Politician mocked for saying ‘we don’t need Europe’ to win WC

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

London, July 15

Trust a politician to politicise a sporting triumph.

Conservative Member of Parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg celebrated England’s win by commenting that “we clearly don’t need Europe to win”. Rees-Mogg is described in the English media as “arch-Brexiter”, and his comments were consistent with his conservative worldview.

Well, possibly England don’t need Europe, but they do seem to need the Republic of Ireland (an independent country), New Zealand, Mirpur in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), with a big hand from Barbados. Eoin Morgan, England’s captain, was born in Dublin, and he’s one of the five players in the 15-man English squad who were not born in the UK.

Ben Stokes, the Man of the Match in the final, is originally a New Zealander. Tom Curran and Jason Roy were both born in South Africa. Joffra Archer, who bowled brilliantly through the tournament and was trusted to bowl the final’s Super Over, migrated to England from Barbados in 2015. Last year the England and Wales Cricket Board changed their rules reducing the eligibility criteria from seven years to three — it’s believed that the change was made to make Archer eligible to play in their home World Cup.

Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid are the grandchildren of immigrants from Mirpur in PoK.

It’s an incredibly diverse team, as Morgan noted. “I spoke to Adil, he said Allah was definitely with us. I said we had the rub of the green.” “It actually epitomises our team. Quite diverse backgrounds and cultures and guys grow up in different countries…And to actually find humour in the situation we were in at times was pretty cool,” said Morgan.