The Hope, The Loss, The Grief..and The Hate
In the ’80s and ’90s, when your team lost a cricket match, there were very few avenues for you to deal with your grief. Maybe you called a friend or met them over a cup of tea and you bore your hearts out. Maybe you cried your eye sockets out, while your family let you be. Maybe you threw a few housewares on the furniture and raged out of the house for a few minutes to get some fresh air. Maybe you went out to a nearby field with some friends and knocked a few balls ferociously out of the park. Maybe you did all of that. But you always wanted to try hard to find consolation from the fact that you were not alone in sharing that grief. The grief of a cicket loss.
As you grieved the loss for the next few days, and when you talked about the loss with someone, all of you had your own takes on how your team lost that important cricket match and who was responsible for the downfall. Perhaps someone in your group said it was “Gavaskar’s slow batting” or “Srikkanth’s careless aggression” or “Chetan Sharma’s inexperience” or “Azharuddin’s poor captaincy” or “Umpire’s Bias” or “Shastri’s adventures off the field”.
Each of you had narrowed down the cause to something or someone. There was a reason to feel disappointed with that someone or something. But you all found ways to move on. Overcoming your grief by taking comfort from your hypothesis that if not for that someone or something, your team would have surely won that match. Your hate on that someone was probably short-lived and it was largely a lonely emotional experience.
That was a different age when cricket hatred was not a parasitic phenomena.
Today, cricket hatred, especially among Indian cricket fans has attained an industrial complex nature, thanks largely to social media.
You don’t even wait for the match to be over to share your grief or your take on the loss because you are actually watching the match with your friends on social media. There is constant exchange of your emotions, some of which are not yours after all, because you are feeding off each other’s happiness, disappointments, anger, and sadness in that particular moment. These moments of social media anger eventually snowball into a major hate outrage aimed at someone at the end of the match.
“Why was KL Rahul standing there and watching the ball? This is what happens when his priority is not cricket. Karan Johar is the reason for the loss.”
“Rohit Sharma has never scored big in big matches. He fails you when it matters.”
“Look at Virat’s average in multi-nation tournaments. He is below average. He should resign his captaincy and Rohit Sharma should take over.”
“MS Dhoni singlehandedly lost this match for India. Why couldn’t he get out and let Bhuvneshwar Kumar come in at over no. 35 to score the remaining runs? Dhoni is getting preferetial treatment.”
“Shastri’s adventures off the field are getting out of control. Someone take that bottle of Jack Daniels away from him.”
“I hate MS Dhoni.”
Unlike other sports, watching ODI cricket is an 8 hour long commitment. So a cricket fan is investing at least 8 hours of his or her time and emotions into the team he or she is supporting on that day. (In case of the Ind-NZ semifinal match, it was almost a 30 hour emotional investment). You start the day with so much hopes pinned onto your favorite team and then they start fading away gradually. You are put through a roller-coaster ride of emotions as the match takes some twists and turns culminating with you staring at the television in utter despair and disbelief after your team loses. The 8 hour long commitment makes dealing with the grief of a cricket loss a very long process.
Watching live cricket is almost like entering an alternate universe. You have been thinking about the match for a few days prior. You have already assigned different roles for the players. You have boxed them into doing certain things for you on that day. You have a certain navigation plan for the game and you have assigned your expectations to these players. Now, all that is needed is for the players to play their roles perfectly according to your plan. Failing which, the players whom you once put on high pedestals, are knocked down in a matter of seconds and their careers & reputations die a quick death in front of the hatred machine that revs up its fire power through verbal venom on social media.
Tonight, as I grieve India’s loss in the 1st semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, I also think about the frustrations, the dreams, the disappointments, and the tears of the Indian players, who gave what they could today and still fell short.
It’s a game after all.
But the pain will last forever and I still grieve the old-fashioned way.
