The googly gig: Cricket rocks the Stones too

MUMBAI: Call it one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of all times, but the world''s most notoriously pelvicjerking, hell-sputtering and stickyfingered bunch loves a sport played in immaculately white, starched flannels.
At least two leading lights of the Rolling Stones—Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts—have hopelessly been in love with cricket, a passion shared by millions of Indians, revealed former cricketer Dilip Doshi in an interview to The Times of India on Thursday.
Mr Doshi, a close friend of the Stones, is promoting the group''s concert tour to India this April, and has been instrumental in persuading one of rock-androll''s greatest and most controversial band to perform in this country.
"Every day, wherever they are in the world, videotapes of cricket matches are flown in for Mick," says Mr Doshi, whose association with the band started in 1973 when Jagger and Watts came to watch an England-West Indies match at Trentbridge. Mr Doshi, who was playing for Nottinghamshire at that time,walked up and introduced him as their fan, only to find, "to my surprise, that they were aware of my latest exploits on the cricket field".
A keen friendship ensued, and long chats over cricket blended in seamlessly with the mean strains from Keith Richards'' guitar and high Watt-age drums.
"Cricket is why our friendship developed. I came to know that Charlie wanted to be an off-spinner," says Mr Doshi. The Stones, he adds, have been planning to perform in India, "mainly because of its historical attraction, for a couple of decades now, but only now has the logistics become permissible to hold such a concert".
On the concert front, the good news for Mumbaiites is that it is nearly confirmed that the band will play on April 14 at the Brabourne stadium. The state authorities are favourably considering reviewing the high entertainment tax and waiving the proposed tax on sponsorship of live events, says Venkat Vardhan of DNA Networks which is organising the show. However, an official okay will only come in a couple of days, he adds.
Incidentally, the entertainment tax on live events is the steepest in Maharashtra at 50 per cent, compared with 10 per cent in Karnataka. This has weaned away big-ticket concerts like Elton John and Roger Waters from Mumbai to Bangalore.
Mr Vardhan added that tickets for the Stones concert would be going on sale from March 9.