Why the 'Lack of Loyalty' Trope in Lord Tebbit's Cricket Test Didn't Work
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Drummers banging out Bhangra beats. Blue-shirted, brown-skinned fans cheering and chanting, dancing and singing, from opening bell to stumps. India's tricolour waved in all corners of the ground. Sweltering heat and humidity with the occasional driving downpour. If it wasn't for the £5 samosas and Brummie burrs you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in Eden Gardens rather than Edgbaston. This is England 2025 in the week in which Lord Tebbit died - and proof that his infamous 'cricket test' turned to ashes long ago.
It was 35 years ago that the then Norman Tebbit, former Conservative Cabinet minister and Margaret Thatcher's rottweiler, came up with his infamous 'dog whistle' - so long ago that 20 of the 22 players in the second Test weren't even born - and it hasn't stood the test of time.
In 1990, ahead of a previous India tour of England, he said that people from ethnic minorities in Britain couldn't be truly British unless they supported the England cricket team, telling the Los Angeles Times: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"
More recently, he doubled-down on his 'test' - taking it into the realms of the absurd - asking an Asian BBC reporter during the 2019 cricket World Cup, which was being held in England, "were we to find ourselves in a war, which side would you support?", adding that "it makes you a bit less British" if a person supports another country.
Tebbit appeared to have conveniently forgotten the 2.5 million Indians who did fight for the King and Empire in the Second World War and the 1.5 million in the first - the biggest volunteer armies in history, with hundreds of thousands of them dying for the cause.
'A Disunited Kingdom? For Younger Minorities, Britishness is an Identity We Can Work With - A Quest for Englishness Must Confront This'
Developing a stronger sense of Englishness cannot merely be looked at through a political lens - our identities are personal and multiple, conflicting and shifting, writes Hardeep Matharu
Hardeep Matharu
Fast forward to the present day and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone of Indian heritage supporting England in the current series.
Whatever Tebbit had hoped to achieve all those years ago, to pressure or shame or force ethnic minorities into supporting England or tone down their backing for their mother land, has failed spectacularly. They still cheer for who they want, just as Brits who moved and live abroad, and their children - like the millions in the EU - haven't changed who they support at, say, football. But then, they're ex-pats, not immigrants. Different terms, different rules.
Speaking of football, one mig
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
Drummers banging out Bhangra beats. Blue-shirted, brown-skinned fans cheering and chanting, dancing and singing, from opening bell to stumps. India's tricolour waved in all corners of the ground. Sweltering heat and humidity with the occasional driving downpour. If it wasn't for the £5 samosas and Brummie burrs you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in Eden Gardens rather than Edgbaston. This is England 2025 in the week in which Lord Tebbit died - and proof that his infamous 'cricket test' turned to ashes long ago.
It was 35 years ago that the then Norman Tebbit, former Conservative Cabinet minister and Margaret Thatcher's rottweiler, came up with his infamous 'dog whistle' - so long ago that 20 of the 22 players in the second Test weren't even born - and it hasn't stood the test of time.
In 1990, ahead of a previous India tour of England, he said that people from ethnic minorities in Britain couldn't be truly British unless they supported the England cricket team, telling the Los Angeles Times: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"
More recently, he doubled-down on his 'test' - taking it into the realms of the absurd - asking an Asian BBC reporter during the 2019 cricket World Cup, which was being held in England, "were we to find ourselves in a war, which side would you support?", adding that "it makes you a bit less British" if a person supports another country.
Tebbit appeared to have conveniently forgotten the 2.5 million Indians who did fight for the King and Empire in the Second World War and the 1.5 million in the first - the biggest volunteer armies in history, with hundreds of thousands of them dying for the cause.
'A Disunited Kingdom? For Younger Minorities, Britishness is an Identity We Can Work With - A Quest for Englishness Must Confront This'
Developing a stronger sense of Englishness cannot merely be looked at through a political lens - our identities are personal and multiple, conflicting and shifting, writes Hardeep Matharu
Hardeep Matharu
Fast forward to the present day and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone of Indian heritage supporting England in the current series.
Whatever Tebbit had hoped to achieve all those years ago, to pressure or shame or force ethnic minorities into supporting England or tone down their backing for their mother land, has failed spectacularly. They still cheer for who they want, just as Brits who moved and live abroad, and their children - like the millions in the EU - haven't changed who they support at, say, football. But then, they're ex-pats, not immigrants. Different terms, different rules.
Speaking of football, one mig
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