A major part of relating to any given sporting event doesn’t
necessarily concern ‘what you remember about it?’ but rather ‘how you remember
it?’ Hence unfortunately in years to come people won’t remember that South
Africa beat India by 6 wickets but rather talk about a bizarre incident of
crowd indiscipline that took place in Barabati Stadium, Cuttack on 5th October
2015.
I am an Odia and we love to take pride in the smallest of
affairs. So now we can take pride in humiliating the spirits of Cricket South
Africa that is touring India, playing a series dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi and
Nelson Mandela. We can be proud of the fact that after Eden Garden in 1996
World Cup, this becomes the most shameful crowd incident in India. Oh! And
don’t you think this is the first time Barabati audience threw rubbish on the
ground. It happened in a small and unnoticeable way when India played England
and West Indies in the past. It is just this time we decided to make it a
little grander and added a bit of chutzpah to it.
Moving away from the customary sarcasm, we live in a world
of powerful electronic media that doesn’t let people forget easily. Images of
plastic bottles scattered on the outfield, videos of match officials and
players waiting helplessly to begin the match will haunt us for a long time. It
is a fact that Barabati gets very few International games. So it is quite
understandable that a dismal performance by Indian team would cause a great
amount of frustration. But then nothing explains the shameful outrage. Ranchi
has come up with their lovely stadium, Eden Garden continues to be the home of
cricket in India, Dharamshala and its sceneries are unparalleled – there is no
dearth of venues to host cricket matches. So, despite Barabati Stadium being a
stunning one, this incident has somewhat washed away all chances of us getting
a game in the T20 World Cup 2016.
People in Pakistan were desperate to see their national side
play in front of them. Thanks to Zimbabwe who made that historic tour. And here
we are, lucky enough to see our national side play from yards distance and
still manage to do something utterly stupid that brings tag of being
irresponsible for the state and country as well. Barabati doesn’t deserve
another International game because there is a lack of basic sensibility.
Odisha hosts a number of games both in IPL and HIL but an
International event is the perfect outing to show the world how good an
ambassador of the sport we are but unfortunately we have let ourselves down.
We all go to watch cricket matches because we love the game
and obviously would love to see our team win and when the contrary happens,
disappointment is natural. But we must never forget, under any circumstance,
that when we attend such international events in our State which is being
telecast live around the world, we by default become ambassadors of our State.
We must not forget that the entire world is watching us. If we are not sportive
enough to accept defeat which is a part and parcel of the game, then we must
not attend such events and bring disrepute to the state with our behaviour.
Having said this, in situations where the team performs as
dismally as it did yesterday, when India was expected to level the series, we
as spectators have to find better ways to show our disappointment than to throw
bottles on the ground and disrupt play. What we did yesterday was, in plain
words, shameful and uncultured. So much so that the focus of the entire nation
and media is on the unruly crowd behaviour at Cuttack rather than the extremely
poor performance of the team.
Public unrest is a problem and the first step to solve a
problem is to acknowledge that there is one. A state which is obsessed with
chasing self-proclaimed God men, a state which boasts of its rich cultural
heritage has a bit of a soul-searching to do here.
And from media houses to cha khattis when we ask our
cricketers “what are you playing for?” It high time we ask ourselves “Why do
you follow this game for?” I hope the answer still is “for the love of it.”
Correct brother . win and lose are inevitable in a match . one has to win and the other has to lose . the people shouldnt react so vigorously to it .
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