Mihir Bose (born 12 January 1947) is a

British Indian British Indians are citizens of the United Kingdom (UK) whose ancestral roots are from India. This includes people born in the UK who are of Indian origin as well as Indians who have migrated to the UK. Today, Indians comprise about 1.4 mil ...

journalist and author. He writes a weekly "Big Sports Interview" for the ''

London Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'', and also writes and broadcasts on sport and social and historical issues for several outlets including the BBC, the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' and ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

''. He was the BBC Sports Editor until 4 August 2009. He has written for most of the major UK newspapers and several business publications, presented programmes for radio and television, and written 26 books including a history of

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" ...

and various books on

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

Early life

Bose is of Indian origin. Born in Calcutta, he grew up in Bombay, now

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...

. He went from India to the UK in 1969 to study engineering at

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when ...

. He took up accountancy and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1974.

Early career

He started his journalistic career at

LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadcast ...

Radio, before writing for the ''

''. He gave up accountancy in 1978 to become a full-time journalist concentrating on business journalism but also writing about sport. He moved from business journalism to investigative sports reporting in the 1990s, editing the Inside Track column for the ''Sunday Times''. He moved to the ''

Daily Telegraph Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

'' in 1995, where he started the paper's Inside Sports column.

BBC

He left the ''Telegraph'' to become the BBC's sports editor in October 2006. Bose has also presented on radio and television, including

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

's ''Financial World Tonight'', the ''South Asia Report'' on the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the British Government through the Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception a ...

and '' What the Papers Say'' for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

. His output as the BBC's head sports writer included a regular blog on the Corporation's website. On 4 August 2009, Bose resigned from the BBC for personal reasons. It was reported that Bose was unhappy with the forthcoming move of the BBC Sports Department from London to Manchester, which would have required him to relocate. He was replaced as Sports Editor by David Bond.

Blogging and other activities

Bose now writes a blog for the football-related website insideworldfootball.biz. He contributes a weekly "Big Interview" to the London ''Evening Standard''. He regularly broadcasts on radio and television in the UK and on overseas channels on sports, race, Indian politics and Commonwealth issues. He also blogs for PlayUp, a specialist sports outlet.

Books

Bose has written 27 books and 15 collaborations on a range of subjects. His books include ''False Messiah: The Life and Times of Terry Venables'' (Andre Deutsch, 1997), ''A History of Indian Cricket'' (Andre Deutsch, 2002), ''Manchester Disunited'' (Aurum Press, 2007) and ''The Spirit of the Game'' (Constable, 2012). His ''History of Indian Cricket'' was the first book by an Indian writer to win the prestigious

Cricket Society The Cricket Society is a charitable organisation founded in 1945 as the Society of Cricket Statisticians at Great Scotland Yard, London. It has grown steadily to be the largest body of its kind in the cricket world. The Cricket Society now has mor ...

Literary Award in 1990. His study of sports and

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, ''Sporting Colours'', was runner-up in the 1994 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. Bose has also written a book in the form of a comprehensive history of India's film industry called ''Bollywood: A History''. Bose wrote ''The Aga Khans'' (published in 1984 by World's Work Ltd, The Windmill Press, Kingswood, Tadworth, Surrey), a work that unflatteringly detailed the lives of the first three

Aga Khan Aga Khan ( fa, آقاخان, ar, آغا خان; also transliterated as ''Aqa Khan'' and ''Agha Khan'') is a title held by the Imām of the Nizari Ismāʿīli Shias. Since 1957, the holder of the title has been the 49th Imām, Prince Shah Kari ...

s. The 4th Aga Khan suppressed any further publication of the book by bringing legal action against Bose.

Awards

Bose has won the following awards: *1990 Magazine Publishing Award – Winner Business Columnist of the Year *1990

– Silver Jubilee Literary Award Winner ''A History of Indian Cricket'' *1997 English Sports Council & Sports' Writers Association – Winner Inaugural Sports Story of the Year *1999

Sport England Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded p ...

& Sports Writers' Association – Winner Sports News Reporter of the Year *2001

British Press Awards The Press Awards, formerly the British Press Awards, is an annual ceremony that celebrates the best of British journalism. History Established in 1962 by '' The People'' and '' World's Press News'', the first award ceremony for the then-named ...

Finalist – Sports Reporter of the Year *2003 Asian Achievers Award / Asian Voice & Gujarat Samchar – Winner Media *2015 Lifetime Achievements Award - Asian Cricket Awards in London

Personal life

Bose lives in west London with his wife, Caroline Cecil, who runs a financial PR consultancy. He has a daughter, Indira. He told

Paddy O'Connell Guy Patrick O'Connell (born 11 March 1966 in Guildford, Surrey) is an English television and radio presenter, working mainly for the BBC. He presents BBC Radio 4's ''Broadcasting House'' programme each Sunday morning. He is also an occasional ...

on Radio 4's ''

Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The ma ...

'' programme that he went to school with the Indian cricketer Sunil Manohar "Sunny" Gavaskar.

References

External links

Official websiteMihir Bose blog
on

bbc.co.uk BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childre ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bose, Mihir 1947 births Living people Alumni of Loughborough University BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC World Service British people of Bengali descent British sportswriters Cricket historians and writers Indian emigrants to the United Kingdom The Sunday Times people Writers from Kolkata Writers from Mumbai