IPL: Where arch-rivals become friends and brothers become foes

The sixth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has started off on expected terms, what with its staple dose of cricketainment, glamour, controversies et al. However, what has also come to the fore is the rich and varied diversity that the IPL provides, allowing players of different nations to play alongside each other. We have arch rivals like Ricky Ponting and Harbhajan Singh playing and celebrating passionately for the same team. Examples like these are present throughout the IPL and it is the very reason that the tournament grabs eyeballs the world over, making it an exciting mix of youth and exuberance, experience and energy, and friends and foes.

On the flip side though, one might say the IPL is also harming the Indian camaraderie. The recent ugly altercation between KKR captain Gautam Gambhir and the young RCB captain Virat Kohli took everyone by surprise. The incident happened in a game between RCB and KKR when Virat Kohli got out. As he was walking back, the cameras caught Kohli advancing aggressively and angrily towards Gautam Gambhir, who wasn’t willing to hold back either. The two were mouthing the choicest expletives at each other and would have perhaps come to blows had KKR player Rajat Bhatia not made a timely intervention. To think that these two don’t just play for the same country at the international level, but are also fellow statemates! So is the IPL now driving a wedge, however temporary it may seem, between players of the same country but playing for different franchises?

Friends becoming foes

Back in the 90s, there was an on-field fight between Delhi’s Raman Lamba and Baroda’s Rashid Patel during a Duleep Trophy match, but it comes nowhere close to the fights that the IPL provides as here, everything is out in full view of the world. The IPL has always been riddled with varied controversies, and tiffs between Indian players too are nothing new. No one can forget the ‘Slapgate’ incident that occurred in IPL 1 in 2008 between Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh. Cameras had spotted Sreesanth in uncontrollable tears at the end of the match between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab. Harbhajan Singh, the captain of Mumbai Indians then, had allegedly slapped the pacer, who was his team-mate in the national side. The incident sparked off a massive controversy and was criticised by one and all. Harbhajan was, on expected terms, banned from playing the remaining matches of the IPL that season.

If you think that that was a one-off incident, you are wrong. Over the years, a few more incidents came to light where Indian players were involved in spats with each other in the IPL. Last year, during a match between the Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians, there was an unpleasant exchange of words between Munaf Patel of Mumbai Indians and Amit Mishra of Deccan Chargers. After Mishra had slapped Munaf for a four, the two seemed to be engaged in a heated and ugly verbal duel. There was a tussle between the two and the umpire S Ravi had to intervene. A very similar squabble ensued last year between Kings XI Punjab’s Praveen Kumar and Chennai Super Kings’ R. Ashwin; the duo were engaged in a heated exchange of words when Ashwin was facing the bowling of Kumar. There have been a few other similar fights between the India players which has maligned the image of the IPL and also, the game of cricket.

To say that this is sports and everything is forgotten at the end of the day is incorrect. IPL is a world event followed ardently by fans and different media throughout the globe and even the minutest of errors is lapped up gleefully which ultimately tarnishes the image of Indian cricket. The Los Angeles Times had this to say of the IPL, “Violence between players? Scantily clad cheerleaders? Toss in a rant by Charles Barkley and three minutes of commercials for every 45 seconds of actual game time, and cricket may be ready for an American audience.” Clearly, not an ideal image that we would want the world to see.

So is the IPL, which is supposed to promote raw talent with all its glamour and excitement, killing the bonhomie between the Indian national players? Ex-Indian player Sunil Gavaskar recently had this to say to a news channel on the Gambhir-Kohli incident, “I think it just shows the intensity with which the IPL is played and how the players want to win. But any kind of bad language is certainly not acceptable. I think it’s sad that two players from Delhi’s Ranji team were involved in this. Maybe some old issues have resurfaced.” The ‘intensity’ bit is fine at one level, but sometimes one gets the feeling that it is being way too overdrawn and players hide under this cloak of the so-called ‘intensity’ to shield their unpardonable behaviour.

