Anyone but India: Why it is stupid to think “we” should win all the time
Australia’s triumph in the World Test Championship proves Galileo right again: the world does not revolve around Bharat
Call me what you want—traitor, anti-national, tukde-tukde gangster, liberandu, or a plain and simple idiot—but I have no problem with India's defeat to Australia in the final of the 2023 World Test Championship (WTC) on Sunday.
You chose ‘plain and simple idiot'?
No problem.
In fact, now that I have your attention, let me also say this: I have no problem whatsoever with India losing not just this match but any other match in any tournament, anywhere, any time, any stage.
Any sport.
Before I tell you why, you might like to hear a nice little story from 25 years ago, well before Narendra Modi became chief minister, if that’s when real Indian history begins for you, as it does for a few.
It involves Lance Klusener from the 1999 World Cup in England. It was at the end of the second semi-final, South Africa versus Australia, in Edgbaston.
The Proteas needed one run to win.
There were three balls to go.
Klusener was batting.
Allan Donald was at the non-striker’s end.
Then this happened.👇🏿
After the suicide spelt finis to South Africa's campaign, everybody—media, players, fans—pounced on Klusener with the kind of pseudo-patriotic relish that has now become de rigueur in India.
▪️“What did you do, 'Zulu'? Didn't you talk to Allan?”
▪️“We needed only one run to win. There were still three balls to go. Where was the hurry?”
▪️“How does it feel to drown an entire nation's hopes and dreams like this?”
Et cetera.
Klusener, later adjudged the tournament's Most Valued Player (MVP), was a farmer from Natal. His deadpan reply is something only a farmer could have summoned: "So what? No one died."
So what? No one died.
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"So what? No one died."
That is the crawler TV channels should have considered running at the bottom of TV screens after Australia rolled over India in the 2023 WTC final. And that is the sentiment the commentariat should have considered for Monday morning.
But logic doesn’t sell in a bhakt market.
Instead, we saw the faux ferocity of ex-cricketers (insert your pet-hate here), BCCI’s paid pipers (nearly all of them), and the poets in residence, all bloviating about too much IPL, too little preparation, why no Ashwin, poor bowling, no application, etc.
You had to wonder, who are these idiots?
And wonder some more: who are these idiots who think that it is some God-given right that ‘Team India’ should win all the time—and the other side has merely turned up to make this miracle happen for, what-is-it-today, 140 crore Indians?
To paraphrase Galileo Galilei from four (non-cricketing) centuries ago: the World Cup does not revolve Akhand Bharat, bro.
Mercifully, it was just the climax of a proper 5-day Test match in whites at The Oval—not quite the exalted “religion” that cricket in pyjamas becomes for a few hours at the hands of 50-over and T20 devotees, the tricolour painted on their cheeks.
Or else, by now, "heartbroken fans" would have been jeering outside Rohit Sharma's home, and mouthing obscenities at Virat Kohli’s daughter when the team landed.
Or else, by now, pictures of Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj would have been flung with cow dung and decked with chappals because you know why.
I am not suggesting, even for a moment, that winning does not matter, that it is the Olympian spirit of taking part.
Pierre de Coubertin ki jai.
Hell, no.
Teams play to win, teams should play to win, no question about that. But is it unreasonable or unpatriotic to say that to do that, a team should also deserve to win, to start with?
Unfortunately, in all the manufactured expectations over the WTC final, and in all the post-mortems and breast-beating over the loss, we seem to have ignored some simple facts.
Which is that two teams play cricket.
Usually only one team wins.
Usually it is the better one.
On Sunday, 11 June 2023, we were not.
In fact, we were not the better team for five days from June 7 to 11.
In fact, we have not been the better team in ICC tournaments for a long time before that, for about a decade actually👇🏿.
How difficult is that to comprehend☝🏿?
But the Mammon worshippers—the fat cats of the Board, the media rights holders, the advertisers, the commentators—have hammered a very subversive idea into the gullible skulls of the Bharat Mata ki Jai types—the spectators and audiences.
That only ‘Team India’ deserves to win all matches and all the tournaments, and that the other teams only turn up to help them do that.
