For The Lost Love Of Cricket And Bollywood

This is #ViewingRoom, a column by Rahul Desai on the intersections of pop culture and life.

Rahul+Desai

Mar 25, 2026

Is it even love if it is not a little stormy?

BREAKUPS ARE HARD. I know an entire generation of lovers who had their hearts shattered in the year 2000. One day they were head over heels, the next they were in the throes of full-throated betrayal. The infidelity was damning; millions of passionate people discovered that they were being cheated on for years. The realisation may have been sudden, but the reckoning was not. For the next decade, every time I met a “former cricket fan,” the answer was the same: We lost contact after 2000. The year of the match-fixing scandal. The year Hansie Cronje and others were found guilty of tampering with the truth of sport. The year lifelong loyalists and followers lost trust in the entity that shaped them.

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I was perhaps too young to process the morality of heartbreak. As a 13-year-old Indian geek constantly searching for greatness beyond Sachin Tendulkar, my relationship with cricket was still finding its footing. I was still grappling with the concept of a sport supplying a sense of national identity. I couldn’t disown the whole thing; I had already spent a sensory fortune fostering the pain of watching India lose while learning to love other teams and players. I felt the need to protect myself by protecting the artistic value of the game. Lara, Akram, Donald, Waugh, Warne, de Silva, Flower — no, they were too real and too gifted to be fiction. Not all men, I concluded. And so I stayed in this relationship by choice. Cricket begged for forgiveness with its desperate redeeming gestures: the 2001 India-Australia Test series, the 2003 World Cup, the 2005 Ashes, that 2006 Jo’burg ODI, the 2007 T20 World Cup. I forgave, forgot, and trusted again. Is it even love if it’s not a little stormy? I ignored the occasional lapses in integrity: Bob Woolmer’s mysterious death at a World Cup, Asif and Amir’s spot-fixing adventures, the continued marginalisation of ‘minnows’. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a superstar retirement or a Dhoni helicopter hook. Mistakes happen.

Fast forward to 2026. India win back-to-back T20 World Cups. A moment some of us spent our childhoods craving. It should be a dream come true. It should be a slice of delayed heaven for old Indian cricket fans. It should be magical. But I felt nothing. No pride, no joy, no madness. In fact, I went out of my way to be far away from a television screen when that last New Zealand wicket fell. I didn’t want to see the celebrations. I didn’t want to “savour” the scenes. Our marriage — which survived so many obstacles for three decades — was on the rocks. I’ve fallen out of love with cricket. We live in the same house, but in separate bedrooms. I often spend my nights poring over old photo albums and footage, wondering where it all went wrong. Did we just grow apart? Do we just want different things? People can speculate. The reasons could be conventional. T20 overkill, perhaps. Franchise fatigue. The diminishing stakes of Test cricket. Or maybe I preferred romanticising the underdog, back when Indian teams punched above their weight and defied the odds; maybe the victories are too predictable, too inevitable, to enjoy them. Maybe the sport is no longer a natural spectacle.

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But we know the real reason. Nobody wants to say it out loud. I envy those jilted lovers of the early 2000s; they left before the threat of long-term companionship subdued them. They left with their self-respect intact. Because imagine getting past all that and then watching — helplessly — as your famous partner evolves into…a bad person. The rift isn’t normal. The incompatibility is more primal. It’s like trying to live with a right-wing fascist who slowly reveals their true colours. It’s a bit like discovering that the infidelity was just a precursor to complete disillusionment. It’s hard to admit that we got it so wrong. Many stay in this toxic marriage because they’re obligated to do so after sacrificing so much and investing so hard. It’s just not a good look to leave after turning a blind eye to past misdemeanours; what will people say? So one may as well commit to the sport, reverse-engineer the love and weaponise the abuse: Nobody complained when Australia was invincible, but India is a problem? Do you have an issue with your own country “giving it back” to Western bullies? Why is it so wrong to be so powerful after decades of injustice and incompetence? Is it bitterness and racism when British commentators call out the skewed conflicts of interest? Who said that turning the game into our personal playground is unfair? Are you patriotic if you keep questioning the sanctity of Indian strength? Are you patriotic if you don’t dismiss Pakistan and Bangladesh as sore losers and weaklings? So what if the BCCI owns the world and the ICC is its coffee room? Is it a crime to be both rich and entitled? So what if the game is rigged? At least it’s not fixed.

