Hello Darkness, my old friend: Being an Indian cricket fan

Yuvraj Singh

The most infamous 11 in the history of T20 cricket.

‘And the vision that was planted in my brainStill remainsWithin the sound of silence’

It was a slow torturous innings; he was like a shipwrecked man floating on a wooden raft with no land in sight.

Yesterday was a sad day for Indian cricket. I was angry, and I was disappointed, maybe felt a little betrayed, too. But today is a dark day. I am disgusted and ashamed.

Today, the shallow depravity that exists within the excitable masses that make up the multitude of the cricket literate public in this country came to the fore in a swift and reprehensible manner. Surely, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, which is perhaps the worst part of all: that Yuvraj Singh’s home being pelted with stones was met not with shock and disgust but with a quiet but knowing shake of the head. We’ve been here before. Remember? In fact, those of a cynical nature may remark that he was lucky not to have his effigy burned.

We all remember what happened in the match. Yuvraj Singh, he of six 6s and multiple soul destroying assaults, looked as if he didn’t know which end of the bat to hold. His innings is best encapsulated by the fact that his dismissal was met with relief. He may well have cost us our second T20 World Cup.

He also won us our first T20 World Cup along with the small matter of the 2011 World Cup, though.

Amidst all the accusations, recriminations, laments and bouts of anger, we seem to have lost sight of all that. My friend perhaps put it best when he said ‘hate the performance, not the player’. I will go a step further and say that Yuvraj the cricketer and Yuvraj the person are two separate entities. He doesn’t deserve our adulation, but he does deserve the respect accorded to another human being. Have the lines of reality become so blurred that we are unable to distinguish between the two? Representing the nation automatically puts you in the spotlight. Criticism is something you come to expect, while vandalism is not.

Do we get a free pass at him because he is a cricketer and a public figure? Is it easy to hate him, to pelt his home without a twang of conscience because we do not know the man behind the helmet? Does the baseness in human nature come to the fore when committing such acts? Do we feel vindicated, perhaps even enjoy it a little?

The relationship between the public and Indian cricketers has always been fickle. The same people who desecrated his home also prayed fervently for him when he had cancer. Two sides of human nature, warm and personal soon became hateful and impersonal; Freud may have had difficulty deciphering this.

We would like to believe otherwise, but cricketers are also human beings. They feel the same joy of success we do and perhaps more of the bitterness of defeat. So cheer for them, believe in them, criticize them, but don’t lose sight of the fact that they feel it all, just like us. Life goes on. Runs will be scored, wickets will be taken, games will be won and games will be lost. Time will remember the 11 but not the public backlash.

And this article will be put down to some sense of misguided self-righteousness.

‘But my words, like silent raindrops fellAnd echoedIn the wells of silence’

It is the nature of the Indian cricket fan and plight of the Indian cricketer.