HOWZZAT: Monty Panesar (right)

Too soon to jump for joy

Having an Indian in the England cricket team is good for business. But like Harbhajan Singh or Anil Kumble, Monty Panesar needs to come up with figures like 11 for 111 in a Test match if he is to cement his place, still precarious, in the England side. There is no mistaking his joy when he does take a wicket, as happened during the Lord’s Test, when he trapped Mohammad Yousuf lbw with a beauty.

The Times picked Yousuf’s dismissal as its “champagne moment”, meaning that was considered the most memorable incident in the match.

“Monty celebrated his first wicket of the match with characteristic excitement,” The Times noted.

Alas, such moments are still relatively rare. Another problem for Monty is that every time the ball goes to him in the field, the crowd almost expects him to fumble and, more often than not, the television commentator will make a little joke at his expense.

In an age when even tailenders are expected to hold their own as batsmen, Monty has yet to prove he is made of sterner stuff. So we shouldn’t be surprised if Monty gets dropped sooner rather than later.

On the other hand, his is a name that has a resonance with the Brits since it recalls the deeds of the Second World War general, Field Marshal Montgomery, who is eulogised as “Monty”. If our Monty fails to live up to his promise, the tabloids will soon start calling him by his real name ? Mudhsuden Singh Panesar.

The Guardian (whose size has shrunk to little more than a tabloid) ran a piece: “Under-pressure Panesar struggles to deliver the full Monty.”

In a separate article on the same page, he was defended by cricket writer Mike Selvey who does not want Monty ditched yet: “The idea that someone else ? Jamie Dalrymple is the latest favoured one ? would have done a better job (at Lord’s) is fatuous: Panesar is by a distance the best England spinner around.”

Since Monty has been Bishen Singh Bedi’s chela, the former Indian captain might consider giving his one-time pupil a few tips on fielding and batting. On second thoughts, however, perhaps not.

Incidentally, defining just who is “Indian” is not always easy. The India U-19 side, currently touring the UK, scored 250 in 50 overs at Derby and won the game by 41 runs, despite “a valiant half-century from England Under-19 skipper Varun Chopra”.

See what I mean? This sort of thing is making it so difficult for us to go in for cheap nationalism. Reliving Tagore

The Guardian review by its veteran critic Michael Billington said: “At the very least, the play makes you want to explore Tagore: a highly practical theatre-maker who was both actor, director and playwright, and who combined a hunger for myth with an irrepressible social conscience.”

St John Francis revealed that the actress and censor board chief Sharmila Tagore, currently holidaying in London, was expected to see the play, as well as representatives of the British Council. There is just a chance that the play will travel to Calcutta for the Drama Festival in December or the Tagore Festival in February next year.

The mother’s side of the Rowntree boys comes from Guyana, where Sarojini Seeram grew up in a household that included her brothers, Rabindranath and Karamchand, now both deceased. By and by, Rabindranath became “Robbie” to his nephews.

Sarojini recalled that her father, Arnold Emmanuel Seeram ? his forefathers had been taken to Guyana probably as indentured labourers in the 1850s ? was a Middle Temple barrister who travelled to India and met Gandhi at an ashram during one journey.

Sarojini has seen Red Oleander performed once before. “That was in Guyana in the 1940s. We had an Indian dramatic society.”

Of Rabindranath, who died in 2002, his sister said: “It’s a shame that he is not alive to see the play. In a way, it’s a tribute to him. His room was full of Tagore things and photographs. He always wanted to visit Santiniketan.”

POET’S CORNER: Rabindranath Seeram

Bricked up lanes

Two actors from India have the lead roles in the film adaptation of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane. Tanishtha Chatterjee plays Nazneen, a young bride from a Bangladeshi village who is served up to a much older husband, Chanu, portrayed by Satish Kaushik, in the East End of London.

The production company, Ruby Films, has finished two-thirds of the filming in and around Brick Lane, which is just as well since a group of local Bangladeshis want to kill off the project which they claim shows their community in a poor light.

Following the cancellation of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play, Behzti, at the Birmingham Rep in 2004 and the attack on M.F. Husain’s paintings earlier this summer, it is now becoming for “community leaders” to take an interest in the arts.

I once had a 16-page letter from the Greater Sylhet Welfare and Development Council, in which my attention was drawn to the allegedly offending remark put into Chanu’s mouth: “Most of our people here are Sylhetis. They know each other from the villages and they come to Tower Hamlets and they think they are back in the village. Most of them have jumped ship ... They have menial jobs on the ship, doing donkey work, or they stow away like little rats in the hold.”

Ruby Films may move further filming away from the Brick Lane area but ultimately the producers will have to decide whether to stand up to the protesters. Poor Monica Ali was unable to get a visa to visit her native Bangladesh when the book came out.

GAME POINT: Amitabh Bachchan and Amar Singh

New role

When local MP Keith Vaz last week brought Amitabh Bachchan and the actor’s travelling companion, Amar Singh, to Walkers Stadium, both men were presented Leicester City Football Club shirts with their names suitably inscribed.

Bachchan, who had been made an honourary Doctor of Arts by De Montfort University, and the general secretary of the Samajwadi Party posed with their shirts at a press conference.

Shortly afterwards, Vaz told an assembled Asian crowd: “We still, sadly, do not have an Asian player playing for Leicester City Football Club. My good friend Amar Singh, Member of Parliament from the Rajya Sabha, has agreed to link up his football club in the area which he represents with Leicester so that we will have a proper exchange between our football players.”

Amarji attracted a round of applause but said nothing. He looked slightly baffled, as though trying to recall whether he had a football club.

Tittle tattle

Some of England’s hottest temperatures on Wednesday, July 19, included: Charlwood, Surrey 36.3?C (97.3?F); Heathrow Airport, London 35?C (95?F); Birmingham 35?C (95?F); Wisley, Surrey 35?C (95?F); Bedford 35?C (95?F); Clerkenwell, London 34?C (93?C); Crosby, Merseyside 33?C (91?F).

The average for July is 21-23?C (70-73?F). I don’t blame Gulshan Grover for rushing back to the relative cool of Bombay.