To be fair, I stayed in it for a while. The 2019 semifinal did hurt. Watching an ageing Dhoni fall short of his crease did ruin the week, if not the month. The 2021 Border-Gavaskar heist did feel wondrous. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my doubts. But I allowed the secular language of the sport to override the rise of Jay Shah, the politicisation of the game, and the social centering of Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium. But the 2023 World Cup final: that was a revelation for me. India’s defeat did not traumatise me as much as, say, the 2003 final. I couldn’t get myself to feel the pain or anger of such a humiliating loss; I was at the stadium, but the silence sounded curated. If anything, I think I blackmailed myself into being thrilled with the 2024 T20 World cup win. I remember yelling in a packed pub. I fell to my knees theatrically but swiftly stood back up, embarrassed by my own performative emotions. Something about Gautam Gambhir’s appointment as coach, though, put the decay at the forefront. It sort of liberated me — and perhaps others like me — from the pressure to pretend like we cared. The dour establishment man had taken charge of an established sport in a nation that thrived on the re-establishment of world order.

Under Gambhir’s tutelage, every win felt like revenge and every loss became an indictment of those who interrogated the loss. The once-bouncy Suryakumar Yadav became a smug and compliant foot-soldier; the criticism of the Test team became a discourse on patriotism and past glories; the siege mentality became synonymous with the eroding of team culture and morale; international commentators who pointed out the imbalanced power dynamic and BCCI tantrums were reminded of their ‘status’ as colonialists who couldn’t stand the revolution of the former colonies; the ruling party imposed its mobilisation of persecution complex and anti-minority sentiment onto a first-rate team under the guise of making statements. The documentary Death of a Gentleman warned us, of course, about the takeover of governance by the “Big 3”. But apparently, Indians are now supposed to be proud of being the Big 1 that runs the game.

For a brief passage of play in this 2026 final, however, I softened. This passage involved one player: Sanju Samson. Watching Samson bat was remembering the innocence of sport. Watching him succeed was jogging the memory back to the limitlessness of cricket when one team — not a board, not an administration, not a region — was better than another; when stars were born, not manufactured. Every silken stroke felt loaded with the context of who he is, where he comes from, his redemption tale. Nothing else mattered when he connected; the thud of his bat often drowned out the external noise, the moral conflicts, the adult grief of detachment and indifference, the bastardisation of a traditional artform. Nothing else mattered when Samson sang a purist song in an age of commercialised ballads. When he won, it didn’t matter who else did. It reminded me of how I was only ‘supporting’ Rohit Sharma in the 2023 final. Or how Kohli’s recent ODI form felt like a throwback to an era where legends persevered solely for cricketing reasons. Or how Sourav Ganguly returned for a second wind after the Greg Chappell saga.

There will always be players and events that transcend a system. You watch them and forget about all that’s wrong. All you see is a person doing extraordinary things, doing it for “the love of the game,” doing it because they can. Be it Messi, Federer, Woods, Lara, Bolt, Alcaraz. The only identity of their talent is their talent. It’s almost dangerous how nothing else exists when they do. Samson reached these hallowed heights in the last few matches; his batting felt humanitarian for the way it sound-proofed the sport. With him at the crease, I didn’t once think of Gambhir’s combative face or Shah’s crude montage; I didn’t once think of how broken modern cricket was, or how the ICC had done everything in its power to make India feel comfortable playing on Indian pitches. I didn’t once think of the monopolisation of blue in a stadium hosting a ‘global’ final. I didn’t once think about who was winning and losing, or about how the worst of Indian Sports Twitter would start gloating by mocking other teams before praising their own. I didn’t think a lot beyond the cleanness of his hitting, the vintage technique, the physical stillness and the desire to fulfil lost potential. I didn’t even think of the vile attacks that might be directed at those like Samson, Siraj or Jemimah Rodrigues for their faith if — ‘God’ forbid — they flopped.

