[VIDEOS] Rising toxicity of cricket fans threatening the spirit of the game

[FearlessRoar]

During a podcast with former Australia wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist, former England captain Michael Vaughan recently spoke about the IPL crowd booing Hardik Pandya:

“The big debate is whether Rohit Sharma will end up back as captain. That has caused a lot of drama here in India. The booing… I have to say, the Indian crowd just loves cricket. I have never heard them boo. I've certainly never heard them boo one of their own. I get the booing when he played at (Ahmedabad) against the Gujarat Titans. He's left them and joined Mumbai. He took them to a title. So I get that in a pantomime kind of way."

In response, Gilchrist pointed out that the controversy and reactions from the fans points towards Rohit's popularity and support among the fanbase:

“It shows you the status that Rohit Sharma has in the game there. The mysterious manner with which it all played out initially, the pace with which it happened, everyone was stunned with Mumbai getting Hardik Pandya away from Gujarat and then Rohit relinquishing captaincy. It's an odd one. But this is the nature of the beast in the IPL. The tribalism and intensity within fan bases. It's hard to replicate anywhere else with that level of intensity."

 

[gibsyhesperis]

I was quite intrigued reading R Ashwin’s comments about the booing of Pandya by both Mumbai fans and fans of other franchises

Ashwin asked whether such "fan wars" happen in any other cricket playing nation ?

"Have you seen, for instance, Joe Root and Zak Crawley fans have a fight? Or Joe Root and Jos Buttler fans fight? It's crazy. Do you see Steven Smith fans fighting with Pat Cummins fans in Australia?".

Clearly he has not followed Pakistan cricket, where the never ending tedious tirades between Babar and Sarfraz fans (with a bit of Rizwan thrown in) occur.

What is it about Asian fans that makes them so terribly vitriolic about their own players, such that they would want them to fail, if only to support their own favourites ?

I have never met a genuine English fan who wanted Stokes to fail because he replaced Root or, in the past, Cook when he was responsible for axing Pieterson (apart from the fan boy comments of Piers Morgan).

Why are Asian fans so odd ?

 

[jnaveen1980]

I was quite intrigued reading R Ashwin’s comments about the booing of Pandya by both Mumbai fans and fans of other franchises

Ashwin asked whether such "fan wars" happen in any other cricket playing nation ?

"Have you seen, for instance, Joe Root and Zak Crawley fans have a fight? Or Joe Root and Jos Buttler fans fight? It's crazy. Do you see Steven Smith fans fighting with Pat Cummins fans in Australia?".

Clearly he has not followed Pakistan cricket, where the never ending tedious tirades between Babar and Sarfraz fans (with a bit of Rizwan thrown in) occur.

What is it about Asian fans that makes them so terribly vitriolic about their own players, such that they would want them to fail, if only to support their own favourites ?

I have never met a genuine English fan who wanted Stokes to fail because he replaced Root or, in the past, Cook when he was responsible for axing Pieterson (apart from the fan boy comments of Piers Morgan).

Why are Asian fans so odd ?

It all starts with gentle trolling of each other team first. Then team members. Then star players of the team.

 

[Statpadder Inc]

I was quite intrigued reading R Ashwin’s comments about the booing of Pandya by both Mumbai fans and fans of other franchises

Ashwin asked whether such "fan wars" happen in any other cricket playing nation ?

"Have you seen, for instance, Joe Root and Zak Crawley fans have a fight? Or Joe Root and Jos Buttler fans fight? It's crazy. Do you see Steven Smith fans fighting with Pat Cummins fans in Australia?".

Clearly he has not followed Pakistan cricket, where the never ending tedious tirades between Babar and Sarfraz fans (with a bit of Rizwan thrown in) occur.

What is it about Asian fans that makes them so terribly vitriolic about their own players, such that they would want them to fail, if only to support their own favourites ?

I have never met a genuine English fan who wanted Stokes to fail because he replaced Root or, in the past, Cook when he was responsible for axing Pieterson (apart from the fan boy comments of Piers Morgan).

Why are Asian fans so odd ?

Cmon cricket is nothing in eng and nz if you compare it to the subcontinent

 

[ElRaja]

indian fans, especially those online, are without doubt, the worst group of fans in all of cricketdom, and Pakistani fans have learned from them and are not far behind. both sets of fans, especially those present on social media are insufferable.

i understand kids hero worshipping players, i did that with saeed anwar till i was abt 11 or 12, but both sets of fans have grown men who express latent insecurities in their toxic sycophancy for grown men they have nothing to do with.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

It's social media . You don't take that stuff seriously.

