Why I Wore My Indian Jersey Today

Yesterday was one of those days that sports fans joke about, or parody. One thinks that one’s team has taken as bad a battering as possible. Not that one expects things to necessarily get better but rather, it seems wholly implausible that things could get worse. And then they do. The hits just keep on coming…and coming….and coming. It has been the story of India’s series so far, but reached its apogee yesterday as nothing mitigated the battering. There were odd pinpricks of light at Trent Bridge- on day 1- and at Lord’s- during Ishant Sharma’s spell- but Day 2 at Edgbaston was a different story entirely. India was pushed to the ground and kicked around in the dirt, as supreme an assertion of dominance by England as I have seen from any team in recent times.

That feeling of being kicked when we were down extended past the close of play. There was some sympathy from the more sensitive sorts, those that realized that even gentle mockery would only rub salt into raw wounds. Still, I steeled myself for the inevitable wave of taunts, gleeful jibes and overwhelming schadenfreude. And it came, transforming despondency into rage. Not rage at the team, but rage at the haters, at the coarse rabble that could mock this team that I love so. This Indian team is a classy group of operators- they were magnanimous in their applause for Alastair Cook today, with Tendulkar and Dravid running across to shake his hand after his dismissal. Even Sreesanth, he of the much-reviled buffoonery, made it a point to rush over and congratulate Cook at the end of play on day 2. Common courtesy perhaps, but one should not undervalue the class that motivates such actions, especially when they come on the heels of a public humiliation of the sort that the English team is dishing out. This team deserves to be treated with a respect commensurate with its status, as distant a memory as its grandiose billing may now seem. I do not expect the schadenfreude crowd to honor such decency; by definition, they are a group lacking sensitivity and even my rage is tinged with wise resignation. Even such subtleties as facts elude this crew; how else could they be so quick to label this batting lineup “flat track bullies”? Dale Steyn’s spell with the second new ball at the Newlands last year was as good as anything I ever saw Wasim Akram bowl, and Sachin Tendulkar gutsed out a wonderful century against him. Flat track bully. Rahul Dravid at Headingley in 2002, Sabina Park in 2006 and a host of other innings. Flat track bully. VVS Laxman on a minefield of a Bombay pitch in 2004. Flat track bully. Heck, even Virender Sehwag- whose purported frailties against the moving ball were picked apart by the commentators today- scored his first two test centuries in trying circumstances against the moving ball; one of them even came in England, at Nottingham. These are batsmen who have exhibited an ability to play in trying circumstances. All of which is not to say that the batsmen have covered themselves in glory in this series. They have not. At the same time, they do not deserve to have their legacies tarnished by the broad brushstrokes of non-discerning cricket hacks. Ah, but we are reverting to rational discourse here and if one’s purpose is to derive enjoyment from the failings of another team, such arguments are futile. So with the haters, I turn to resignation.

The true rage is reserved for the Bleed Blue crowd, those fair-weather fans that have been so quick to desert this team at its lowest point. It is easy to bleed blue when the team is on top; the true measure of a fan is not his ability to burst crackers upon a World Cup victory, but his stoicism and support during the rougher patches. The Bleed Blue crowd are the first to show up at the scene of victory and the first to flee the field of battle, rats deserting a sinking ship. They perform their shallow excuse for fandom out on Facebook, deriding Sehwag’s status as a test player in the same space that they celebrated his 293 in Mumbai. Cruder fans let the prevailing winds blow them towards even farther extremes, defacing players’ homes, or heckling the players to the point of a physical altercation. These are symptomatic of a deeper malaise endemic to Indian cricket fans in general. Following the Lord’s defeat, Salil Tripathi wrote:

Defeat is never pleasant, and a humiliating defeat less so, but the visceral jingoism that often accompanies cricket has a clinically bipolar quality. Idolization of cricketers is bad enough, for fans will be fans; the bizarre hatred that has often erupted against the team following a major defeat is inexplicable and reveals a national malaise. It shows a societal failing, a lack of maturity.

A good friend- and discerning cricket viewer- mentioned to me that such “preaching” misses the point that this level of passion is part-and-parcel of playing for subcontinent teams (Sri Lanka excepted; their fans seem far better behaved than their counterparts on the mainland.). To which I say: bullshit. When did prevailing attitudes come to be acceptable simply by virtue of their existence?Gordon Greenidge and Viv Richards recount the racism that they encountered on the 1976 tour of Australia in Fire in Babylon. The insults directed their way were, to a certain extent, symptomatic of certain mores at the time. One can only be thankful that such attitudes were not brushed aside as par for the course when a team of black athletes tours foreign shores. No, the fact of the matter is that large swathes of the Indian cricket public constitute taskmasters of the hardest sort: they demand gratification under the threat of abandonment, hysteria and withdrawal of support. With fans like these…

Day 2 at Edgbaston provided me with the image of the series so far: a forlorn Rahul Dravid clutching his head after dropping a catch off the final ball. The normally composed Dravid had flung his much-worn, much-loved Melton wool India cap to the ground. How could a true fan not extend his support at a time like that, when it was most required? The callousness of fans in this situation defies credulity. The flinging of the cap was a public display of frustration that should have put paid to all claims of India lacking desire and intent. I have seen Suresh Raina practice playing the short ball endlessly. He still struggles against the short ball, but to read a lack of intent into his struggles is pure laziness. That has been the hallmark of a lot of criticism of this Indian team: everyone is quick to read intent into the players’ actions. An inability to execute is as damning a criticism as they come, yet the coarse fan is ever ready to go the extra mile and attribute (a lack of) intent. Somewhere, there is the absurd notion that the players themselves do not derive joy from winning out on the field, that they lose less face than the armchair critics.

My heart went out to Dravid yesterday and it goes out to the Indian team in general. As I have mentioned before, there are a lot of wonderful memories associated with this group and it pains me to see them undergo a public humiliation of this sort. One series does not a team make and I shall choose to focus on the various, multiple accomplishments of this team. Kartikeya Date:

Caught between the cash crazy administration and the crazy fans, is a cricket team that is currently struggling. I’m going to support that team. I think they always try their best (to the extent that it is humanly possible to do this). And they are usually really good. They haven’t been in this series, and they know it.

They owe me nothing. But they have given me plenty over the years. Times like these are when they should be able to lean on those achievements. If not now, when?

Amen to that. I woke up this morning and put on my Indian cricket jersey, because this is when this team needs my support most. I shall wake up tomorrow morning and put on my Indian cricket jersey again. This is when I am proudest to support my team, especially when they display the sort of equanimity exhibited by Dhoni at the Trent Bridge presentation, or Gambhir at the press conference yesterday. It is at times like these that I turn most introspective and remember the accomplishments of this team and all that it has given us. Nothing can take those accomplishments away, or diminish them. Not the humiliation. Not the schadenfreude. And certainly not the fair-weather fans.

This too shall pass. Through it, despite it and in spite of it, I will support this group of players. They deserve nothing less.

Advertisement