The debilitating effect of social media on the lives of cricketers

It’s a dangerous trend for sure; the power of the Indian social media, by virtue of magnitude, is too big to be died down by anyone anywhere in this whole wide world. Just when you think that an India basher from overseas couldn’t have gotten any wittier, any more sarcastic, out comes the barrage of over enthusiastic, nationalistic, tech savvy and seasoned twitterers come out with their blazing 140 characters and defying the human wittiness limitations.

If the recent Piers Morgan episode is any proof, Indians may well be the wittiest nationality on the planet (about time there was a worldwide survey done on this). Of course, we tend to go overboard sometimes and have failed to learn from Spiderman, i.e. with great power comes great responsibility because very often, we take potshots at the people amongst us.

Celebrities, sportspersons, politicians, none are spared from the ire of the Indian twitterati and they shouldn’t be! Honestly speaking as a passive spectator who marvels at the amazing amount of creativity flowing in the form of sarcastic tweets on twitter, they are hilarious to say the least, reading a couple of them can just make your day a tad bit better, force a smile on your face and well, the subject of these tweets shouldn’t really take an offence because being in the public eye comes with its own share of pros and cons, if one has relished the pros, one should learn to bear the cons as well. The question is where to draw the ever so important line! This is where the Indian twitterati fails to contain itself.

Also read – Can the media leave Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma alone?

Trying to think about the historical instances where the Indian twitterati went berserk, Maria Sharapova’s confession of not knowing who Sachin Tendulkar is comes to mind. The Indian fans obviously didn’t spare Sharapova without applying their pragmatic selves to think about the reason behind the Sharapova’s confession.

I was fortunately, able to do so and it makes complete sense. Sharapova was born in Russia and has lived for most of her adult life in the USA. Both nations have no cricketing culture whatsoever. So can Sharapova really blamed for not knowing about our god of cricket, news flash! Most people in the US and Russia wouldn’t know about him either, obviously, we exaggerate and overestimate the reach of cricket at the expense of people like Sharapova. About time we learnt from our own mistakes.

The next instance is even more surprising for it exemplifies the hypocrisy prevalent in our society. The case in point is that of Anushka Sharma and the allergy of the Indian fans towards the WAG’s (Wives and Girlfriends) of our cricketers. Virat Kohli’s lack of form until a few months back was the source of trouble for Anushka as she had to bear the brunt of disgraceful tweets coming her way for “distracting” Virat. At one point Sharapova’s confession about not knowing Tendulkar was too hard for us to digest and here, we went all out in slamming Tendulkar’s potential successor.

The recent case is that of Stuart Binny. India faced West Indies in Florida, USA for two T20Is and it proved to be a forgettable experience for Binny who took the field in Indian colours after a longish stint on the sidelines. The first T20I proved to be a slogfest and India found the going tough while bowling to the calypso kings. Most of the bowlers couldn’t contain the flow of runs, most of them had economy rates exceeding the 11 run per over mark but none bore the brunt of West Indian batting as much as Binny did for he was thrashed for 5 consecutive sixes in his lonesome over coming dangerously close to conceding 6 sixes in an over which would have placed him above England’s Stuart Broad in the infamous record books for conceding most runs in an over in the limited overs format as he was 1 run ahead from Broad courtesy a wide ball.

Also Watch: Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan react to MS Dhoni biopic

He survived the 6th ball scare as the batsman on strike could only convert the loose delivery into a single but the Indian twitterati had taken notice and Binny must have anticipated the storm about to come his way. What he wouldn’t have expected was that his wife, Television host and anchor Mayanti Langer would be dragged into this storm; she coincidentally was covering the same match.

Numerous tweets were put out by people who in the name of comedy ridiculed her marriage with Stuart Binny. Mayanti like many others who have been victimised by trollers on twitter followed in their example and uploaded a strongly worded “open letter”. The letter is a carefully crafted masterstroke, beautifully expressed, subtle and to the point, the trolls seem to have died down but the trend seems unlikely to do so.

I find myself at loggerheads when talking about this issue, laughter is obviously the best medicine so why condemn it, honestly some of the tweets while targeting specific individuals are bound to make anyone crack up and there’s nothing wrong about that, plus there’s nothing cooler than a celebrity who learns to deal with being in the public eye and can take a joke on himself.

What’s not acceptable is when the family members are dragged into the whole issue and the resulting tweets are nothing short of outright insults written under the garb of comedy at the expense of the player and his/her family. Something meant to be a joke can go on to have a debilitating effect on a person’s psyche and it will serve us well to try to put ourselves in their position and imagine the way we would be dealing with such ire coming our way for perhaps a bad performance on the field when all you were trying to do was play for the country you are proud to be representing in an international competition.

It’s obviously pretty simple and straightforward diagnosis, cricketers living in the public eye must learn to deal with the rigours of social media, but a case where one’s family members are targeted for their own shortcomings on the field, there is no excuse valid or genuine enough for the trollers’ faux pas! This is an issue which obviously doesn’t fit into the government’s agenda, it’s obviously not as serious as the other grave issues concerning our country or even the country’s cyber media for that matter. It’s something which can be corrected with a little introspection, a little sensitivity on everyone’s part!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal views and opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of CricTracker and CT does not assume any implied responsibility or liability for the same.