When that doesn't happen, as it didn't on Sunday and as it doubtless won't again in the future, cricket’s neo-literates, who don't know which end of a bat to hold, act as if the end of the world is nigh.
Relax.
This is cricket. And this is the essence of sport. If you haven't caught it, you should be watching something more masterfully fabricated: a WWF bout—or a Modi rally.
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You've probably heard all the clichés. But it doesn't hurt to hear them again. This is a glorious game of uncertainties and a game of glorious uncertainties. Yes, this is a funny game, but only one team is left laughing in the end.
🇮🇳 Simply because the sports channels and websites, tell us through the mouths of ex-players—who will say anything for a few rupees—that we have best batting line-up in the world, it doesn't make our batting line-up the best batting line-up in the world, no matter how many times they say it. Ditto bowling line-up.
🇮🇳 Simply because everybody keeps saying that BCCI is the richest sports body in the world, or that Kohli & Co are sold for crores, it doesn’t mean other teams will share their login password and allow ‘Team India’ to empty the ATM. Test cricket isn’t IPL.
🇮🇳 Simply because the movie channels show the captain single-handedly leading the side to victory with a last-ball six before every big tournament (Aamir Khan in Lagaan, dummy) it doesn't mean international teams are going to make it easy for Rohit Sharma.
🇮🇳 Simply because our corporates exhort the team with corny crap like ‘Chak de, India’ or 'Come on India dikha do' or 'Jeeta do', it is not going to make India win.
🇮🇳 Simply because our players ride motorcycles which are titled victor and pride and passion and ambition, it does not mean they will be automatically imbued with those qualities.
Victory requires all this, certainly, but the only victory this will achieve is on the balance sheet of the corporates and the BCCI—and the income-tax returns of the players and accompanying artistes.
But victory on the field, now, that is a totally different thing. It requires, as India’s pradhan coach tells the #ExamWarriors, the 3Ds—discipline, determination and dedication—and the 3Ts—tactics, technique and temperament.
Who had it more from Wednesday to Sunday, us or the Aussies?
Even the cute Jay Shah knows the answer.
Or, that other blazing emblem of cricket meritocracy, Arun Singh Dhumal👇🏿.
The WTC final exposes many faultlines.
It shows that the gap between IPL and Test cricket is huge and BCCI cares a fuck about that☝🏿. It shows that India’s much ballyhooed “bench strength” is bakwas. It shows India is resting on the reputation of its ageing stars.
But, above all, it reveals a national culture which has turned a gentleman’s game into a loud platform for pumped-up louts. In their playbook, beating Pakistan is all that matters—everything else is secondary. Even a decade-long victory drought.
So, when hype meets reality as it did against Australia, it isn’t a pretty sight.
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It’s a funny commodity: hype, funnier than cricket. In cricket, you can actually come back from behind, as the Indian team will one of these days. But hype is different. It is like toothpaste. Once you have pulled it out of the tube, you cannot put it back in.
Indeed, as you look at the expectations and the manner in which they have come crashing down, the one product you wish the Indian team should really endorse are antacids.
There has been such hype about this team that anybody who seriously loves this game and possibly even loves some members of this team should be suffering from severe indigestion by now.
But we shouldn't hold the corporates responsible for this state of affairs. They are here in the business of selling and they will use any method that will enable them to sell more of what they make.
The fault lies with us, in that we can so easily be sold so many lemons so often by the BCCI, the media, and every other broker in between.
For more than two years now, we have been told that everything the Indian team was doing was being done with the WTC in mind. Teams were chosen with the WTC in mind. Pitches were made with the WTC in mind. We played so many crappy, one-sided games with the WTC in mind.
And this is what we have to show for it?
Make no mistake. The Indian fan is no fool. He is well equipped to stomach defeat because he has faced greater defeats in life. It is the manner of the WTC defeat that rankles.
▪️He wonders, who are these dudes who mess up so comprehensively, so conspicuously, and still end up preening at the IPL as if nothing happened.
▪️He sees the famed batting order perishing within a few overs on a fifth day pitch which just minutes earlier the “experts” were promising held no demons.
