The Sinha Test

Paul Sinha, Britain's most famous gay Hindu GP stand-up, stars and writes in this special one-off show about cricket and national identity, a week before the next test series between England and India.

This was inspired by "The Tebbit Test", when in April 1990 Norman Tebbit said that immigrants who came to live in England that did not support the England cricket team, but instead supported the team of their home land, were not patriotic. Sinha, along with what he claims is the entire immigrant population of England, supports the team of his parents home land, India.

The stand-up looks at the various conflicting issues with regards to supporting India in cricket, but supporting England in football and other sports. Part of the reason for this being that while India excel in cricket, they tend not to excel in almost every other sport (except kabaddi).

Highlights for me include what Sinha refers to as "My mum and dad's dinner party story" in which India had to bat for two days solid in order to save the series, and by the time Sinha's parents arrived at the ground that morning India has already lost. There is also the story of Sinha getting tickets to see the 1983 Cricket World Cup from his head teacher who smugly said that India would not be there. India won the final, beating England in the semi.

Sinha's conclusion is that we love to support the underdog, a notion I can appreciate. I support Middlesbrough F.C., partly because I'm from Teesside, partly out of a sense of duty due to the fact my parents first met at a Boro game, but also due to the fact that I, and I suspect the majority of Boro fans as well, are secretly fond of the fact that Middlesbrough is somewhat rubbish.

We will never admit it in public, but we all secretly proud of the fact we are over-polluted, mostly poor, and have a food dish - a parmo - which has Scotsmen looking at envy going: "Bloody hell, that can give you a coronary with just one bite - and it hasn't even been deep fried!"

The comedian Paul Sinha observed in The Sinha Test, "cricket is the complete works of Shakespeare to baseball's The Only Way Is Essex". As an Englishman he's biased. In fact, as an Englishman who supports the Indian cricket team he's biased.

The programme's title referred to the famous Tebbit Test - which cricket team do Asian Brits support? Sinha made clear that for him, the team you follow has nothing to do with nationality: it's all about the sport. He supports England footballers, but because his parents supported India's cricketers, so did he.

There were good jokes and some nice stories. He remembered England vs Turkey at football, when the home fans struck up a chorus of "I'd rather be a Paki than a Turk". His dad started crying, and said: "Finally, after 35 years of hard work, we're off the bottom rung."

In the Midlands Arts Centre, near Edgbaston Cricket Ground, on practically the eve of the Test Match series against India, Paul Sinha talks about being British-Asian and a cricket fan. Remember Norman Tebbitt's famous test question: which team does he support? India, actually, because it was the team his family (who came to England in 1968) supported. This really is a splendid programme, with well-observed quips about allegiances, sport, society, families. A sociologist and a former Test cricketer offer back-up thoughts but this is a top Sinha innings.