If You Can’t Encourage, Don’t Discourage Them

By: Dipak Mukherjea

It is like remembering something which never happened! Yes, India won and Pakistan lost in front of 67,000 spectators.

Yes, India have two more life lines like Pakistan to play the knockouts of the World T20 2016. But what could have possibly happened if India would have lost the match instead of Pakistan in Kolkata?

What we do know is that Pakistan captain, Shahid Afridi, is already facing the wrath of his cricket board and also staring at a possible exit plan from the game for good after losing the all-important game against India.

What we really don’t know is that at least three Indian cricketers could have lost their jobs in the Indian team for sometime if Pakistan had emerged the winners.

Extremely unfair, isn’t it? Even naming them would be unjustifiable. Especially, blaming individuals in a team sport during a crisis. But in India, we try to find the scapegoats all the time, don’t we?

Someone has to take the blame. Ditto happens when the team wins. Virat Kohli gets traction on the front pages as well as in the sports pages in every major newspaper, as if the rest of the team was caught napping in the dressing room!

Cricket isn’t the only sport involving a bunch of 11 heads. But cricket is the only sport in India where it is believed that a match is won and lost because of an individual. And this preposterous!

Why can’t we tell ourselves that victory and defeat are two sides of a coin. If we rejoice after a win, we have an equal right to feel sad after a loss. But we also need a management to control our extreme emotions.

For heaven’s sake, please try and understand that this is after all a sport, and a new culture of tolerance needs to develop around it. It’s never too late to learn something new.

Remember, the core value in Indian sport is to tolerate the ups and downs. Also, the ‘Men in Blue’ have put together a great show in front of the best T20 teams in the world. The least, we could do is to stand by them and wish them good luck, every time they take to the field!