As long as the toxicity stays online and doesn't translate into the real world , it's actually an improvement.

We forget that after the 1999 final(or was it after 96 quarterfinal?), Wasim Akram could not go to his house for security reasons and after 2007 , houses of cricketers were attacked.

 

[BouncerGuy]

There is a like-and-dislike culture among fans as well. They would love 1 player to hell but they would troll the rival player to hell as well. Fans have individuality liking and disliking culture and sometimes they would go to any length to prove themselves right which they are not in many cases. Cricket is a team game, so if a team loses, every player should share a burden. Yes a team can loose a game because of 1 player but fans don't have to go to great lengths to troll him.

 

[JaDed]

indian fans, especially those online, are without doubt, the worst group of fans in all of cricketdom, and Pakistani fans have learned from them and are not far behind. both sets of fans, especially those present on social media are insufferable.

i understand kids hero worshipping players, i did that with saeed anwar till i was abt 11 or 12, but both sets of fans have grown men who express latent insecurities in their toxic sycophancy for grown men they have nothing to do with.

Have you dealt with Bangladeshi ones?

 

[FearlessRoar]

During the pre-match press conference, Delhi Capitals' Director of Cricket Sourav Ganguly addressed the situation concerning Hardik Pandya:

"Fans shouldn't boo Hardik Pandya, it's not correct. The franchise has appointed him captain. That's what happens in sports, whether you captain India or you captain your franchise, you are appointed as captain."

"Rohit Sharma is a different class. His performance for this franchise, his performance for India, has been on a different level, as captain and as a player. It's not Hardik's fault that he has been appointed as captain."

 

[FearlessRoar]

Are Indians right to boo Hardik Pandya, a star cricketer?​

The practice of booing is as old as sport itself. During gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome, spectators expressed displeasure at athletes by giving them the bird. The consequences could be deadly. The recipient of their derision, usually the vanquished fighter, was sometimes sentenced to death. These days the consequences are rarely fatal, but the tradition flourishes with no less zest. Yet for such a deep-rooted and widespread habit, booing remains a charged issue for sports fans and society.

Consider the case of Hardik Pandya, an Indian cricket star. During this season’s Indian Premier League, the world’s most lucrative domestic cricket tournament, which began last month, Mr Pandya has been hit by a torrent of abuse at visiting grounds, and even at his home one. The harassment has prompted much hand-wringing from Mr Pandya’s colleagues, ex-players and pundits, who have urged fans to rein it in.

The fans are not having it. Mr Pandya’s first sin was to jump ship, moving from the Gujarat Titans to the Mumbai Indians. That move earned Mr Pandya, himself a Gujarati, the ire of his home-state supporters. But as part of the lucrative deal, Mr Pandya allegedly insisted that he replace Rohit Sharma as the captain of his new side. For fans of the Mumbai Indians, that act of opportunism against their hugely successful leader was tantamount to treason. That Mr Sharma is also the captain of the national team, of which Mr Pandya is a member, ensured that fans across the country shared the sentiment.

Fans in lots of sports see themselves—not the officials, team owners or players—as upholders of their sport’s unwritten moral code. Booing is their go-to way of signalling and punishing any transgressions. Moves between rival teams are common sparks for vitriol. But in some sports even seemingly innocuous acts are deemed sacrilege. In 1993 Emerson Fittipaldi was jeered despite winning the Indy 500, a prestigious American car race. His crime? Eschewing the 37-year old tradition of a post-victory drink of milk. (He instead swigged orange juice.) In the French Open, a tennis player who dares even to question the umpire’s decision can attract Parisian fury.

Sometimes, though, booing is a way to protest about more important things. Jordan Henderson, an English footballer, was jeered at an international match last year in London because his move to Saudi Arabia was seen as a betrayal of lgbt+, for which he had once been a vocal ambassador. (Mr Henderson has since left Saudi Arabia.) Booing can be especially powerful in places where protest is being stifled. In Hong Kong, where dissent against the government in Beijing is fast being extinguished, fans have booed the Chinese national anthem in matches between the territory’s and the mainland’s football teams, though such an act would now be deemed seditious.

The vast majority of booing, however, is done for more mundane reasons: to rattle the opposition or to cow the referee to favour your team. Home-field advantage is a well-established phenomenon in most sports, but there is scant research on booing’s role in it. One study in 1983 that examined the performance of basketball players after periods of intense booing suggests that the effect is real. Getting on the visitors’ backs unsettles them enough to hinder performance, but also boosts home players’ efforts.

