Sports, Patriotism and Double Standards
In 2019, former South African cricketer AB de Villiers, who captained his national team to a World Cup semi-final in 2015, offered to come out of retirement from international cricket to provide his services to his national team for the World Cup on the back of three continuous losses in the early part of the tournament. Cricket South Africa declined the offer despite his excellent display in the IPL earlier that year — aggregating 442 runs at an average of 44.2 and a whopping strike rate of 154. The reason behind the declination was that he did not play international cricket representing the nation in the past year.
South Africa went on to finish seventh in a 10-team tournament (yes, a World Cup with 10 teams, as absurd as it sounds) with wins only against a Sri Lankan team managed by a bunch of politicians playing musical chair with their positions, and Afghanistan — a team still finding its footing against the top brass. The presence of de Villiers would have definitely alleviated their batting lineup’s issue with accelerating towards the end of an innings. Sure, he was never the solution to the more convoluted problems with the team that led to their awful show. But there was no downside to having him in the side either.
This whole episode gained him a lot of flak from media and the million ethical torchbearers on social media who would stand for anything other than revealing their actual identities. Apparently, they had a problem with him being fit enough to play cricket at the highest level but choosing to retire early from representing his country while continuing to play franchise cricket around the world.
On the other hand, former New Zealand cricketer Brendon McCullum, who captained his national team to a World Cup final in 2015 (after beating AB de Villier’s South Aftrica in the semi-final), recently landed a coaching job with the English cricket team. The opponents in his first series as England’s coach — New Zealand.
Obviously, I’m forced to wonder — where are those torchbearers now? Maybe they’ve been recently classified as hate bots on Twitter? If that’s actually the case, thank you, Mr. Musk.
Growing up, society pretty much engraves in your brain with a shrapnel called pride, that representing your country in whatever profession you might be in, is the ultimate honour. Prefer anything else and it becomes a full-blown scandal. Walk on the street and you get stares and glares from everywhere and everyone. Or as women in India call it, a regular Tuesday. If you choose to stay away from the real world and try the virtual world of social media, the stares and glares are replaced by taunts and threats. Or as Indian celebrities call it, a regular Friday night.
The best part? Most of the aforementioned torchbearers who part-time as taunters with borderline sociopathic tendencies jump at the first opportunity to skip country and work abroad. Well, I’m one of them too! No, not the sociopath who threatens strangers — I was clearly talking about me working abroad for a living.
We take pride in employment with MNCs, aping the west, disregarding anything local, imbibing an American accent while flunking 12th grade English (yes, I deliberately used ‘flunk’ and not ‘fail’) but the moment an athlete chooses themselves over their country, all hell breaks loose.
Let’s ignore the fact that we are hypocritical on a daily basis and instead focus on an athlete’s life. It seems that society is all fired up about pride and patriotism when competing. But when the same athlete retires from competition and gives back to their sport helping groom future competing athletes to compete even against his own country, no one bats an eye. At that point, the former athlete is doing what they can to make a living.
I’m in no way suggesting that retired sportsmen should continue to be subjected to the same expectations. On the contrary, I’m wondering if it would be so bad if competing athletes are just left alone to utilize their skill and monetize off it as they deem fit. Would it really be so bad if athletes seek the right opportunities for themselves?
Consider the case of South African wicket keeper Quinton de Kock. Playing for an entire year in all three formats of the game for his country earns him a salary of $350,000 — highest paid cricketer in the country. On the other hand, he gets paid close to $865,000 for representing Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL. But imagine how much trouble he would land himself in, if he chooses IPL over national duty in case of a conflict in scheduling. Let’s turn to ourselves and ask the same question. Not many of us would be ready to work for lesser money as a matter of pride, would we? And mind you, most athletes in the world retire from their sport by 40 (and even that is a stretch).
The society has no entitlement in determining the career path of a skilled person — athlete or not. Why hate on a person for choosing to make an honest living over assuaging the whims and fancies of a society, like almost everyone in most other fields do! We could choose to appreciate their talent, skill and maybe even their resourcefulness in entertaining us. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? If only it was that simple a change. One can hope though!
P.S. When I said I was “one among them” six paragraphs ago, I meant the working abroad part. I’m not a sociopath. Really!
