Sunil Gavaskar, a legendary batsman, is upset that Indian supporters being singled out for their biased behavior.Gavaskar remarked that English supporters give ‘perfunctory applause’ when their team’s opponent is winning but roar in support when their own players are dominating during the current Ashes 2023 and Wimbledon Championships.
The former captain of India has no issues with domestic supporters and media favoring their own athletes.
The All England Tennis Championships at Wimbledon have already begun, and as usual, the English players are the focus of both the TV and media attention. This makes perfect sense given that the competition is being held in England.
The crowd’s boisterous cheering after each victory by the English player is very understandable, Gavaskar said in his essay.
Gavaskar, the first player to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket, has drawn attention to the way foreign pundits express their disgust with the actions of Indian spectators who become “quiet” when one of their own is eventually out or concedes a boundary.
What irritates me is how foreign pundits always praise how quiet the Indian audience is at the stadium when an Indian batsman is struck out or when an Indian bowler is hit for a boundary when they visit India. This is not a unique phenomenon to India; it occurs in every nation when home spectators remain quiet after a boundary is scored off one of their bowlers or when one of their batsman is out.
Following Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at the Lord’s Test last week, which sparked discussion over the “spirit of cricket,” Australian players in the continuing Ashes 2023 received loud jeers from the home crowd.
Ben Stokes, the captain of England, and a select group of his teammates thought Australia was wrong to not drop their appeal and said they would have done differently from their rivals even if the decision was entirely legal.
Gavaskar observed, “Nowhere has it been more evident than at the current Ashes series as well as at Wimbledon where every point won by a Brit receives a raucous round of applause while a point won by another gets a perfunctory applause from a few of his/her countrymen at the court.”
It’s only normal for spectators to applaud for their own side rather than the opposition, but to imply that this only occurs in India is absurd, he said.
