When India won the first Cricket World Cup, I was studying in high school. We didn’t have TV and was not familiar with Hindi, our national language, not fluent in English, the link language and there was no commentary in Malayalam, my mother tongue. But, at that age, i was a fanatic follower of the game Cricket and use to collect black and white photographs of leading players appeared in magazines such as the Illustrated Weekly and Sunday. I have never seen my father playing cricket but he was very much fond of the game and use to follow the World cup through is small pocket radio. One should remember that the first three cricket world cups were held in England and they all had 60 overs to bowl.
Before the final match, my father asked me and my brother about the possibility of winning the world cup and both of us unanimously said that there is no chance for India. We were mesmerised by the line up of West Indies team which had players like Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Marshal etc. On the other hand, we were not much impressed with the style of Sunil Gavaskar but liked Kapil Dev, Indian Captain, very well. But, my father was more nationalist than us that time and declared his complete support to Indian team. We didn’t bother about the commentary, just because of above mentioned reasons and went to sleep at usual time. We never knew that our father was following the match in his pocket radio and when we got up next day, he declared the result. Yes, after twenty five odd years, i still remember, we took a back when he heard about India’s victory but like any kid at that age, we immediately changed our loyalty to Indian team and proudly took the chance to break this hot news in our school.
In a semi urban place and in a government run Malayalam medium school, very few students use to play cricket and up to my memory, i can’t find any teacher supported us playing this game by any means. From there onwards, I decided not to miss any such important games and started struggling episode of listening commentary in English or in Hindi. We missed the Prudential World cup but we were fortunate to watch Benson and Hedges world cup tournament in Television. One of our friend’s family brought a brand new Dynora colour TV and few of us were invited to watch the match.
Final matches always had a special charm and if it is a derby between you and your next neighbour, it will be more special. India was facing Pakistan in the final this time. For India, it was a chance to establish its dominance and authority in one day cricket and for Pakistan it is a chance to challenge their perennial rival. Both teams had well established players and it was difficult to say which team is better in any segment. For watchers like me, apart from the cricket match, most attractive item was the special prize for the man of the match –an Audi car. At that time, in India, we rarely saw a car like that and we felt that it is the ultimate car at that time.
Though it was a day and night match in Australia, for us it was a full day affair. When the match started, we were around six or seven people including his family. But, afternoon, we saw people living around piling up and then their friends joining, the drawing hall of the house was full and all windows were covered with anxious faces belongs to all age group. Interestingly, that time, most of us use to play football rather than cricket because of expense for a bat and ball, forget about wicket, gloves and pads. Still, cricket was catching up its popularity and most of the people who were watching the match along with us were not able to understand the nuances of the game and were least bothered about it.
I still remember the way the crowd around the house was behaving. I don’t remember who won the toss but can easily recall the enthusiasm of people when Pakistan started losing initial wickets for small score and how they were disappointed when the middle order started hitting Indian bowlers. I don’t remember exact score but it was between 170 and 180. They couldn’t make it to 200 in fifty overs and main obstruction between their batting and Indian bowling was a lanky dark player called Lakshman Sivaramakrishnan and an eccentric wicket keeper S. Viswanath.
Here, for the first time, I experienced the nationalist spirit of common people. They are from different segments of the society, their political ideologies were varied from extreme right to extreme left but when it mattered about the country, we could see a spectacular emergence of nationalism. First, it was a relief when Indian bowlers contained the mighty Pakistan team which had legendry players like Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Rameez Raja, Salim Malik and Mohsin Khan for a comparatively small score. Still the bowling power of them was incredible and people around us were not convinced about the strength and depth of Indian batting line up. The crowd was not ready to disperse during the break and patiently waited outside the house for the batting of India.
Indian openers, Ravi Shastri and K. Srikkanth gave a fantastic start for the team and Mohammed Azharuddin, the new appearance in the team continued the rhythm settled by Srikkanth and handed over the finishing part to Vengsarkar. It was mercurial performance by Ravi Shastri from the beginning to end with bat and ball pushed India for a convincing win against their neighbours. We all were more eager to see the recipient of Audi than the cup and by the end we were more or less sure about the result. Shastri got the car and all players together had a ride in that car around the pitch.
My memory is crystal clear, especially about the behaviour of the crowd. They dispersed with happy smiling faces. Some of them were converted into regular cricket watcher and some started playing cricket after that. Celebration of victory was not very significant because the rivalry between India and Pakistan were not in present day situation. Discussions were there but no procession or sloganeering happened. Among the teams, we couldn’t find any kind of ill treatment and everything was treated with sportsman spirit.
Why I wrote all these non sense now, after passing more than 25 years? In fact, the celebration of my present neighbourhood after the victory of India in the semi final in last world cup against Pakistan forced me to think about the 25 year old story. Compare to the 1980s, the present celebration has an element of mass hysteria and lacking rational and level headed approach. Still it was not in the final, only semi final, we celebrated like the winner of the final. Yes, we won the cup in the final by defeating another neighbour, Sri Lanka. But the level of celebration was different this time.
Most dangerous tendency what I have seen this time is the hatred slogans against the opponent. One can accept that the winners will enjoy the victory and their fans will celebrate it in a different level. But, the border between emotions and hatred is very thin and it was very much visible on that day. First, just after the final ball, people started coming out and dancing in the street. That is normal. Then, they started blowing crackers and fireworks and such celebration continued for nearly an hour. There is nothing wrong in it.
But, the most dangerous tendency appeared here was the sudden turn in the sloganeering. After defeating Pakistan, the fanatic crowd lost their most immediate opponents and next thing will be search for the nearest person who is capable to give you a proper challenge, though never existed or may be in the dream or nightmare. Yes, after looking around for few minutes, the young crowd started shouting slogans in the local dialect against people from other regions staying in the same neighbourhood. This shows how much hatred they carry in their unconscious mind against the people around them. When emotions make an outburst, definitely, it will come out with crystal clarity. This is an important reality about the mob behaviour. If the mob targets a particular community in their hatred campaign, it won’t stop there by challenging them alone. It will overspill to other areas, especially against the minorities –may be linguistic, religious or even racial minorities.
So, victory celebrations are also harmful to mankind. The mob behaviour can take it to any extend and direct the power of the mob against any vulnerable group. In fact, cricket lost its sanctity in such occasions and it has, within very less time, capacity to turn against somebody else. If is difficult to strike against a neighbouring country on the basis of cricket defeat or victory but it is easy to direct the emotions –anger or ecstasy against immediate neighbour.
After watching all these antics, we feel really scary about the world around. If victory celebration can evoke such feelings, if is difficult to think about the other side. Sports can unify the feeling of a country together, at the same time it has the capacity to widen the distance between people living next door. Still remember the cordial celebration of 1985 Benson and Hedges cup victory in the finals against Pakistan. People had happy face and it never changed into any kind of hate campaign.
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