Skip to main content

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer


Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship?

Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru, the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu.

How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj, especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his occasional failures like missing a catch. He was asked on social media why he didn’t leave cricket and go to drive his father’s autorickshaw. He was insulted time and again merely because of his religion.

Even the legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar applauded Siraj’s achievements and said that Siraj played a crucial role in India’s victory against England. Tendulkar also added that Siraj was not extended the laurels he deserved.

I am no fan of cricket. In fact, I think of the game as a lazy person’s way of spending time in the sun during winters. I know the game evolved much from those lassitudinous 5-day tests to one -day shows and even better 20-twenties. Gentlemen supposedly played for honour back then, and now gladiators play for sponsors. The cricketers in India are now commodities auctioned in the market run by a corporate nexus which is led by a politician’s son (who doesn’t seem to have a brain). I find the entire thing as ridiculous as it ever was in my imagination right from my childhood.

I have written in this space repeatedly that the most deleterious disservice that the Modi Inc. has done to India is the communal hatred they [the right wing] injected into the country’s veins. Now, even our cricketers are infected! What a pity!

They ceased to be cricketers the moment they let such venom of hatred enter their hearts. I understand that they were instructed by their country’s government not to shake hands with their Pak counterparts. There you are: your government is responsible for the toxin that your heroes spewed in Dubai today.

I am against that government. Because of the hatred it keeps pumping into the country’s bloodstream year after year. By a 75-year-old man and his criminal gang. At 75, you’d expect a MODIcum of wisdom from human beings. But then, you can’t expect wisdom from brutes, said Nietzsche in a moment of brilliant insanity.

A Malayalam weekly celebrating Siraj's contributions


Labels:

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanSeptember 15, 2025 at 9:36 PM

    Hari Om
    Quite so... I was unaware things had gotten this bad, but it's true that sport - and particularly cricket - are supposed to be above such nonsense. Sigh... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jose D. MaliekalSeptember 15, 2025 at 10:38 PM

    I am only sorry that Gavecattle velsaskar, the cricketer's cricketer did not levels come out in support of Siraj and his proven mettle. He is a gentleman and human being. Why they played with Pakistan? For money, as the game has denigrated itself to the levels of a weekly cattle shanty, where mutts would be bargained for. Not having shaken hands... That is the Nadir of the gentleman's game.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 16, 2025 at 8:22 AM

      A lot of money is involved. But hatred of this degree is new.

      Delete
  3. Liz A.September 16, 2025 at 8:06 AM

    Ah, sportsball. Fans can be so awful to the athletes.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...
10 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
10 comments
Read more

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...
8 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more