A friend said to me after yesterday's T20 cricket match between India and England:
India is punching its weight in the world.
I am rather struck by seeing how India is dictatating what it does, and punching above its weight in the world. We hear that India is refusing to export AZ vaccine to the UK because of some problems, whatever that is. That has got the government here all in a frenzy about whether it can reach their promised targets by the summer.
Who would have thought some 40 years ago that India would tell the West what it wants and can do to help them?
Gone are the days when India was at the mercy of others for science and technology. Let's not even talk about cricket. As someone said, India is the centre of the cricket universe! England and Australia have just had some bitter medicine.
I replied:
Well, India still has miles to go. I would say England punches above its weight consistently. A country (is England really a country in the first place or just a part of UK) of about 5 crore people facing a country of 130 crore in cricket. The results don't seem to indicate a 5 to 130 handicap.
Let's not even get to football. And same in most other spheres.
UK makes India look like the David (instead of like Goliath). That's embarrassing.
My friend wrapped it up:
England is a football nation. The irony however is that it has never won the World Cup or even the Euro Cup in football. Aa far as cricket is concerned, it won the World Cup for the first time only in 2019 after a dramatic and controversial finish. In tennis, it produced a British (Scottish) champion after 72 years.
So England or shall I say UK for now (until it splits and becomes England only), it is definitely not punching above its weight in sport. Just trying to, but not quite reached there yet.
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