The Ballad of an Indian Cricketer

If cricket is a religion and Sachin is God, then how can anyone criticize a God? If a player has the distinction of being the only player who has played in the 1980’s and is still playing with Godly form, why does everyone want his head whenever he scores less than a century? For a player of his caliber, who has survived nearly two generations of youngsters including one generation of youngsters who became seniors and eventually retired, Sachin has proved time and again that he is indeed The God.

When I look at what he has to go through, I think, no wonder it is next to impossible for me to perform as per the expectations of an Indian cricket fan. Whenever I perform well, the fan catapults me to the sky high levels of glory and a single below-par performance plunges me down the uncharted depths. Sometimes I think I am paid more than enough for the honour of playing for my country and at other times, I wonder if I am paid enough to survive the pressures of being an Indian cricketer. My teammates echo the same emotions. A batsman not scoring a century has committed a sin equivalent to a murder and a bowler not taking five wickets must be hanged then and there. Team India losing a match Is supposed to be illegal and a criminal offence. How can anyone possibly expect every member of the team to perform in every match? It must be remembered that it is only excellence that one can crave and try for. Perfection is God’s business. Soaring expectations of an Indian cricket fan are deadlier than the pace of a certain Bret Lee or the spin of a certain Muralitharan. Every time we win a match, our inbox is exploding with congratulatory messages and the same inbox is an overflowing heap of hate mail when we lose. That is the time we need our fans to stand by us and boost our morale so that we can come harder and stronger the next time. Instead, it is a gigantic wave of emotions waiting to rip us apart. We don’t lose matches because we want to. It is not possible for any team in the world in any sport across the ages to be on the winning side every time it plays.

What surprises me most is that this rage is limited only to the sport which is not even our national game. The fact that the Indian Hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympics is something we will forget as fast as we blink but the number of matches that the Indian cricket team lost is a figure that has been kept count of by generations together. We have never been a part of the football world cup whereas football is the most popular game in the world. When we win a major tournament, the roads in almost all the cities get choked and when we lose, we are terrified of venturing anywhere near our country. The same country that has produced us is raring to devour us whole. Maybe the media overhype is responsible for this but why does the media create a hype out of it? It is only because they get public support for that. If the fans decide not to take every loss as a crime, the media is smart enough to read the pulse of the fans and stop making a hype out of the losses. At the end of the day, it is a game. There has never been a team that has never been beaten and there can never be such a team. It is a mathematical certainty that has stood the test of time no matter what. The fan needs to be tolerant enough to take the losses in its stride. A mature fan is an asset to the team. A billion mature fans can take us to the dizzying heights of glory and maybe one day, together, we will blast away that mathematical certainty and become the all conquering team of the world!