The mental disintegration of the Indian fan
Brad Haddin was spot on when he said that the Indians break
quicker than anybody else in the world when things are not going their way. He
may or may not be correct about the Indian Team but he surely was on the money
about the Indian media and the India
supporters. I won't want to comment on Brad Haddin the player. He is there becuase Tim Paine breaks some part of his anatomy quicker than anybody else in the world. But the way the Indian supporters have turned on this team would put a pack of
wild dogs to shame. Actually wild dogs attack only to procure their food and
don’t turn on their own.
One of the reasons of India’s success against Australia
whether in Australia or India (The Ozs didn’t win for 8 tests post Sydney 2008)
was that ‘mental disintegration’ by the Oz players worked as a motivation for
the Indian team. All the chatting, pre-match predictions and claims of having
found chinks in the armours somehow spurred on the Indians unlike other teams
that folded up under pressure. What the Australians did better this time as a
team (even the Oz media to a certain extent, or was it the aftermath of the
loss to the Kiwis?) was being sort of nice. Well that isn’t possible really so
at least they tried not to be too nasty or rude. That ‘Khunnas’ of playing the
Australians just wasn’t generated in this series. I had mentioned in my earlier
post that it didn’t feel like 2007 at all.
Along with the media the Australians seem to have discovered
that especially with the young Indian players, spectators can be the new ‘not
so secret’ weapon. Instead of ignoring the raving idiots who want to throw
abuse at them they are reacting. Only Indian crowds are supposed to be racist and
abusive. Everyone, I mean every spectator in Australia is a paragon of virtue
and don’t need those notices put up across Indian stadia cautioning spectators
that offensive behaviour is a punishable offence. My point is that there are
bad apples everywhere and these nuts to be controlled across stadiums in the
world. In their enthusiasm to kick a man who is down, the Indian media and the
Indian fans are ridiculing their own players. This has been the key difference
between Sydney 2008 and Sydney 2012 - the lack of any support for the Indian
team.
I am not trying to justify or overlook the performance of
the cricket team but do we really have to start talking about how the seniors
are to be blamed for this debacle? Is there any one Indian supporter who decried
the team selection before the start of this series? So why suddenly start
questioning the team mid way? There are still 2 more matches to go and unlike England where
the team was operating with a lot of temporary personnel and was not playing
against a team which got bowled out for 47 why talk of a 4-0 prematurely? The
fact that everyone has already started talking of a 4-0 result shows that the
mental disintegration of the Indian media and the Indian fan has come faster
than even the Australians would have expected.
The Indian team needs to completely ignore all the tamasha
happening outside and relax mentally. Maybe go-karting helps them relax and if
they feel it does, no one has the right to question their method of practice.
I was astonished to read Gavaskar’s comments about the
Indians not being in Australia
for sight seeing and that they should be practicing instead. Coming from a man
who has always maintained that the Australian media is an extension of the
Australin cricket team, this was the final nail. It seems that the media of
both countries and the fans have wittingly or unwittingly become that
extension. With SMG joining their ranks the process of mental disintegration is
complete.
If it was pathetic to watch the Indian team’s performance at
Sydney (and I
am not singling out batting or bowling), the reactions to that loss across the
board have been shameful. This hurts more than Sydney 2008. Hopefully these
events spur the Indian team as well.