Why I hate cricket
- Chhota hai tu
- Kachcha hai tu
- Ande se nikla hai
- Bachcha hai tu...
(You are small. You are raw. You've just been hatched. You're a kid.)
Cricket buffs will recognise these lyrics from a Star Sports advertisement on the ongoing India-Bangladesh series. The "bachcha" (child) in the ad is a little boy recruited into a street cricket team of older children. His teammates nickname him "Bangladesh" since he is dead weight, then watch in wonderment as he evolves into a valuable player. The tagline: "Cricket world ka naya sitaara, Bangladesh, khelega India se..." (The new star of the cricket world, Bangladesh, will play India).
Indian cricket buffs seem amused by this condescension towards an emerging force. Hypocritical, considering how miffed so many of them were when we were described as underdogs during the 1983 World Cup. We were underdogs, so what was the fuss about?
That brings me to the point of this article: I hate cricket.
"Hate is a strong word," says a cricket writer friend when I share my feelings with him. "Don't you mean you're not interested in the sport?"
No, I really and truly have come to hate it, because though cricket represents the best that India is capable of achieving on a global stage, our cricketing establishment and fans often overshadow our accomplishments by reminding us how low we can get as a people.
Misogyny, communalism, parochialism, arrogance, hero worship, fickleness: they all converge in Indian cricket fandom. Nothing exemplifies this better than the sexist venom spewed at actress-producer Anushka Sharma - who is dating cricketer Virat Kohli - when India lost the World Cup 2015 semi-final. Fans on social media raged against her presence in the stands during that match, calling her a "panauti", or an ill-omen who ruined Virat's focus on the field.
This of course was a manifestation of "The Devi To Daayan Syndrome" afflicting India. Misogynists often cite goddess worship as evidence that our society respects women. The truth is that the elevation of ordinary women to the unrealistic status of Durga/Kaali, ghar ki Lakshmi (harbinger of domestic prosperity) and devi is an excuse to pull them down when misfortune strikes, labelling them "panauti", "apshakun" (bad omen) and "daayan" (demon). Women, you see, are not regular people like men. We are either satanic or saintly, mother figures or sexual distractions in the lives of men as they go about the important business of running the world.
The spotlight on Anushka also highlights the rising use of that horrible term WAGs (wives and girlfriends of high-profile sportsmen) in India.
My journalist friend is bemused. He gently points out that I cannot hold "WAGs" against Indian cricket since it is a foreign term first used in football and that there is, after all, a masculine equivalent: HABs (husbands and boyfriends of sportswomen).
Hmm, so our excuse for the use of "WAGs" is that it is a mindless lift from Europe? And our defence of a reductive term for women is to cite a reductive - even if rarely used - term for men?
Question: How often does our media use HABs, especially for a man who is an achiever in his own right? Was Shahid Kapoor described as Sania Mirza's HAB? Yet the press is increasingly introducing Anushka solely in terms of her relationship with Virat. An April 2015 news report titled "IPL 8: Virat Kohli's girlfriend Anushka to glam up opening ceremony", for instance, ran across many media outlets.
The writer will perhaps justify the sexism by claiming that in the cricketing arena Anushka's calling card is Virat. Ya sure! Ever seen reports about film premieres headlined "Anushka Sharma's boyfriend Virat to attend show"?
You may argue too that Indian cricket fans are no worse than sports maniacs everywhere. That's the point: in a sport where we are among world leaders, we are no better than the worst of the best across the globe. This goes beyond money power transforming the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) into an international bully or adoring fans turning violent towards a losing team. Nothing illustrates the shortness of our collective memory better than the nauseating campaign run by sections of the public and press to get Sachin Tendulkar a Bharat Ratna in 2013-14, brushing aside the then sports minister's recommendation to award the late hockey great Dhyan Chand. Even if you, like me, are against Bharat Ratnas being given posthumously, the fact is the existing policy disagrees with us.
Subordinating cricket to all other sports is a national pastime, but within the field of cricket too, the Bharat Ratna for Tendulkar showed how politicians on election-eve, obsessive fans and a populist media live in the moment. Little else can explain Tendulkar getting precedence over the man who opened up a world of possibilities to Indian cricket: the 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev.
The 32nd anniversary of India's first World Cup win falls on June 25. Our rivals didn't sing "Ande se nikla hai, bachcha hai tu" to us back then, but it has certainly been 32 years since India was last deemed an underdog in an international tournament; 32 years since West Indian legend Clive Lloyd said at the end of the finals: "Indian cricket has arrived. And it's here to stay." (Source: India Today, July 15, 1983) But hey, why honour Kapil Dev when we can live in the here and now?
Cricket symbolises so much that is wrong with this great country.
I hate cricket. I really really do.