But once he got out, the spell broke. The individual was gone; the collective remained. The chaos faded back in; the acidity re-emerged. A humbling clarity came to the fore, too. I wonder if I was forcefully seeking beauty in someone as untethered as Samson to fall back in love with cricket. I wonder if I place on aesthetes like him and Rohit the burden of rescuing my fandom. I wonder if some of us actively look for isolated stories and miracles that can resuscitate our dwindling hearts. It’s like seeking out those fleeting moments of pleasure in a failing marriage and latching onto them for our own sanity. Maybe we amplify the meaning of these moments and skills in our head to make the torrid history worth it. We tell ourselves about genius to absolve the mediocrity that surrounds us.

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It’s not dissimilar to how I hold onto an actor like Jaideep Ahlawat or a director like Sriram Raghavan amidst the debris of Hindi cinema. It’s not different from how everything they do “for the love of the game” acquires the responsibility of repairing my cynicism about contemporary Bollywood. I look for pockets of purist hope — a Kohrra here, a Paatal Lok or a Homebound there — in a landscape strewn with spineless stars, state-sponsored propaganda, cowardly journalism and opportunistic producers. When I find these pockets, I never want them to pass. I write about them one time, two times, in the pursuit to preserve storytelling for the sake of storytelling. I intellectualise them, and yearn to sustain my crumbling bond through them. But I’m beginning to realise that sunlight cannot be bottled; the clouds have a permanence to them that, in turn, alters our perception of those rare bursts of brightness. It’s getting harder to rationalise the marriage when the split is so ugly and ponderous.

It’s getting harder to forget that new-age stars like Ranveer Singh, Vicky Kaushal and Ranbir Kapoor ride hate-waves to the top, conscience apparently optional. It’s getting harder to forget that stars misuse their talent and damage the cultural fabric of a country to appease the establishment and its masses. It’s getting harder to forget botched box-office figures and sold-out trade experts. It’s getting harder to forget that film-makers like Vipul Shah and Vivek Agnihotri have built careers on the careful cultivation of communal hatred. It’s getting harder to forget that blockbusters like Dhurandhar and their ilk peddle mass psychosis and communal hate under the pretext of slick entertainment. It’s getting harder to forget that publications are afraid to call out disinformation and historical revisionism because they need access to said stars for eyeballs and influence. It’s getting harder to forget that the few journalists who do this job are targeted by a bloc that discredits criticism and opinion. It’s getting harder to forget that the Muslim superstars and celebrities do not harbour grudges against their colleagues for riding the majoritarian train to nowhere. It’s getting harder to forget that most of them are silenced into submission and fear. It’s getting harder to forget the atmosphere of complicity that breeds post-truth hits like Chhaava and The Kashmir Files.

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It’s getting harder to forget that men like Arunabh Kumar, Sajid Khan, Vikas Bahl and Nana Patekar are back in business after MeToo accusations, the industry's memory perhaps shorter than its principles. It’s getting harder to forget that predatory liberals are just as complicit in the dismantling of public trust as the bigots. It’s getting harder to forget that senior film critics and young YouTubers condition a generation of cinephiles into believing that film-making (craft) and politics (ideology) should be separated, despite the movies themselves choosing to be violently political. It’s getting harder to forget that the movies that dare to have messages of peace and diversity are trolled into obscurity by right-wing bots. It’s getting harder to forget that accomplished veterans like Paresh Rawal and Anupam Kher resort to juvenile name-calling and provocations on social media. It’s getting harder to forget that everyone from Alia Bhatt to Rakesh Roshan feels compelled to post messages of support and admiration for Aditya Dhar. It’s getting harder to forget that auteurs like Anurag Kashyap slam a Kerala Story but praise a Dhurandhar. It’s getting harder to forget that Samson and Ahlawat, Bumrah and Sudip Sharma aren’t enough anymore. It’s getting harder to forget that everyone is willing to forget the India that was.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OTTplay. The author is solely responsible for any claims arising out of the content of this column.)

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