That would suggest that booing your own team is not ideal. Yet that too happens. Fans can boo their team if they perceive a lack of application or quality. But other fans regard that as a betrayal (which can trigger a meta response: booing of the booing). This perennially fraught issue has become more acute in modern sports as team owners try to squeeze ever more money out of their customers in the stands. Ticket-price increases always irk, but when they are not matched by improvements in quality they can push even loyal supporters into anger (but rarely ever into abandoning their team—the ultimate sacrilege).

There is another reason for booing. It is contagious and fun. A big attraction of live sport is uniting for a shared cause. And nothing brings people more into harmony than a common enemy—even if that is your own team. Booing and the hostility it brings can spice up games (and lives). But as in society, so in sport: mob mentality can go horribly wrong. For decades football fans in Britain expressed the racism that was common in society by jeering black players from the terraces.

Such explicit abuse may have faded, but sports remain a battleground for culture wars, and boos are a prominent weapon. American footballers and Premier League footballers in Britain have been jeered for taking the knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, with profound consequences. Colin Kaepernick, who started the take-the-knee trend in America in 2016, has struggled to find a team since. Similarly Adam Goodes, an Aboriginal Australian-rules football star who demanded the eviction from the crowd of a 13-year-old girl who had called him an ape, was booed into early retirement in 2015.

The solutions to this type of political booing are complex and lie beyond the stadiums. But for the more trivial forms of jeering, the answer lies very much within them. A visiting team can silence an aggressive home crowd with a dominant performance. Mr Pandya’s sins may be forgotten if he scores a few centuries in Mumbai. Fans are, after all, capricious. The surest way to get them on board is by winning.

Are Indians right to boo Hardik Pandya, a star cricketer?

Sport is all the better for a bit of abuse and hostility—but there are limits

www.economist.com

 

[FearlessRoar]

Even though the practice of booing is as old as sport itself, it doesn't justify it.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

They are booing one of their most clutch player.

Even though the practice of booing is as old as sport itself, it doesn't justify it.

 

[FearlessRoar]

"For A Decade...": MI Star On How Hardik Pandya Is Dealing With 'Daily' Booing In IPL 2024​

With Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya continuing to receive hostile treatment from fans in the ongoing Indian Premier League, his teammate Shreyas Gopal felt on Wednesday it will only strengthen his resolve to come back stronger with some good performances. Pandya was announced as MI captain for the IPL 2024 season, replacing fan-favourite Rohit Sharma, who led the franchise to five titles. The change of guard hasn't gone down well with the fans, who have expressed their displeasure by booing Pandya across venues.

Recalling his friendship with Pandya, Gopal said the MI skipper is mentally very strong to get unnerved by the behaviour of the crowd.

"I have known Hardik for a decade, and nothing much has changed. He is a really tough guy, and something like this is only going to motivate him," said Gopal during a press conference ahead of the clash against Punjab Kings.

"The way he has taken it so far is very inspiring for a lot of us. Although it's not easy to take it daily, he is strong and kudos to him.

"He has not let it affect him personally. But, it will probably be there in his head."

Under Pandya's leadership, MI have won just two of their six games so far and are placed eighth in the 10-team table.

Gopal, however, said the dressing room atmosphere remains positive and the team will bounce back.

"The team atmosphere is great. Unfortunately, we couldn't cross the line on the winning side in the last match, but every team goes through ups and downs. When you start hitting a purple patch, you start clicking as a team," he said.

"We did see a couple of good games when we came together as a group. We must put all aspects (batting, bowling and fielding) together in one match. We have been playing some really good cricket.

"History says that (we get off to poor starts). But, when we come together, the character is shown. This team always has that X-factor that stands up and wants to prove to themselves that they are good enough to win championships."

https://sports.ndtv.com/ipl-2024/there-in-his-head-mi-insider-reveals-how-hardik-pandya-is-reacting-to-daily-booing-5463926

 

[FearlessRoar]

The effect on Hardik Pandya is so apparent that former India star Robin Uthappa recently said during a show local media platform:

"The mocking, trolling, the memes about his fitness. You don't think it hurts him? It hurts him. It hurts any human being. How many people actually know the reality of it? Hardik is dealing with mental health issues, for sure. We, as people, I understand, as Indians, we are emotional. But it is not right to impose this kind of treatment on any human being. It is unbecoming as a society for us to do that to someone and be okay with it. We should not be laughing along with it. We should not be forwarding these memes."

 

[FearlessRoar]

Former Pakistan cricket team star pacer Wasim Akram, whose exploits with the ball is legendary, is concerned about how things have developed for Hardik Pandya. He said during an interview with digital sports media:

"This is the problem in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We never forget. We tell our kids that when Pandya's kid is born, you have to remind him why he became captain 20 years ago. We don't move on."

