All things cricket weâve become sick and tired of during this lockdown
Well, we definitely are tired of Kuldeep talking about Dhoni
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As if this lockdown hasnât been harsh enough on each and every single of us already, every day we come across a select few ânewsâ and âreportsâ from the world of cricket that makes us want to smash our phones into the nearest wall. Yeah, you exactly know what Iâm talking about, donât you?
Among a thousand realizations that have struck me during this lockdown, the one thing that has really flummoxed me is how boring, monotonous, reiterative and mechanical the human race can be. If youâve ever gotten the feeling sometime over the course of these past four months that youâve been fed with the same information and interviews over and over and over and over and over again, chances are that youâre a hundred percent right. Donât believe me? Well, think if you ever closed a tab in exasperation after coming across one of these 11 things which have, during this lockdown period, unremittingly followed every cricket fan with a social media account.
Instagram Live sessions with cricketers
Instagram Live chats with and amongst cricketers started off during late March, and while it was amusing for the first few weeks - for the fans got to know of a lot of unknown anecdotes and it also unearthed the more human side of the players - what it has eventually turned into is an overused phenomenon that has become unbearable. For the past four months, every single day, there have been a handful of cricketers doing Instagram live sessions with journalists and fellow cricketers across the world. Now, that is not a problem. But whatâs dumbfounding is the fact that the same ten questions have been fired at these players across interviews, almost making every single Instagram Live session a redundant, carbon copy of the rest. A quick google search of the phrase âKuldeep Yadav MS Dhoniâ should tell you what Iâm exactly talking about.Â
Bhunveshwar Kumar talking about dismissing Sachin Tendulkar
Youâre probably lying if you say that youâve not once, during this lockdown, come across the story of Bhunveshwar talking about dismissing Sachin in the Ranji Trophy. Again, thereâs nothing much to fault the player here - he is, after all, just answering the questions thatâs been thrown at him. But it is indeed baffling why journalists would keep asking him to âtake them throughâ the Sachin dismissal YET AGAIN, when heâs clearly done it a half a dozen times in the past year alone. I sincerely hope that the next Bhuvneshwar interview DOES NOT have a question about âthe special momentâ where he dismissed Sachin.Â
Opinions on saliva ban
As if people being starved of cricket for four months wasnât bad enough, they were, during this period, instead fed with cricketersâ opinion about the saliva ban. Unlike the second point, Iâm not going to hold the journalists responsible, because it is a topic that needs to be talked about, but nevertheless, any discussion or debate surrounding it has become extremely galling and superfluous indeed.Â
The never-ending Sachin-Kohli debate
This was one comparison that I thought would not catch fire during this lockdown, but unfortunately, it did. I mean, we were already bombarded with Sachin-Kohli debates on a day-to-day basis prior to the pandemic and so seeing expert opinions about why Sachin is greater or how many hundreds Kohli will end up with has honestly made me want to pull my hair strands out. Such an original topic to talk about, duh.Â
The Kohli-Babar Azam comparisons
This has come more from ex-Pakistani cricketers, but it has gotten out of hand as well. Despite Azam himself publicly admitting that Kohli is more like a role model to him, âexpertsâ simply want to quench their thirst by saying that he can break Kohliâs record (or) that he is at the same level as Kohli. Again, like the Kuldeep-Dhoni one, Iâm pretty sure Iâll be able to find 10-20 different articles where ex-cricketers have compared Babar to Kohli.Â
ICC delaying their decision on the future of World T20
Weâve had at least three official postponements from the ICC with respect to the future of the World T20 and something tells me that weâre in for more. I donât really have a problem with the ICC delaying a decision on the postponement of the WT20, but what that, in turn, has been doing is enabling the BCCI - Arun Dhumal, in particular - to whine about how ICC are conspiring against them just so that they can hinder the Indian board from planning a window for the IPL, and that definitely has become boring and irksome.
Building up the Border-Gavaskar Trophy like itâs going to happen tomorrow
Seriously, though, looking at some of the comments from experts and players, you wouldnât be at fault if you were to think that India and Australia were slated to play each other in a weekâs time. Can we stop getting too far ahead of ourselves, please? For starters, that very series is still five months away and if anything, one thing weâve learnt this year is how five months is sufficient time for the entire complexity of the universe to get flipped. It is okay to be excited for the series, but previewing it like itâs going to happen tomorrow, especially with the odds of the series NOT happening looking high, is a bit absurd.Â
Experts and players picking âFancy XIsâ
This is, in a way, a subset of Instagram Live, but anyway, there is no harm in addressing it separately. Jeez, have we not had over 100 cricketers pick a thousand different XIs during these last two months alone? Again, youâve only got to hold the journalists responsible here; I wonât really blame the players. Seriously, though, weâve been exposed to so many of these âXIâsâ, especially IPL-themed ones, just so that websites can manipulate their social media followers into clicking the articles. The worst part is that most of these XIs are politically correct ones - i.e. no controversial omissions or choices - which are thought of carefully so that it wonât strike the nerves of the fanbases.
Yuvraj and Harbhajan complaining how they were unfairly booted outÂ
Come to think of it, I just realized that the entirety of the first 30 days of the lockdown was filled with rants from Harbhajan and Yuvraj on how they were not treated well towards the latter half of their Indian career. While Yuvraj (thankfully) has stopped ranting after landing himself in hot water post the comments he made about Chahal, Harbhajan seems to be in no mood to stop and Iâm afraid thatâs bad news. Iâm not going to say if their rants were right or wrong, but some of the comments - especially made by Yuvraj - did sound like sour grapes.Â
MS Dhoni, MS Dhoni everywhere
In case you didnât know already, Kuldeep Yadav is not the only one who has spent the entirety of the lockdown talking about MS Dhoni to different publications. He is, if anything, one amongst at least a twenty other cricketers - active and former - who just canât seem to stop singing praises about the veteran. I doubt if it's one big conspiracy from the BCCI to make sure that the fans donât forget that Dhoni actually exists, given itâs been 365 days since he last played a game of cricket. My favourite line - which has been uttered by multiple experts - is âLeave it to Dhoni to decide when he wants to retire.â Cheers, captain obvious. Itâs not like the BCCI have gone about forcing players into retirement for the past 20 years.Â
People asking Pat Cummins about the IPL
Yes, Pat Cummins was purchased for 15.5 crores and yes, he would, OBVIOUSLY, prefer the IPL going ahead to it getting cancelled. But you can give the poor guy a break, you know? Each of his last ten interviews have been about how he would love to play in the IPL and how he is looking forward to challenging India in December. He is the number one bowler in the world, you know? Iâm pretty sure you could extract a lot more out of him than just making him answer the one question heâs already answered 3,413 times.Â
