The crowd was not there to watch a cricket match. They were there to celebrate India’s win, not to applaud the wonderful cricket the Australians were playing.

People play and watch cricket for the unique set of skills it requires and is on display. Profit and revenues cannot be the only guiding principle of its administrators.

Cricket, unlike many sports in India, has for long remained a preserve of the ruling elites. But that has changed.

The celebratory sloganeering, a laudable object of a sports fan, is not to be denied to a highly charged partisan crowd. But it is distasteful to target the rival team with objectionable slogans.

Mohammad Bashir is the lone Pakistani in India supporting his team. Unlike Pakistani journalists and citizens, who have not been issued visas by the Indian government so far, he got his visa for India because he is an American passport holder. He has been to every World Cup since 2007.

We humans may say we prefer hardworking, regimented, disciplined sportspersons who smash records; yet somewhere in our hearts we reserve a special place for an irreverent “genius” who has the potential to achieve the impossible but never cared enough to do so.

An extract from Pradeep Magazine's book 'Not Just Cricket: A Reporter's Journey Through Modern India'. 

'I asked the caretaker why there was tension between the Blacks and the Indians. His terse response was, ‘Indians think they are too clever'.'