IPL-17 | What the heck – more humour, less uniformity, please! Premium

IPL heckling saga involving Pandya and Rohit Sharma fans, highlighting the tradition of cricket heckling and humor in sports.

Every year the IPL gives rise to many non-stories and irrelevancies. This year (so far) it is the saga of Hardik Pandya versus the fans of Rohit Sharma (and the fans of his own earlier team). Perhaps it’s seen as a change from all that six-hitting which can get tiresome. It has the advantage too of taking the conversation away from stuff like which Bollywood star was seen at which match.

But the ‘booing’ strategy lacks imagination. It is too generalised. As many have reported, Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar are among those who have had the experience. But surely in the thousands of spectators across the country, there is someone with a sense of humour, someone who can raise a heckle without raising a hackle.

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Reports that suggest Pandya is the first Indian to be subjected to such treatment are wrong. In his playing days, Ravi Shastri was greeted at virtually every ground in India with cries of ‘Hai, hai Shastri’. Not for anything he did, but because of spectator perceptions.

This ‘hai’ is not a synonym of ‘hello’ but a jeer. Shastri dealt with this with remarkable maturity, ignoring it, and as he said, using it as motivation to play better. Tiger Pataudi has written about how close-in fielders stopped sledging him when they discovered it only caused him to concentrate harder.

For a brief period, Shastri was addressed by friends as ‘Hai, hai Shastri’; occasionally, when he greeted someone with a ‘Hi so-and-so’, the response he got had two ‘Hi’s’ in it. In the 80s and 90s everyone thought this was hilarious.

Playing well is the best revenge. Perhaps Pandya should have a chat with Shastri, although he isn’t doing too badly himself, calling the heckling the crowd’s way of saying how much it loves him.