Cynics and Indian cricket - An everlasting relationship

Nah, he’s no good!

Cynicism is the household breakfast at all Indian tables. Sounds pretty legit for a country where every rising sun brings fresh news of scams and controversies sell like latest brands of cream biscuits. This is India, incredible at its core!

Here achievements invite more scepticism than acknowledgement, more apprehension than applaud. Put in a single word of congratulations and jabber pointless volumes about the necessity to keep one’s feet to the ground and the ordeals that lay ahead – bingo! You’re now the latest intellectual on the block! Really?

The peculiarity of Indian culture lies in the very pessimism of our traditional mindset that refuses to recognize positive brilliance. Not to blame the Indians though, given the profusion of occasions when their own childish innocence had landed them in the throes of deceit. Such is the paranoia that the Indian society simply cannot let go of one’s accomplishment without smelling conspiracy or suspecting selfish plots. It may appear strangely astonishing and scarcely reasonable when cricket, indisputably the most famous sport in the country, too comes under the radar. Then again, it’s only practical that mistrust will ruffle the feathers of the sport that enjoys mass devotion in such a society.

Indian cricket has always turned out to be the target of critics whose lives have been rendered unpleasantly perplexing by the ambiguity of Indian politics. Compared to politics, the world of sports is a much easier terrain which enjoys unanimous affection and enthusiasm. Cricket, in particular, is a religion in India and it is as easier to elevate a cricketer for his success as to dump him on the back of his failure. Sports critics are nothing but mostly unsuccessful sportsmen who feel it’s their national and social responsibility to undermine the players’ triumphs and warn the aficionados prior to his failure.

In a country like India, this assumes massive proportions when every third person emerges out as a self-proclaimed critic. Sarcasm, after all, knows no limit when it comes to belittling relatively fortunate celebrities who’ve guaranteed themselves a better life than most of us. Success is a minority taste and for those who haven’t been privileged enough, scorn and derision turn out to be favourite pastimes.

It is unnervingly ridiculous when one gets to hear about the kind of player Rahul Dravid is from a young chap on the streets who can’t even distinguish between a googly and a flipper.

The Champions Trophy triumph meant fresh cynicism would be arriving in a matter of hours, and of course the critics didn’t disappoint as almost instantly, social networking sites were flooded with views and statements about how incompetently the other teams had performed. Mind the satire – here’s the national cricket team winning a major ICC tournament and the Indians are tearing each other’s brains about which foreign squad had been the most depleted.

It had been pretty frustrating for the believers in Indian cricket when the 2007 World T20 Championship triumph was played down as nothing more than a fluke. Unfortunately, even former cricketers and commentators inferred that the inexperience of all the teams in the shortest format of the game had passively aided the enthusiastic and passionate bunch of young professionals in lifting the trophy.