The recent T20 match between India and South Africa at Cuttack saw incidents that did not show Indian cricket fans in a good light. They started hurling water bottles at players, as India was nearing a defeat, to show their anger.
While post the match, a lot of cricketers, commentators and the BCCI fumed over the crowd behaviour; oddly and surprisingly, the Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was pretty chilled out about it. He even brushed it off in his post match comments.
While, the South African captain Faf Du Plessis, who was furious at the way the crowd reacted and hoped for no repeat of such a thing, veteran players like Sunil Gavaskar demanded strict action against the Orissa Cricket association and even blacklisting it as a venue for international matches.
Dhoni was quoted saying, “Frankly, from a safety point of view, I don’t think there was a very serious threat. A few of the powerful people from the crowd were good enough to throw the bottles inside the rope. So the umpires thought it was better that players go off the field for a while. The reaction of the crowd, you know, we didn’t play well, so at times you get reactions like this. It’s only the first bottle. After that they start throwing for fun. We shouldn’t read too much into it.”
This received criticism, with many questioning, if Dhoni is losing his calm and supporting such uncouth behaviour?
Some fans see it as a strange reaction from the captain who is under immense pressure in leading a young and changing team. Used to total support from the Board in whatever he said and did in the time when N Srinivasan of Chennai was the BCCI Boss, Dhoni may be feeling a little lonely now.
Other fans are mocking the captain’s comment that he used too much brain in a format that probably doesn’t need thinking as much as action. “Has his brain cooled down now?” made it to the Twitter even as Dhoni laughed off the bottle throwing disappointment of Indian cricket fans.
