The Hindu : Don't love them or hate them, stay indifferent

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003

Sport

Sport - World Cup

Don't love them or hate them, stay indifferent

By Nirmal Shekar

ABOUT the time a million people from vastly different backgrounds, different skin colour and political persuasion, Christian, Jew, Muslim and Hindu, young and old, marched to Hyde Park in London last Saturday, in one of the biggest anti-war protests seen since the days of student revolts during the Vietnam War, several million people in this country were in mourning for an entirely different reason. War? What war? Our boys have just lost a battle badly on a playfield.

That's India for you. That's cricket for you. When you put the two — India and cricket — together, it is logic that goes for a huge Chris Cairns six, so to say.

Less than 24 hours after Valentine's Day, sport's greatest — going by sheer numbers if nothing else — love affair had turned sour. And it may not have taken a Nostradamus to predict the turn of events as the Boys in Blue, bruised, battered, tails tucked between their legs and pride shattered, packed their bags for Harare.

Embarrassed TV producers quickly rescheduled highlights of matches played and lost earlier in the week to make up for the live presence of the Boys in Blue who, by then, were back in their hotel rooms, pondering a rather familiar experience — a morale-shattering defeat.

The following day, the reactions were predictable, yet again. We either build statues for our cricketers and turn them into national monuments or turn them into traitors who ran away from the battlefield.

Somebody, somewhere in this vast country might have even considered taking his own life, surely, after India slumped to its lowest ever World Cup total and was beaten comprehensively by the best team in the game. And somebody, somewhere might jump off a skyscraper in sheer joy, in a mad moment of ecstasy, should India win against Zimbabwe.

But, then, what was the true significance of Saturday's events in Centurion Park? Why should it trigger such extreme reactions? Did we, as a nation, mourn like this when hundreds of lives were lost in the Gujarat earthquake or in the senseless communal riots in that state?

And it is not as if Sourav Ganguly's boys lost to Holland or Namibia. They lost to the best in the business, no matter that the margin of defeat was at once shocking and humiliating. Who, barring the marketing men trying to palm off mules as thoroughbred horses, might have expected India to roll over Ricky Ponting's committed bunch of cricketers from Australia?

If we `bought' the stories being peddled by men who have millions at stake in the business of cricket and whose eyes are on bank accounts and balance sheets rather than the technical inadequacies of Ganguly and Co. on the field, then the mistake is ours.

After the devastating losses in New Zealand, it was always to be expected that this Indian team would face an uphill task in South Africa, especially in regaining confidence and approaching matches in a positive frame of mind. And in handing Brett Lee the new ball on Saturday, Ponting made sure that the Indians's confidence would be further dented.

Yet, in the larger scheme of things, it was just another loss for a side that is not entirely unfamiliar with depressing defeats. And it was not as if Ganguly swore on the nation's constitution to bring back the World Cup, or to stay undefeated in South Africa.

As rich as they are, as famous as they are, as inefficient as they are quite often, and as iconic as their status might be in this country, our cricketers, in many ways, are nothing more than pawns. The master chess players are the movers and shakers of the corporate world who use them and then discard them at will, turning them into invincible world beaters on hoardings and TV commercials just so they can sell a few million more pieces of whatever it is they want to sell.

And so long as tens of millions of fans continue to love and hate our national cricketers with the same intensity with which they express those emotions these days, the marketing men will continue with all the hype that is so necessary to their business.

Then again, the bigger question is this: why should so many of us let our sense of national identity and pride as Indians hinge on the performances of a bunch of largely inefficient cricketers lacking in commitment and strength of will?

Does India become a lesser power the moment Australia whacks Ganguly's hapless bunch of cricketers in a limited overs contest in South Africa? Does it affect the GDP or the foreign exchange reserves or perhaps hold a threat to our borders or our nuclear installations?

On the flip side, does a famous Indian victory at cricket — as in the NatWest final at Lord's last summer — make any difference to the life of millions living on the streets in our crowded cities and several million people who are below the poverty line?

Sometime on Wednesday, should India leave behind the dark memories of Centurion Park and beat Zimbabwe in Harare, surely the villains are bound to become great heroes all over again and we will start singing their praises all over again too!

The point is, the unrealistic expectations that fans have are built in them not so much by the performances of a side that has always been rather inconsistent _ swinging from brilliance to banality every single season _ but by men who have never perhaps held a cricket ball or a bat in their hands and who spend their busy lives in conference rooms making deals.

The world did not end at the Centurion Park on Saturday. Nor, for that matter, did the hopes of Ganguly's team in this wonderfully entertaining competition which has already thrown up quite a few surprises.

In this competition itself, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid and Co. might very well reassert themselves as batsman of some substance and style. Or, maybe they won't. But, either way, it will make no difference to a vast majority of this country's citizens among whose chief concerns a game called cricket does not find a place.

And, at the end of the day, neither the love showered on the Indian cricketers by the fans, nor the hate that is rearing its head now following the defeat to Australia, would make any difference to how well the Indians pick themselves up in this competition.

If you are a fan, then, discard both love and hate. Try indifference for a change. Just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that it makes no difference to you whether Ganguly and his men capitulate yet again or rediscover themselves as champion performers.

Your studied indifference can perhaps make a difference. For, then the marketing men will drop the cricketers like a ton of hot bricks and our boys can switch off their mobiles and switch on their cricketing powers.

But, before trying to do that, the Indian cricketers would do well to call for a change of heart in themselves rather than change of bats or anything as trivial. For, the way they played against Australia, you'd suspect that they left their hearts behind before leaving for southern Africa.

Heart boys, heart. That is what you need to fight and win, not just bat and ball or even a good pair of legs to chase balls.

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