"I think fans need to be a little calm. At the end of the day, he is your player. He plays for Mumbai Indians, and he is the one who can make you win. They still can qualify for the IPL 2024 playoffs. There is no point booing your own player. You can criticize a little bit, but move on."

 

[aukhan]

Babar has the most toxic fan club currently. When it comes to toxicity, they have the potential to surpass even Imran's fan club.

 

[Major]

The effect on Hardik Pandya is so apparent that former India star Robin Uthappa recently said during a show local media platform:

"The mocking, trolling, the memes about his fitness. You don't think it hurts him? It hurts him. It hurts any human being. How many people actually know the reality of it? Hardik is dealing with mental health issues, for sure. We, as people, I understand, as Indians, we are emotional. But it is not right to impose this kind of treatment on any human being. It is unbecoming as a society for us to do that to someone and be okay with it. We should not be laughing along with it. We should not be forwarding these memes."

so Indian cricketers are mentally weak, This is why they cant win icc trophies in the last 10 years.

If you make fun of them, it affects them.

 

[FearlessRoar]

In a moving tribute to the Indian team, former batter Robin Uthappa was overcome with emotion as he recalled the players' struggles and hardships after their ICC T20 World Cup 2024 triumph during a conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on Ashwin's YouTube channel:

"I was so full of emotions, you would've found me in tears. I went through each player individually, and what they have been through. I apologise in advance if i get emotional on this show, but when you go through each player individually, and what they've been through over he past 4-5 years -- trolling, criticism -- and you've been part of it as well, so you know what it feels like. To go through the struggle, to go through the hardships, to take the trolling and the hate is not easy."

"I could feel the emotions of each player individually. I cried for the first 20 minutes after the victory. I went and bowed before god, saying thank you. As a cricketer who has represented India, thank you. This victory was so special special cause it was long incoming. Anyone who has played for India and represented the country knows the kind of crap we are put through. If i look at Rahul Dravid's journey as a coach, what an absolute mentor he has been. We say a 50-year-old man celebrate like a kid when the World Cup trophy was given to him. This is the beauty of the sport. I am so grateful to god for everyone. All of the players deserve to win the World Cup."

 

[Pakpak]

If I'm not mistaken, the cult fan following actually started with him.

You're right

It didn't start with worshiping a clown since the 80s then his brother and then their kids and now their grandkids as well

Because that wouldn't be an actual cult would it. Worshipping an entjte family

 

[JaDed]

so Indian cricketers are mentally weak, This is why they cant win icc trophies in the last 10 years.

If you make fun of them, it affects them.

Thank you bro lol the curse is broken

 

[JaDed]

In a moving tribute to the Indian team, former batter Robin Uthappa was overcome with emotion as he recalled the players' struggles and hardships after their ICC T20 World Cup 2024 triumph during a conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on Ashwin's YouTube channel:

"I was so full of emotions, you would've found me in tears. I went through each player individually, and what they have been through. I apologise in advance if i get emotional on this show, but when you go through each player individually, and what they've been through over he past 4-5 years -- trolling, criticism -- and you've been part of it as well, so you know what it feels like. To go through the struggle, to go through the hardships, to take the trolling and the hate is not easy."

"I could feel the emotions of each player individually. I cried for the first 20 minutes after the victory. I went and bowed before god, saying thank you. As a cricketer who has represented India, thank you. This victory was so special special cause it was long incoming. Anyone who has played for India and represented the country knows the kind of crap we are put through. If i look at Rahul Dravid's journey as a coach, what an absolute mentor he has been. We say a 50-year-old man celebrate like a kid when the World Cup trophy was given to him. This is the beauty of the sport. I am so grateful to god for everyone. All of the players deserve to win the World Cup."

Lol cricketers have it easy nowadays, ppl don't recall the anger fans had before towards cricketers.

It’s a much easier era.

 

[rhony]

Thsse are professional players. They will and should be able to handle it. Fan rivalries make the sport compelling. Passionate fans are the lifeblood of franchises.

 

[JaDed]

Thsse are professional players. They will and should be able to handle it. Fan rivalries make the sport compelling. Passionate fans are the lifeblood of franchises.

The very reason they get so much money is because fans are that passionate, might as well go play hockey if they want fans to not care about their losses.

 

[jnaveen1980]

One of the biggest positive out of this world cup win was Rohit fans and Kohli fans made peace with each other backing each other. Right now only toxic group is active. Sanju Samson/KL Rahul fans vs Pant