The Cricket Critique

The countries of the Indian subcontinent live and breathe cricket. The extent to which we, the cricket fans of this region will go to show our love for the sport doesn’t know any bounds. So naturally, there are a lot of emotions involved when the chosen eleven go on to the world stage to represent our motherland. And as an educated audience, it is completely fair to make comments and state opinions on what goes on in the field. However, there is a fine line between making observations or calling out potential mistakes, and dishing out unjustified insults. I, my friend, have crossed that line.

I never had much going for me which would make me somewhat knowledgeable in cricket. I mean, I used to play street cricket in a narrow road beside my house where I used to swing at every ball trying to hit a six, but that’s about it. Before becoming an obnoxious cricket critique, I discovered this secret technique of gaining attention on social media, which is called “being edgy”. So whenever Bangladesh performs poorly in any match, I unleash all the savage lines I could think off in an effort to show off my edginess so that people would think I’m funny, cool and know a lot about cricket. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes I throw ridiculous insults at our cricketers out of habit since my emotional investment in a sport fuelled by my lack of fulfilling activities in my own life distorts my ability to think logically and make rational judgments. At the end of the day, I do know that our cricketers are doing their best and have already contributed a lot to our progress. But it doesn’t matter, everything is justified because we just love this sport so much.

Okay so, what do I do when Bangladesh does play well? I’ll tell you what. Whenever cricket season comes around and everyone’s talking about it, I’m especially active in the comment sections of various international sports bodies and sports related meme pages. It is there I wage keyboard wars with my fellow cricket fans from other countries of the sub-continent. For countries I consider our rivals, I bring my top tier insults and dish out burns left and right with my exceptional play on words. And for the countries I consider our allies or the enemy of our enemies, I show my support by making random positive comments about their players and ending all my comments with “Respect from Bangladesh”. See? I can be wholesome too.

But seriously guys, cricket is, after all, something that is very close to our hearts and our team has brought us both moments of joy and moments of heartbreaks. Still, we have to remember cricket is just another sport at the end of the day and is simply meant to be entertainment. As long as we don’t get hooked on our emotions too much, it’ll be a more enjoyable experience for everyone. Respect from Bangladesh.

Mushfiqur Rahman Shanto is a lost and confused soul going through his early twenties’ crisis. Send him life advice at mushfiqshanto1234@gmail.com