can just speak their mother tongue and have a translator do the job for them like Hasan Ali in the recently concluded match against SA.
 
" Colonial Hangover " is not meant as an insult. This thread is not about ridiculing English or disapproving people speaking it. It's rather about subcontinental players who despite not knowing how to speak English, continue to speak it in cricket interviews, embarrassing themselves when they can just speak their mother tongue and have a translator do the job for them like Hasan Ali in the recently concluded match against SA.

It's more a case of mismanagement by the pak board rather than colonial hangover. You won't see this problem with Indian cricketers as most of them are fluent in english, and that's because the BCCI looked after the development of these communication skills of the players for an all round development. When bhajji first played international cricket, he couldn't even speak a single word of english but he's now fluent in english, so learning a language is not hard, the PCB should look to develop these communication skills or at least send a translator to avoid embarrassment of its players, the fault lies with pcb, they have to look after these things not the players. Also it is not a subcontinental problem, because I see players from India, Sri lanka and Bangladesh very comfortable with english, it is more of a pakistani problem.
 
From what I understand, English has an official status as the joint national language particularly in India, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan; and English is understood and spoken in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well. Not everything has to be based around a colonial hangover.

Yes English along with Hindi is the official language of India.
Other than that there are 22 languages described in 8th schedule of constitution which reflects the diversity of the country.
There is no national language like Pakistan.
 
[MENTION=140459]SandyB[/MENTION] Shastri's Hindi is the worst I have heard in the com box.Should stick to English only.
 
Dhawan, Kohli and Dhoni are not sikhs.

Dhawan and Kohli - Punjabi Khatris
Dhoni - Pahari Rajput

Kohli and Dhawan are Sikhs, Dhawan's marriage was held in a Gurudwara not in a Mandir, Same with Kohli's elder brother. Dhawan has named his son Zorawar after Sahibzada Zorawar Singh, Son of Guru Gobind Singh.

Shikhar_Dhawan_Aesha_Wedding_3.jpg
Shikhar_Dhawan_Aesha_Wedding_5_Small.jpg

Performing Ardaas in a Gurdwara.
Shikhar_Dhawan_Praying_1.jpg


[MENTION=130700]TM Riddle[/MENTION] - Punjabi Khatris can be Hindu, Sikh, Muslims like Jatts, do not mix ethnicity with religion. All Sikh Guru's were Khatri.
 
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Kohli and Dhawan are Sikhs, Dhawan's marriage was held in a Gurudwara not in a Mandir, Same with Kohli's elder brother. Dhawan has named his son Zorawar after Sahibzada Zorawar Singh, Son of Guru Gobind Singh.

View attachment 74749
View attachment 74751

Performing Ardaas in a Gurdwara.
View attachment 74750


[MENTION=130700]TM Riddle[/MENTION] - Punjabi Khatris can be Hindu, Sikh, Muslims like Jatts, do not mix ethnicity with religion. All Sikh Guru's were Khatri.

Yeah knew about all Gurus being Khatris.
Khair didn't know both of them were Sikhs.Thanks for the info.
 
Kohli and Dhawan are Sikhs, Dhawan's marriage was held in a Gurudwara not in a Mandir, Same with Kohli's elder brother. Dhawan has named his son Zorawar after Sahibzada Zorawar Singh, Son of Guru Gobind Singh.

Wow! I thought they were hindu mohajirs like their brethren in bollywood.
 
If a player can speak the language of runs scored or wickets taken, no one will give a crap about whether he speaks English.
 
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