The Tiger Takes Guard - Episode 2

Psychoanalyst and former England captain Mike Brearley travels to India to explore the vibrant and complex relationship between the nation's emergence as an economic power and its love of cricket. India has come to follow cricket with a verve and intensity that would have amazed, and possibly dismayed, the Victorian adventurers who first brought the game to its shores. As a national sport, Indian cricket has no parallel. There may be more money in American basketball and as much passion in Brazilian soccer. But two things distinguish this sport in India that are unmatched anywhere else on the globe. The first is the numbers, with 500 million people taking part in the game. The second is history, and the way in which India's national identity and its economic and social life is so bound up in it. Mike talks to historians, administrators and some of the Indian game's most important figures, including Sachin Tendulkar and Bishen Bedi, about the future of cricket in India and its implications for the game throughout the world.