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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was presented with a jersey of the Ireland Cricket team upon his visit to the European country, India Today reports. Irish counterpart Enda Kenny gifted Modi their traditional black and green jersey with Modi’s name embossed on the back.
Modi was also presented with sliotar and a hurley, who in turn presented Kenny with reproductions of selected manuscripts from the National Archives of India. Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to visit the country and Ireland made the day-long visit a moment to remember for the former Gujarat CM, choosing the common bond shared by the two countries – cricket – to show their affection.
Cricket is considered nothing short of a religion in India while it is growing by leaps and bounds over in Ireland. They played impressively during the 2015 World Cup, but are set to lose out on the next edition in England in 2019, if the sport’s governing body, the ICC, stick to their opinion of playing the showpiece event with only the Top 10 ranked teams.
With India’s undisputed influence in the cricket affairs, Ireland might be hoping that some ‘cricket diplomacy’ will do the trick in the long run.
Modi himself is understood to be a keen follower of cricket and recently took to Twitter to congratulate Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara on his glorious career upon his retirement from international cricket.
Ironically, it’s not the first time the Indian PM has been presented with a cricket jersey with his name on it during a visit to a European nation. When Modi visited France in April this year, he was presented with a jersey with the words “France Cricket N. Modi 1” on it.
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