SYDNEY, 19 November 2023: Call me capricious, weak minded or a synonym of your choice but I am ashamed of this and do need to get it off my chest. I confess, I am being disloyal to someone who has given me so much pride, pleasure, a sense of belonging and of course the source of endless parasocial relationships with its members.
Apologies to the Men in Blue, Team India but I will not cheer for you as you most probably will carry the ICC World Cup Men’s trophy in a jubilant lap of the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad this Sunday.
I have followed the vagaries of the Indian cricket team for decades, starting with the black and white television transmission of the India-England tests in the 1970s captained by Tony Greig in India or when the mighty Windies toured. We were beside ourselves with each loss and thrilled at rare wins and watched in amazement when Chandrashekhar bowled a ‘googly’. I started tying a ‘patka’ (a small turban) being a Sikh like the graceful Bishan Bedi and continue to do to this day. India was an underdog in a sport dominated by the West and it was important to support the underdog while it tried to come of age over the next few decades.
When I moved to Australia in the 90s my heart was torn. Do I continue to support ‘my team’ or be loyal to the team of my new home? At the Sydney Cricket Ground, not dominated by Indian fans at that time, I would agnostically cheer good shots, great bowling, fall of wickets or dexterous displays of fielding. There was fun banter between the teams’ supporters as we shared food and good memories.
I was uncomfortable with the aggression, arrogance and sledging led by Steve Waugh and his men, but tried to ignore it until the infamous spat between Andrew Symonds and Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh in 2008. My Australian friends would in bad humour criticise Indians as arrogant and bad sportsmen. I reacted, dug my heels in and became an exclusive Indian supporter and infected my kids with the same partisanship of sports.
Until now! I saw the same bad behaviour, not by ‘my cricket team’ who remain flawless, but by a tiny minority of spectators at the stadiums where the World Cup is currently happening, Indian supporters on social media and sycophantic political underlings in India attributing the team’s current winning streak to their political masters.
Sport and spectators’ behaving badly is not a new phenomenon but the Ahmedabad crowd chanting religious, personal and sexually derogatory statements against arch-rivals (enemies?) Pakistan players are a terrible low and have tipped me over. This is not sport but a quasi-war like approach to the ‘gentlemen’s game’. Many Pakistani journalists and supporters were denied visas by the Indian government leading to no off field support for their players who faced abuse, ridicule and isolation from this massive angry mob. One lawyer even filed a formal complaint with the ICC against Pakistani wicket-keeper Muhammad Rizwan for performing prayers on the field during a break in a match. This has nothing to do with cricket but to deride someone’s religion.
Commentators have been commenting on how the crowds go silent when the opposition hits a boundary or the home team loses a wicket. We are getting more parsimonious with our love for the game and have reduced it to a display of alpha aggression to substitute for our frustrations with day-to-day living and misplaced patriotism.
Spectators forget visiting teams are not enemies but guests in their country privileged to host such an event and an opportunity to showcase the generosity of spirit, or ‘The World is One Family’ slogan in Sanskrit that embodies India but it has instead displayed petty mindedness and lack of basic courtesy due to guests who bring valuable tourism dollars to the country.
Host players too can help in taming spectators as Virat Kohli did in 2020 by gesturing the home spectators not to boo Steve Smith fresh after the ‘sandpaper gate’. Smith called this a ‘top class’ moment of support.
The Indians are doing very well and can do without my support as I side once again with the underdogs.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.
-The views are that of the author.