▪️He sees some club-grade young turks not even putting up the semblance of a fight.
The fan is flummoxed. That's why he utters all that he utters. Pathetic, shocking, overpaid, overrated.
Now imagine all this from the point of view of the only people who matter in this debate: the players.
Here are a bunch of guys most of whom have no other skill other than the ability to smack a ball or pose for a shitty advertisement, being asked to shoulder the expectations of a whole nation.
Is it fair to place such a huge burden on the slender shoulders of those who cannot even stand up for farmers or wrestlers?
Let's not even get into the semantic swamp of whether sport is an expression of national identity. (If it does, Sunday’s defeat should have convincingly showed what we are made of.)
No, I am talking of a different kind of burden that we place on our players.
We are a nation of coasters, the type who cruise along. We take so few risks that some of us spend our entire careers at one table in the same office. We show very little nerve when our neighbour of many decades is being raped, burnt and killed. We show very little spine to stand up to corruption, skullduggery and injustice and all those things for which we have justly become so notorious. That doesn't bother us.
Out on the green, though, we want our cricketers to show the bravery, spine and nerve we lack, to take the risks we ourselves wouldn't in our dreams.
If you think that is bad, what is worse is our expectations of victory at all times.
We don't expect our Prime Minister and his team to deliver 8 per cent growth each year. We don't expect our bureaucrats and police to end ineptitude, inefficiency and corruption at the end of working hours this year. We don't expect our courts to clear their backlogs next year. We don't expect an elected government to provide bijli, sadak, pani to all by the time its tenure ends.
Somehow, we are willing to pardon them that. But, somehow, we want our cricket team to win all the time.
Why?
It has been said that the reason our movies are so popular is because they offer relief from the miserable, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden, corrupt, communal, casteist lives so many of us lead.
In investing so much hope and so many expectations in cricket, we are obviously using cricket as a release from the misery and horror of daily life. But cricket and cinema are not the same thing.
Movies are planned and made to script. Cricket is not, cannot, and should not be made to script. Expectations are good, but they should be reasonable. Anger, disgust, disappointment are good, but in moderation.
By just expecting one country (ours) to win all the time, we are missing the woods for the trees, and beating about our tiny little bush.
International cricket showcases awesome talent: a Joe Root, a Kane Williamson☝🏿, a Babar Azam, a Joffra Archer, a Kegiso Rabada, a Shaheen Shah Afridi. If you cannot admire them and always expect Rohit and Virat to score every time, you have missed a vital ingredient of sport.
If you cannot cheer for an England, Australia or Pakistan, and always expect India, India and India to win, you have missed an even more vital ingredient.
To paraphrase the West Indian writer C.L.R. James, "What do they know of cricket who only cricket and vijay know?"
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In the late 1990s, Mike Marqusee, the late US-born English writer, wrote a book titled Anyone but England, an examination of race and class in English cricket.
The title was a takeoff from Scottish and Welsh fans supporting any team but England in football for historical reasons. It’s a line popularised by Andy Murray.
For the steaming pile of hubris Indian cricket stands on, it is time for Anyone but India, so that serious rasikas can enjoy the sport without the jingoism, commercialism and communalism it has come to represent.
It could start with a small prayer by K.S. Ranjitsinhji, the very same man after whom the Ranji Trophy is named.
It is a prayer that should find place on the tables of everybody who loves and watches this game, or any other, a week after India was felled by a better team.
“O Powers that be, make me to observe and keep the rules of the game. Help me not to cry for the moon. Help me neither to offer nor to welcome cheap praise. Give me always to be a good comrade. Help me to win if I may win, but—and this O, Powers, especially—if I may not win, make me a good loser."
It is a prayers the cricketers-turned-PR agents of BCCI should read it each time they come on air and belt their bullshit.
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Postscript: An earlier version of this piece appeared 20 years ago, when India lost to Australia in the 2003 World Cup, proving the adage that the more cricket changes, the more journalism remains the same!
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Screenshots: courtesy R.Prasad/Economic Times; Hindustan Times; Clayton Murzello/Mid-Day; The Indian Express