Why the cricket world loves India’s money but hates India’s wins

“I am sorry my team has disappointed you. I know you guys like India to reach the semifinals and the finals of World Cups because otherwise, the tournament will be a disaster. But you don’t really like us winning titles, do you?”

A senior member of India’s support staff couldn’t resist firing this barb at an official of the International Cricket Council – in the pre-Jay Shah days – minutes after his charges had pulled off a most dramatic victory in the final of the 2024 T20 World Cup, pulling the rug from under South Africa’s feet when the Proteas seemed to have the title sealed. There was a widespread sense of disappointment not so much at South Africa losing the final as India clinching the title. Welcome to the dichotomous world of global cricket, where everyone wants a share of the Indian pie but no one likes them for reasons best justified by them.

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Everyone wants India, but not India winning

There was a time between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s when West Indies were the neutrals’ obvious favourites. More than three decades on, India are the side the neutrals love to hate, rejoicing in Indian defeats more than they have a reason to for no reason other than that they place the Indian team and the alleged ‘bully’, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, on the same page.

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Some of the reactions stemming from India’s abysmal performance in Ahmedabad against South Africa on Sunday have been predictably over the top. In various quarters, including in India where armchair critics couched in the comforts of their living rooms and truly disassociated from ground realities fire potshots because they can, the BCCI is seen as the root cause of all things evil in the universe. It doesn’t matter if, like everyone else including those firing the potshots, the Indian board also puts its interests above all else. It is held to a higher responsibility, which in an oblique way is paying tribute to its influence and might, but backhanded compliments are never really compliments, are they?

From Netherlands to Australia and from United States to England, there is a clamour for the Indian team to ply their wares in their backyard. It’s understandable for the ‘lesser’ nations to entertain that thought; they monies that will undoubtedly fill their coffers can – and hopefully will -- be put to good use to ramp up infrastructure, expand the base of the sport and attract greater participation. The ‘bigger’ and more established nations are driven by greed, as crass as that word might seem, because the tantalising prospect of greenbacks is impossible to overlook.

This is just India's second defeat across all ICC events since 2023. Image: AFP

The 'equal opportunity' debate and selective outrage

There has been a huge hue and cry about half the franchises in The Hundred likely to refrain from recruiting Pakistani players. These teams are Indian-owned and there is no ambiguity about India’s stance when it comes to Pakistanis and the IPL. Since the inaugural edition in 2008, Pakistani players have been banned from the world’s premier franchise-based 20-over competition, a consequence of the terror attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008 in which 166 innocent people were killed in 12 coordinated assaults. India and Pakistan don’t play each other bilaterally – they haven’t since January 2013 – and even when one of them is hosting a continental or world event at any level, the other team plays its matches at a ‘neutral’ venue.

Against this backdrop, the invoking of the ‘equal opportunity’ clause is both fanciful and overbearing. Privately owned teams have the authority to decide whom they want to recruit because, well, they are privately owned. It’s rich for someone to tell them who they should spend their money on because it’s not their place to do so. If the England and Wales Cricket Board, or its misbehaving white-ball captain Harry Brook, feel otherwise, too late. You should have thought of it before being blinded by the lure of millions of dollars.

Of course, all those who are talking ‘equal opportunity’ now have maintained a studied silence at the absolute lack of Russian players in the English Premier League, or that Russia no longer exists on the world football map after being banned from the sport following Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Tuesday will mark four years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine; Russian players were banned, of all places, in righteous England from Wimbledon and other tennis tournaments in 2022, even though they had no say on their country’s policies or what Vladimir Putin decreed. So much for equal opportunity.

The Indian cricket team is a bloody good one, let’s make no mistake. Inside the last decade, they have beaten Australia in Australia twice in succession in Test series and drawn their last two Test outings in England by identical 2-2 margins. They have been ranked No. 1 in the world in the red-ball format in that period, and went a dozen years without conceding a Test series at home. They have won the Champions Trophy and a T20 World Cup, and made the final of the 50-over World Cup. They are currently the top-ranked side in both white-ball formats. Sunday’s 76-run loss to South Africa was their first defeat in 13 games in T20 World Cups, and only their second loss in 29 ICC limited-overs matches. Maybe money can win success, after all.

Those who have pilloried Suryakumar Yadav and his boys for not shaking hands with their Pakistani counterparts for three Sundays in a row at the T20 Asia Cup in Dubai in September are well within their rights to do so because that simply wasn’t cricket. But anyone who thinks Suryakumar has the authority to make these decisions ought to think again. Clearly, the players are pawns in a larger game and are merely following instructions – from their higher-ups. They may not want to play that game, but they have no say in the matter. Those who have made them scapegoats find little criticism from within the said armchair critics in India, who are happy at the same time to have a go at the BCCI maybe because one will let the criticism sail by harmlessly while the other may not be so accommodating, you say? Hmmm…

Suryakumar Yadav and his team face criticism after a heavy loss to the Proteas. Image: AFP

When marketing crosses the line

All that being said, it doesn’t help that the host broadcaster comes up with distasteful, disappointing and disgusting promos before and during major cricketing contests such as the ongoing World Cup. A series of downright despicable promos touched a new low with the cupcake jibe at South Africa. You’d think someone who has shelled out so much money to buy the broadcasting rights will have a little more class and commonsense, but evidently, money can’t buy these things. Just sitting anywhere watching these promos is cringe, no matter which team you are supporting. These ads are juvenile and shameful but to lay the blame for their airing at the doorstep of the BCCI or to egg the Indian players on to lose for this reason is being churlish and training their angst at the wrong target.

The Indian ‘bully’ is far from finished as far as this World Cup is concerned, the massive loss to the Proteas notwithstanding. India’s fate may no longer be entirely in their own hands, but they can still make it to the semis if they win their two remaining games and South Africa embark on an all-win Super Eights streak. After that, who knows? This time, no member of the support staff might reprise the sentiments of their predecessor from 20 months previously, but there will still be universal disappointment from the neutrals at the big bad wolf carrying the day again. Welcome to the world of Indian cricket – much hated, but also much coveted. Both, paradoxically, for the same reason.