If you want the trophy, stop treating cricket like it's a religion

More than 48 hours after the World Cup final, I notice a disturbing fallout among a section of the more well-informed and dispassionate fans.

While a majority of the 1.4 billion population of India is still trying to recover from the comprehensive loss to Australia, there is another school of thought that feels the Indian cricket establishment has been 'served right'. 

The latter set does have a point—what with the overriding feeling of jingoism that manifested itself on the two occasions that Ahmedabad hosted key matches, the India–Pakistan game and the final, where fans’ reluctance to applaud Travis Head’s counter-attacking century and booing the rival fans stuck out like a pair of sore thumbs.

There's also justification of a sort in the BCCI’s big bully attitude and remote control of the ICC, thanks to their financial muscle. 

Tunku Varadarajan writes in the Wire: 'The BCCI has warped cricket, distorted it, making it so India-centric that other proud nations — some with better pedigrees than India’s — have been reduced to bit-part players, mendicants, petitioners for match time. Everything is now about India: the crowds, the songs, the scheduling, the pitches, the money. The one element the BCCI cannot control, mercifully, is the outcome of a match.'  

Yet the stage had been all set for Rohit Sharma’s men to hold aloft the trophy (conspiracy theorists believed it was a matter of time). The thinking was that the BJP would kickstart his 2024 election campaign from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hometown — in a gigantic stadium named after him.

History is, however, replete with instances of political leaders and statesmen leveraging the country’s sporting success. It can even become a critical lever to peddle strident nationalism after warfare. 

Bitter truth, to a point. But this is only one side of the story.

As I was riding back to the hotel from the stadium that night, after the final, I drew out my sulking auto-rickshaw driver a bit. "Kya ho gaya, sir… Raat ko khana nahin khaya (How did it all go wrong, sir? I didn’t feel like eating dinner tonight)," he confided. Now, what do you tell such fans? 

The problem lies in the fact that for far too long, ever since we started growing in stature as a cricketing power, all the stakeholders in this sport have started treating it as much more than a game.

Phrases like ‘cricket and Bollywood unite India’ and 'cricket is a religion’ have actually warped our priorities — and furthered the crass commercialisation of the game that we see today.   

Just as throwing open the bidding for TV rights filled up the coffers of both the BCCI and the ICC, it made sense for corporate giants to spend on it as players got richer. The media became an unwitting accomplice, hyping up their coverage — because, clearly, cricket sells.

An India–Pakistan game, despite not invoking the same degree of intense competition as in the past, frankly, have now become a war and not a battle on a sporting green. And it is this popular attitude that the ICC wants to milk every time there is a World Cup.  

Can India’s final defeat change any of this on the ground? No — because all the boards now want a slice of the pie by collaborating with India's cricket business, if not our players. Otherwise, how do you get Australia to play a T20 series within three days of a World Cup final? Where's the recovery time, or even the room to celebrate?

And what even is the point, when key players must be rested even with a series on—just so the circus can roll on next season.

Wait for a few days, and you will see the buzz slowly shifting to the IPL once the lists of retained and released players start to be announced. 

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that unlike in the past, when we were a one-sport country, there is now no dearth of super achievers in other disciplines.

There is a world and an Olympic champion in javelin to gloat about. Badminton has spawned a revolution. The Tokyo Olympics and the Paralympics both saw our athletes reaping it rich. What’s more, India made history with a 100-plus medal tally in the last Asian Games. 

Can’t we treat our cricketing laurels and success as a springboard towards becoming a sporting nation, rather than treating one sport as a religion?

Maybe then there will be a greater degree of maturity among the fans rather than treating a big final as a life-and-death matter, demanding that players do or die. Or worse, the other side die!  

Maybe that will also allow the cricketers to play without the fear of failing—and in losing that burden, actually succeed!