Indian Cricket: Never So Successful and Never So Ugly

Let me state my proposition right off the bat: Indian cricket is rich, powerful and brimming with talent but, to invoke the phrase immortalised in Hamlet, “there is something rotten about the state” of this once beautiful game in our country.

In the last couple of years, India has won more cricket trophies than any other nation, albeit in the frothier form which is white ball cricket. Our performance in Tests – the real deal, according to the cognoscenti – has been patchy. But who cares? 

The sheer razzmatazz, slap-bang frenzy and adrenaline rush induced by T20 cricket has brought in the hordes for whom cricket is mindless entertainment, and at its core, a vehicle for lacing into and settling scores with Pakistan. The T20 game has spawned a weird breed of fans, sated with jingoism and belligerence with nary a concern for the finer nuances of the game. But they’re invaluable, generating the mullah that has helped the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to fill its coffers and thereby lord over the cricketing universe. It’s been an ugly reign. 

Even as I write, the nation is agog with excitement at the prospect of back-to-back T20 World Cup triumphs, a feat that no country has ever achieved. Despite the drubbing by South Africa in our first fixture in the Super-eight stage, which hopefully has jolted the team out of its smugness, the pundits still consider India one of the favourites, especially after the demise of our bogey, Australia, at the preliminary stage itself.

But not everyone is clapping in joy. Decrepit cricket addicts like myself, who remember a time when cricket was played in the true spirit as a game among equals, have watched in alarm as the stooges of the regime have usurped and taken over cricket governance in the last few years, and have now even seized de facto control of the International Cricket Council (ICC). 

Also read: Come On, Be a Sport: Decoding Sunil Gavaskar and Other Cricketers' Letter in Support of Imran Khan

For the last few years, our cricket has been hijacked and subverted by the political elite, primarily Gujarati, for their own sordid purposes. Cricket is yet another instrument employed to burnish the image of the Vishwaguru by first renaming and then, preferentially positioning the Ahmedabad Narendra Modi stadium as Indian cricket’s nerve centre and unfairly allotting almost every key international cricket fixture to this venue. 

Then there is the political messaging at cricket matches. Cricket has been diminished by being tethered to patriotism and mindless national pride and played to the drumbeats of hate. One cannot forget the India-Pakistan ODI World Cup fixture in October 2023 when a DJ belted out patriotic songs with barely disguised communal undertones, even as the crowd, overwhelmingly Modi bhakts, incessantly heckled the Pakistanis.

Or the attempt to attire the Indian team in saffron-coloured gear, a screamingly majoritarian gesture which mercifully was shot down by Rohit and his mates. A crude example of unabashed political appropriation of cricket is the stadium’s Hall of Fame purportedly dedicated to cricketers, but in which three-fourths of the space has images of Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and Jay Shah.

Indian cricket today is feared but not respected. Plato had observed that the measure of a man is what he does with power. Sadly, Indian cricket’s enormous financial clout and resultant power are being leveraged not to uplift and popularise the game but to bully and browbeat the rest of the cricket fraternity to do our bidding. And how! The rules have been mangled, time and again, for the prima donna of cricket. 

In the Champions Trophy last year, the BCCI arm-twisted a craven ICC to hold the tournament in the “hybrid model” because India did not want to play in Pakistan, the anointed host country, although in earlier tournaments, such refusal entailed the defaulting team forfeiting full points. Because of India’s intransigence, even the venue for the final was decided only after the semi-finals, and because India was a finalist, Pakistan was denied the host country’s prerogative of holding the final and raking in the collateral financial and other perquisites that go with organising such a big event. 

Even in the ongoing T20 World Cup, the venue for the final will be decided only after the finalists are known. If Pakistan qualifies, the final will be in Colombo, otherwise (where else?) in Ahmedabad. As India and Sri Lanka are the joint hosts, why couldn’t Colombo be assigned the final at the very outset? But then India is more equal than the others.

Despite pious pronouncements about sports being above politics and not to be mixed, the sad truth is that politics impinges on every aspect of life, including cricket. Way back in 1932-33, England and Australia very nearly broke off diplomatic relations due to Jardine’s intimidatory “leg theory” tactics designed to nullify Bradman’s prolific run scoring. But today’s political intervention in our cricket is not a reaction to what’s happening on the field of play but a brazen exploitation of the sport to advance a political agenda.

The manner in which the Indian cricket board has gone about targeting and ‘othering’ Pakistan and now Bangladesh and their cricketers is a case in point. The refusal of our team and toady captain – abject pawns in the Hindutva scheme – to engage in the elementary courtesy of shaking hands with their Pakistani opponents was sickening to watch. In contrast, it was a sight for sore eyes to see Rohit Sharma and Wasim Akram in a bearhug of empathetic camaraderie.

On account of India’s financial stranglehold on cricket, Pakistani cricketers have been ostracised from various franchise-based T20 leagues. If this is not cricket apartheid, what is? 

At a time of gloom and doom, two recent happenings have given cause for cheer. In an open letter, 14 former Test captains including Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, urged the Pakistan prime minister to ensure that Imran Khan, arguably the most charismatic cricketer of all time, be given “immediate, adequate and ongoing medical attention” and be “treated with dignity and basic human consideration”. 

In a superb piece, Seema Chishti hailed this show of empathetic solidarity among former cricketers which she termed a faintish “D’Oliveira moment”. My only objection is to her praise of Gavaskar “for doing something spontaneous that has serious political consequences”. In fact, his support for Imran who is in the crosshairs of the Pakistan establishment was a ‘no risk’ move and would be music to Modi and company. If Gavaskar really wanted to do the right thing in a matter that has serious political consequences, why did he not speak out against the shameful dropping of Mustafizur Rahman from the IPL? The brutal truth is that Gavaskar has bartered away his soul for filthy lucre. 

For a lot of cricket lovers, the most heartening news has been the Cinderella-like progress of the J&K team to the final of this year’s Ranji Trophy. Seeing my absolute ecstasy at the heady advance of this fledgling team of unknowns from a State that has seen more than its share of suffering and misery, a friend asked me a rhetorical question: If I was to be granted only one wish out of two – an Indian T20 World Cup triumph or a J&K victory in the Ranji Trophy final – which would I wish for? My instant response was… I won’t reveal my choice lest it jinx my team but can you guess which team I picked? It’s a no-brainer.

Mathew John is a former civil servant. The views are personal.

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