An entire country comes together to watch eleven Indians play a game of International Cricket while Chak De India! and Maa Tujhe Salaam! play interchangeably in the background.
You hear people chanting India! India! with utmost devotion and passion. The stadium is full of painted faces and tricolored clothes. People sitting in houses have their TV screens on while those on the road have their ears plugged into the radio.
Mumbai local and Delhi metro is filled with indian cricket fans watching live stream of the match on their phones. Strangers become friends to discuss scores as if they have known each other for ages.
Cricket as Religion: Gods, Chants and Miracles
In a country of many faiths, Cricket is nothing short of a religion in itself for Indian cricket fans.
Indian Cricket fandom becomes a large body of devotees, a cult group of sorts, while cricketers like Sachin, Ganguly, Dhoni, Dravid, and Kohli become cult leaders.
Stadiums become sacred places where these devotees gather to chant the names of their gods and witness divine miracles. From streets to stadiums, this intense love affair between Indians and Cricket has been going on for more than a hundred years now.
Cricket Fandom: A Uniting Glue
Why do Indians feel so strongly about Cricket? At the end of the day, it is just a game, isn’t it? Well, actually, No! Cricket has ceased to remain just a sport and has turned into a cultural phenomenon.
While we are a nation that struggles to unanimously agree on many issues, Cricket is the one thing that unites us all irrespective of language, race, state, or class.
As bizarre as it sounds, blue men in jerseys holding a winning cup attract way more attention than news of a victorious war fought on the Siachen border by our men in Khaki.
This is because Cricket gives us a sense of belonging to something larger, more magnanimous. The average urban Indian male finds himself constantly stressed while juggling responsibilities to maintain a work-life balance.
In such a scenario, Cricket acts as a much-needed escape. Playing cricket or even watching a match with your friends is a powerful stress-relieving and socializing activity.
In a way, it becomes an antidote to the loneliness and depression epidemic faced by emotionally challenged Indian men who aren’t taught how to express emotions. Men who supposedly never cry, shed a secret tear when India loses a World Cup.
You cannot talk about contemporary Indian society without talking about these worshipping fanatics called fans. This phenomenon is at its peak during a World Cup finale, semi-finals, IPL, or any match between India and Pakistan.
India is home to some of the finest players in the world and some of the biggest celebrities in the country are cricketers. This intense love, passion, and euphoria is the major source of enthusiasm for our men in jerseys.
India’s Twelfth Man
Traditionally, ‘Twelfth man’ refers to a substitute player who can replace one of the eleven team members in case of a medical emergency.
Due to their unwavering spirit, the term is now used metaphorically to refer to Indian Cricket fans who in a way become part of the team with their tireless support and passion.
Their incessant cheering and chanting encourage Indian cricketers while creating an intimidating environment for their opponents. These fans cum worshippers travel across the world to support Team India at International matches held outside the country.
Their presence doesn’t just contribute quantitatively to the number of spectators in a stadium. It creates a homely environment for our players while unnerving and weakening the morale of the other team.
Even then, Indian fans are fans with a lot of integrity. For them, Cricket fever is not limited to worship of the players. Indian fans are true connoisseurs of Cricket. They do not shy away from applauding the skill and sportsmanship of opposing teams, even when Team India loses a match.
From batting techniques to bowling strategies and field placements, every other Indian Cricket fans has an impressive amount of expertise in the intricacies of the sport.
Even when Team India fails to reach the finals in an international match, you’ll find Indian Cricket fans glued to their screens, cheering almost as enthusiastically for one of the teams.
India vs Pak: A War on the Pitch
When it comes to a match between India and Pakistan, Cricket ceases to remain a sport and becomes a tension-inducing egotistical war between the two countries, given their historical friction and enmity.
Even after having the finest cricketers in the world on their team, Indians love nothing more than winning a barnburner match with their nemesis, Pakistan.
The entire world witnesses this hyper-nationalist, on-field rivalry between the two cricketing giants, an atmosphere truly eclectic and euphoric.
Such a match is paired with extensive media coverage, live debates, predictions, internet trolling, meme production, and aftermath videos of fans celebrating on one end and crying and smashing television screens on the other.
Stories and images of heartbroken and crying Cricket fans surface on the internet from one side of the border while the roar and celebration of a billion others are posted from another side.
Indian Cricket Fans Gone Rogue
It’s all praises and cheers as long as Team India is winning. Lately, Cricket fandom has taken an ugly turn with the onset of social media. People’s passionate love turns into passionate hate in the course of a match. Indian Cricket fans have always been superstitious.
But this superstition turns into pure idiocy when fans start trolling the wives of their beloved cricketers. In the 2015 World Cup, fans hurled online abuses and burned effigies of actor Anushka Sharma for merely being present at the live match, where her husband, Virat Kohli, failed to deliver as per the expectations of his fans.
When asked, Kohli expressed his disappointment at such disgraceful behavior in these words “At a human level, I would say I was hurt, and the people who said those things and the way they said them should be ashamed of themselves. To see those reactions after just one match was very disappointing for me. It makes you lose faith in a lot of people. It’s a good thing in a way. You get to know who’s with you and who’s not. It was not in my control. But the reactions were very disappointing,“.
Recently, at the 2024 IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians, a fan tried to hide the ball after a six landed in the stands, just so his beloved team wouldn’t lose the match.
Ball pent me 🤣 pic.twitter.com/2gG8EtBizf
— Professor Sahab (@ProfesorSahab) May 13, 2024
Do you think all is fair in love and war or have fans gone too far in their obsession for cricket?
Historically an English sport, Indians have adopted Cricket and made it their very own. Every city, every village, and every street in India has witnessed little kids, teenagers, and grown men with their plastic and wooden bats and balls, playing what they call Gully Cricket and shouting Howzat!
The better players amongst these garner respect and authority in their communities and experience a tiny fraction of the huge fandom they are a part of.
Cricket has taken root and sprouted in every part of India to the extent that it has become a part of our daily lives.
It’s a usual occurrence when balls come flying in houses breaking windows.
Kids often come home crying when they don’t get the chance to be a batsman in their evening playtime.
Sundays are designated Cricket days for so many office-going men who find a trace of their childhood in the makeshift pitches and brick-made stumps in the community park.
The recent abundance of Cricket biographies and documentaries like M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, 83, Azhar, Sachin: A Billion Dreams, etc, hint towards an ever-increasing, undying passion for Cricket which is only growing over the years.
Do you still think Cricket is just a sport in India, or has it evolved into something greater?
