English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
English is not my first language. Sometimes I read some mistakes in newspapers and get confused. Please check below sentences and let me know your valuable feedback.
As per newspapers:
India have won the match.
As per me, it should be:
India has won the match.
My point is that with India (a country) we should use has, right?
When talking about a national sports term, rather than a country, it's not unusual (in British English, at least), to use the plural. This is because a team is regarded as a group of people, whereas a country is not (companies also tend to use the plural; see also here).
So:
India have 11 players on the pitch.
suggests that we're talking about an Indian sports team.
Compare:
India has a population of 1.2 billion.
which implies we're talking about the country.
The phrase
India have won the match
is not a grammatical mistake. We're not talking about the nation, India per se, what we have here is an example of metonymy, when the name of one thing substitutes the thing itself. In this case, India substitutes the (cricket) team representing India. A famous example of metonymy is "Washington" which we understand it to mean the President of the USA, or its executive office. Likewise, in the UK it is common to refer to the British Prime Minister or the government as "Downing Street" as in:
Downing Street has rejected claims that David Cameron described environmental levies as “green crap” as the coalition explores ways to minimise the impact of green subsidies on household energy bills.
In the OP's phrase it is clear that India refers to a team, let us suppose it is the national cricket team. A cricket team is made up of eleven players, a player is countable thus, in English, team is a collective noun, which can be considered either singular or plural. When we are considering India as a single unit we use the singular verb, when we think of the individuals who make up the team (who play for India) we use a plural verb. An article from New Zealand Herald, January 16, 2014.
India are the world's No 1 ODI side, New Zealand are eighth.
What the journalist is really saying is that the cricket players who play for the Indian team are the world's NO 1 One Day International side players.
Grammar Monster has this to say about collective nouns, which I believe sums it up nicely.
A collective noun can be considered as either singular or plural depending on the sense of the sentence. If it's too hard to make a decision on singular or plural, precede your collective noun with words like members of…, forcing you to go plural.
What I have described above is especially true for British, Australian and New Zealand English. However, in American English, the singular verb is usually preferred. Below is an example taken from:
The Washington Times Communities 1
It is the fourth time the U.S. has defeated Mexico with a 2-0 scoreline in Columbus.
Mignon Fogarty AKA Grammar Girl says this on the matter
Americans tend to treat collective nouns as single units, so it’s more common to use the singular verb unless you’re definitely talking about individuals (3). So in America you would be more likely to hear “The faculty is meeting today” than “The faculty are meeting today.”
Many thanks to @snailplane for giving me the heads up on this one
In general, country names, like Japan and Scotland, are not plural nouns. However, in British English, when the name of a group of people, such as a sports team, is a singular noun, it often agrees with a plural verb. This is called a collective noun or a collective singular. Wikipedia talks about it here, and here is another question about it. Here are some examples:
If the United States Government are prepared to meet this request, I hope that as the next step you will be prepared to receive technical and financial missions to pursue these matters using the framework of the Polaris Sales Agreement where appropriate. Yours sincerely, Margaret Thatcher. [Source: A letter to Ronald Reagan, March 11, 1982.]
A man from a different culture is admitted to hospital with a stroke (cerebrovascular accident). His family are absent. [Source: Communication: Core Interpersonal Skills for Health Professionals by Gjyn O'Toole (2012). The text is describing a hypothetical situation.]
The Hoyt family are traced back to Simon Hoyt of Salem, 1629. [Source: The Historical Record, vol. 7 (1897). This is a rare case of collective singular with "family" in American English.]
Manchester United are a club wherein, on the pitch and at meetings between the players and me, the team are encouraged in self-expression. [Source: Manchester United 1958-68: Rising from the Wreckage by Iain McCartney (2013).]
This is far from a rule, though. Here is a blog post by Mark Liberman pointing out how inconsistently British English uses a plural verb with a collective singular noun.
As much as other questions similar to this one have already been answered, I think some of the most important things to consider are context, meaning and sentiment.
Patriotism/Sense of unity: Using the plural for (have) could express an achievement for the whole nation as a group of people.
Being specific: Are we talking about the entity or the people inside it? The BBC has announced a new schedule... Or: The BBC are a close-knit team who...
I think there is a lot of flexibility here, and one can decide in most cases which form to use. Consider my point about sense of unity.
India has won (the Indian team)
India have won (the group of individuals)
In my point of view, India have won the cricket world cup is correct. Here India in the sense members played to India.
This can be made to singular if we group the members played for India: Indian Team has won the cricket world cup
Please correct me If I am diverted.
"India" is one country, therefore it is singular. "India has ..."