Once rivals, now brothers

At the same time, it would be improper to say that the IPL is just promoting bad blood and hatred between players. There are a lot of positives that the IPL provides, out of which, as was mentioned earlier, is the tournament’s capacity to bring together rivals from different countries under the same team. One just has to look at the way Harbhajan Singh and Ricky Ponting embraced each other after the latter pulled off a stunning catch off Harbhajan’s bowling during a match between Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians recently. Harbhajan was all praise for Ponting’s catch and the bonhomie between the two rivals, it seems, is growing by the day. “He has been a great leader for Australia and we have to give him all the support here that we can. It is great to have him around. He is already doing a great job and I hope he can lift the (IPL) cup for us,” the Turbanator was quoted as saying.

It is not just this one-off case; last year too, Andrew Symonds had shared a great rapport with Harbhajan while playing for the same team, Mumbai Indians. The ugly days after the Sydney 2008 fiasco seem to have been buried now. This year too, we’ve seen Ponting, Kumble and Tendulkar – the supporting cast in Sydney – amicably discussing their strategy in the dugout. This is of course not just restricted to one team and is the norm in almost all the teams. That is what the IPL is good at; providing a platform for combatants from different nations to come under the same roof and helping them forget any animosity that they might have had against each other. Consequently, this expands the canvas of comradeship across the entire cricketing fraternity.

Thus, when one sees fellow countrymen having a go at each other and almost coming to blows, it does tarnish the image of the IPL and makes one wonder if it is doing more bad than good. Especially when one knows that the tournament has originated from India and the world expects the national players to be at the forefront to promote its positives and not the give a bad name to the sport. So can this situation be improved? Yes, it can, but for that, both the BCCI and the players will have to be serious about such issues.

How can the situation be rectified?

To say that these incidents happen in the heat of the moment and whatever happens on the field stays on the field, is unacceptable. All that Gambhir and Kohli received for the on-field behaviour was a reprimand by the match referee David Boon. In sports like Ice hockey, where brawls are commonplace, such incidents might have been acceptable but cricket, even in its most raw form which is dished out by the IPL, has not yet reduced to that level. Hence, any such incident cannot be taken lightly. The harshest of punishments should be imparted to the players to prevent them from ever repeating such actions again.

What players like Gambhir and Kohli have to understand is that they represent their nation first and not their franchises. They are being followed by millions of people, out of which there are innumerable youngsters. The IPL especially, is a family event and thus every move of the players is scrutinised in detail. What message would they send out to children who consider these players to be their role models and who are just lapping up whatever IPL has to dish out, and want to be cricket stars of the future? Surely, this is not the way we want our upcoming youth in cricket to be like.

Ironically, both these players are being touted as the ‘ideal’ candidates for the future Indian captain role. With behaviour such as this on display, Indian fans need to pray real hard if they want their team in safe and cool hands. A thin line has to be drawn somewhere between intensity and over the top anger and arrogance. The lines just cannot be blurred. If we just let the players loose and they continue indulging in such despicable behaviour, then cricket would have lost. The IPL, for all its hoopla, would have lost for the very thing it was established – promoting cricket to different corners of the globe. For now, it seems to be promoting cricket of a different ‘hot-blooded’ kind.

Perhaps to counter-balance such evil influence to the game, the BCCI should educate these erring cricketers in a course of anger-management or better still, some lessons on corporate etiquette and accepted behavioural policies. These might seem out of place but can actually work and serve as a lesson for others.

The thing is, the IPL is like a reality show of cricket. Every move and expression of the players are captured in detail and enjoyed delightfully by the public. It is up to the players to restrain themselves from losing their cool and from letting all the glitz and glamour go to their head. Perhaps the Indian players can learn from watching their foreign counterparts. Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo of the West Indies national cricket team, for example, play for Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings respectively in the IPL, and are known to have a go at each other regularly while playing, but it never goes to the extreme. There is always a sly smile from one of them while they are at it. At the end of the day, they can be seen sharing a glass of beer and cracking loud jokes at each other. Bravo went on to say that Pollard is like his brother and he would never be rude to him; they just like trying to pull each other’s leg while playing against each other.

That is something our Indian players could very well learn from. The IPL, at the end of the day, is a domestic cricket tournament and it should not be allowed to get to a player’s head and make him behave in unacceptable terms. The IPL will always provide its positives and negatives; the tournament is structured that way. It is up to both the BCCI and the players to ensure now that the negatives do not overlap the positives.