The Bad Boys of Indian cricket

It isn’t just the Union Budget, Kashmir or AAP rumblings which are making news. Abuse is as much in the news. The Censor Board listed 28 or (was it 32) abuses which should not be used in films. Adding to the heap of abuse this time is the Indian cricket captain, Virat Kohli, in distant Perth. He verbally abused Hindustan Times columnist Jaswinder Siddhu for an HT piece on Kohli and his Bollywood lady love Anushka Sharma. The irony was that the piece was not written by Siddhu at all who justifiably lodged a complaint with the ICC and the BCCI. The BCCI merely hemmed and hawed but Kohli is facing bouncers from the cricket world.

No one can defend Kohli who represents the ‘Bad Boy’, ‘Tough Guy’ image of Indian cricket. For a team, which had nothing to show during the entire two month tour of Australia followed by a twin series trouncing, the World Cup wins were a pleasant surprise. As usual, the Indian media started touting the team once again as the best in the world; Virat was the greatestever and so on and so forth. This was heady stuff for victorystarved Indians. Once again they were on top of the world: Happy Days were back. And so was the arrogance and praise-driven power.

The Indian cricket team contains a bunch of bullies who keep exhibiting their pseudotoughness, which is constantly fed by a fawning media whose cricket correspondents are what courtiers were to our ancient kings. They praise even the

trivia concerning players. Through a strange quirk of fate, coupled with loads of luck, Indian cricket hit the jackpot in the one-day version of the game and fathered the IPL which resurrected the cardboard heroes of Indian cricket. Most important, it brought millions to the Indian ‘super stars’. This money came into the hands of the semi-literate popinjays who had just enough education to handle their cheque books This heady success was a boon to the media, PR men and cricket writers, a fast-disappearing tribe. Led by the sports TV channels, where boys and girls in natty outfits thrust microphones into the mouths of cricketers for inane quotes, they were the self-anointed kings of modern India boosted by the modern ‘Vidushaks’ of the game, the cricket media. Their job shifted from the game to the players whose every word and action (whether connected with the game or not) was splashed on the sports pages. Some of the captains understood the bankruptcy of the journos. But the honourable members of the cricket media were slow to catch on to the jokes of which they were the butts and continued to be part of the flattering brigade. In such circumstances, we do not expect the BCCI, which thrives on flattery, to take any action against the rude and foulmouthed players like Virat Kohli who have modeled themselves on ‘tough guy’ heroes Salman or Shah Rukh. Very much a part of the depraved arrogant generation, they and their ‘chamchas’ in the media bring nothing but discredit to the game. Let us see if the BCCI recalls Kohli from Australia, suspends him from playing cricket till the end of the year and appoint someone else as the Indian captain. Already racked by several scandals, the BCCI can take on one more. President Srini had proved himself to be a great survivor with rhino skin.