Materially Relevant

India is now Swiss watchmaker Rado’s largest market.

- By CHE KURRIEN

SANGLI AND SWITZERLAND are 7,000 long and winding kilometres apart, but cricket star Smriti Mandhana flits between both worlds like she’s darting between wickets.

We're seated next to each other at an elegantly appointed banquet alongside 40 guests in the pastoral town of Boncourt, where Mandhana is being announced as a friend of Rado, one of the world’s leading Swiss watchmakers. Cricket, explains Rado CEO Adrian Bosshard to the audience who have flown in from all over the world, is a sport played in Commonwealth countries, and Mandhana is one of its biggest stars. A deep sense of national pride wafts over me as she walks to the stage to address the audience. She speaks with authenticity about what it means to represent her country, how she aspired to buy a Rado watch while growing up in Sangli in Maharashtra, and how she’s looking forward to participating in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, where cricket will be reintroduced to the games for the first time since 1900. There was no sense of pretentiousness in her words or demeanour, no false notes. She receives a fulsome applause.