Our World Cup of woe

CHENNAI: Many years from now, what image might serve as the metaphor for India’s hubris at the Cricket World Cup final in Ahmedabad last Sunday? Like Kapil Dev’s toothy, what me! grin while lifting the cup at Lord’s in 1983, or MS Dhoni’s swashbuckling six to win the game at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai in 2011, what picture will bring all the emotions of the moment flooding back?

Is it the handout picture of Prime Minister Modi force-hugging Mohammed Shami in the Indian dressing room after the honours had been done? Is it the picture of grim faces in the crowd when Travis Head completed his wonderful century? Is it the image of nepobaby Jay Shah sitting sandwiched between Sachin Tendulkar and David Beckham as the two legends discussed the game?

As we do the graveside analysis of India’s comeuppance last Sunday, all of those pictures coalesce to produce the mood of the moment, which is of utter abjection. Long after we would have moved on, the only true picture of this World Cup will be of the Australian team holding the Cup aloft in pure ecstasy. Which is as it should be. As Mohammed Azharuddin would have summarised it, “Boys played well. Better team won.”

However, despite that sober truth, we are in a scapegoating mood after this imaginary disaster. All stakeholders to this humbling are searching for phantom culprits to pin the blame. Thankfully, the players were all faultless in the run-up to the game and during it. So, the glare has been turned upon the wicket at the Narendra Modi Stadium. The cricket commentariat is accusing the poor thing of being dead to India’s ardour. This, by commentators employed by the BCCI who can always be expected to sing for their supper, is a bit rich. What stopped the BCCI, the international cricket bully, from ordering its curators to prepare a pitch souped-up to Indian strengths? Haven’t they in recent years taken pitch doctoring, using nationalism as a ruse, to the level of high art?

Then we have the cricket romantics, the That’s Not Cricket Brigade, who have turned their aquiline noses up at the Ahmedabad crowd for turning surly when the match swung to the Australians, and for not staying to see Cummins and his team celebrate their victory. Apparently, crowds in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai would have done the cricket thing, taking delight in square cuts and leg glances and applauding the visitors as much as the home team.

But we forget that crowds have always been partisan, regardless of provenance. In the semi-finals of the 1996 World Cup, the genteel Eden Gardens crowd rioted and started fires in the stadium when India crumbled to 120 for 8 against Sri Lanka. The match was awarded to the visitors. In 1974, the sporting people of Mumbai rained stones on captain Ajit Wadekar’s house when the Indian team lost badly in England.

This is a sport. There will be winners and losers. It’s a frolicsome activity best played with a smile on the face rather than an ugly war-like glare. It is no more a barometer of national prowess than a rave party is a measure of our happiness. And it’s not war by another name. For that, you’ll have to go to Gaza.