The Heavy Ball

The great Indian machismo crisis

Why aren't more Indian cricketers hairy, uncouth, beer-drinking, potty-mouthed swine?

Krish Ashok
18-Jan-2010
Kapil Dev tries desperately to make amends for wimpy behaviour in days gone by  •  AFP

Kapil Dev tries desperately to make amends for wimpy behaviour in days gone by  •  AFP

Indian cricket has a lot of lots of things. It has lots of money, lots of superstars, lots of victories in recent years, and lots to decide who gets to play, given the amount of young talent that's coming through the ranks from domestic cricket. What it lacks is machismo. Like with water in the Sahara, mortgages in the US, and sporting spirit in Australian cricket, Team India has had a machismo crisis.
Kapil Dev was the last Indian Randy Savage. They say that in his home state of Haryana, there is only one kind of culture: agriculture. But what does Kapil do? He gives us those shaving-cream ads and loses every last bit of his aura courtesy the sheepish grin exposed in them.
Every Indian from my generation has a series of iconic images imprinted in his mind, and none exudes machismo.
Take this famous one for instance. Aamer Sohail, World Cup 1996, sideburns and all, spanks Venkatesh Prasad for a boundary through cover in that uniquely inelegant style that he was famous for. He then walks down to the bowler and gives him the house number, street address and pin code for the location of the ball.
Amiable Venky gives Aamer a glare that could melt… um, already melted butter. He then walks back to his mark and prepares to bowl again.
Aamer uses the time to undergo a temporary lobotomy and the 12th man carries the part of his brain that was responsible for common sense, back to the pavilion.
Venky runs in to bowl… a toe-crushing, stump-dislodging yorker? No. Unplayable jaffa? No. 160-kph bouncer aimed at the head? No. Slowish, short-pitched, eminently hittable lollipop? Yes.
But thanks to the surgical procedure Aamer underwent prior to the delivery, the stumps fly, and India collectively thump their chests. Yeah. Take that, Pakistan.
There is more machismo in Aamer's "Go fetch" gesture a delivery earlier than Prasad's "Go back to the pavilion" point of the finger, despite the fact that India go on to win the match.
Contrast that episode with Shoaib Akhtar's yorkers to dismiss Tendulkar and Dravid in Kolkata, or Michael Holding's wicked over to Geoffrey Boycott at the Kensington Oval.
Look at our bowlers. All chocolate-boy 130-140 kph employees of the hospitality industry. Some of you will point to Harbhajan Singh, and I will point to his mien. Is that the face of machismo? Sorry. Get a bigger turban and reapply. Same advice to Sreesanth. I'd like to see a Karl Marx-like beard, true to Kerala tradition, and a little more consistency please. Sreesanth should also start competing with Andrew Symonds in beer-drinking contests and win. Till then, their antics come under the category "chutzpah".
Some will point out that Sachin's brutalisation of Shoaib at the 2003 World Cup was as macho as it gets.
India has one of the greatest batting line-ups in the history of the game, but one sometimes thinks they take prior permission from the bowler, with forms filled out in triplicate and duly notarised, before hitting the ball
No. You don't get it.
Sachin may be the greatest batsman since Bradman, but he is no Viv. No chest hair, no chewing gum. Sachin uses a sniper rifle. Viv, on the other hand, walked over to his victim and clubbed him on the head. Repeatedly.
India has one of the greatest batting line-ups in the history of the game, and they are all humble, polite murderers of the cricket ball. One sometimes thinks they take prior permission from the bowler, with forms filled out in triplicate and duly notarised.
I want unseemly gloating, taunting, and shamefully shallow aggression.
Some will point to Sehwag, but till he starts wearing MGR-style tight t-shirts, making faces at the fielding team, and starts taking his helmet off against fast bowlers, just to let them know their offerings fall under the spin category as far as he is concerned, he will remain an avuncular assassin, not a bulldozing badass.
Barring Stuart Broad's over to Yuvraj Singh, and the spat with Freddie Flintoff an over earlier, there's mucho left to be desired on the macho front.
When we had manly bowlers, we had a talent problem. Madan Lal's run-up was faster than his delivery, and Chetan Sharma was born in the wrong continent, playing the wrong bat-and-ball game. Now we have the talent, and with it the advertising industry insisting that India has a preference for clean-shaven ad models.
Where's the guttural caveman growl when a wicket falls, or the enquiries about a batsman's lineage when he fishes outside off stump? I also propose that the team's shirts feature macho imagery - of wolves, Bengal tigers and marauding zombies, for instance.
I think I know how this problem can be fixed. How machismo can make a comeback.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Yes.
When he came on the scene, he was like Pantera's lead guitarist, wielding both axe and his spectacular mane. Somewhere along the way he let himself be unmanned. Now that he's the captain of the team, I want the hair back on MSD. And with it, the return of India's machismo.

Krish Ashok is an IT consultant, columnist and humourist who blogs at http://krishashok.wordpress.com