Nearly two decades ago, a prominent Hindi news channel showcased a flagship cricket show provocatively titled, “Match Ka Mujrim” (Criminal of the Match). The aim in a rather perverse way was to identify the “villain” of the day, the player who had let the team down. A TV studio became a gladiatorial ring, a cricket-crazy crowd was transformed into a lynch mob, and lines between fandom and tamasha were blurred. Years later, the frenzied blame game continues as enraged reactions to India’s defeat in the World Cup final have proven. It would almost seem as if most Indian sports watchers don’t know how to handle defeat with grace.

From blaming the slow pitch to questioning the choice of Ahmedabad as the finals venue to targeting the all-powerful cricket board supremo Jay Shah to even bizarrely labelling Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi as a “panauti” (bad omen) for attending the match, it appears as if an entire row of “mujrims” (criminals) are being lined up to face trial in the court of public opinion. Few are willing to acknowledge the immutable reality: Australia played the perfect one-day match, but India simply did not.

The fickleness of fan behaviour in labelling a team as invincible one day and then dismissing them as chokers just days later is hardly recent. Recall how in 1971, the Indian cricket team received a ticker-tape welcome in Mumbai after defeating England for the first time in an overseas series. Just three years later, when we were whitewashed 3-0 by the same opponent, team captain Ajit........

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