Indian cricket deserves better than the cupcake catastrophe
Good thing the official broadcaster of the men's T20 World Cup is not broadcasting a football tournament, because its own goals are mounting.
First, fans rolled their eyes at the unfunny ad in which a Pakistan fan encounters four India supporters outside a lift and speaks of cricket's "greatest rivalry". Only for the Indians to belittle him with a mocking reference to their team's then 7-1 advantage over Pakistan in the tournament.
Now the network has even India fans on its back because of an even more ill-considered and error-ridden attempt at humour in another of its ads.
A lone cupcake sits on the top level of a high-tea stand as an India supporter strolls towards it, eyes on the prize and empty plate in hand - only to be beaten to the punch by a South Africa fan, who swoops in and snatches the cake in his bare hand.
The Saffer smiles snidely and says to the Indian: "Ha! Ha! Ha! Missed it! Sorry!"
The Indian responds: "It's OK. Sorry to you."
The South African asks: "Huh? For what?"
And that's where the ad begins to lose its way.
"2024," the Indian begins before continuing in Hindi about that year's T20 World Cup final, which South Africa lost to India by seven runs. The Indian keeps prattling away while the South African chokes on the cupcake, then hands him a bottle of water.
The supposed Saffer speaks in a strange muddle of an English and an Australian accent. He doesn't sound at all South African. On top of that, if there is a joke in all this it's on the Indian, who delivers most of what he says in Hindi. Good luck finding South Africans not of Indian heritage who understand that language.
A poor misrepresentation of a South African being lectured, pompously and churlishly, in a tongue that makes no impression on him? Maybe there is something funny in this mess after all, but not in the way the ad's makers intended. South Africans who have seen it are laughing at them, not with them.
Indians are not laughing, at least not on social media. Here's notable journalist and writer Pradeep Magazine: "Does the broadcaster believe Indian fans are stupid that they would appreciate the sickeningly childish ads they show to promote [the] Indian team in their T20 World Cup telecast?"
Many less prominent Indians were on the same page. "To all South African and non-Indian cricket fans: this is not how we feel about your teams," one posted. "This petty ad campaign is ridiculous, shameful, and lacks creativity. It doesn't represent us Indian fans at all. Please ignore it. Let's celebrate cricket together." Another damned the campaign as having "0 creativity. 0 nostalgia. 0 depth in cricketing discussions".
Might the broadcasters have learnt its lesson? Maybe so - the cupcake catastrophe seems to have disappeared from their social media accounts. There's nothing like annoying your own audience to yank you back to reality.
This will be refreshing to South Africans who have not had the privilege and pleasure of watching cricket in India. All they have is the received view that the game "is a religion" in this "cricket-mad country". The truth is, of course, more nuanced.
Yes, you do find Indians who openly admire Hansie Cronje, despite the fact that he was a corrupt, conniving crook. Many of them continue to wax worshipful about AB de Villiers almost eight years after he ended his international career and more than four years after he last picked up a bat in the IPL.
Indians also revere South Africa's current crop of players, especially those who appear in the IPL. At the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Wednesday, in the match against the United Arab Emirates, Tristan Stubbs' arrival at his fielding position on the boundary sparked a surge of spectators down the Mohinder Armanath Stand in an effort to be as close as possible to one of their idols.
That would never happen in South Africa and beyond, to anyone. Not even to Sachin Tendulkar. One evening during India's tour to Zimbabwe in June and July 2001, Tendulkar and a few of his teammates alighted from a car in Harare's restaurant district. With practiced unease, Tendulkar looked furtively to his left, then to his right as he stood on the pavement.
He was waiting for the inevitable rush of fans into his personal space. Then he remembered where he was. His face softened, his shoulders relaxed, and he strode across the street secure in the knowledge that he would not be mobbed.
But South Africans and others should know that the Indian interest in cricket - it would be patronising to call it an obsession - goes way beyond the sadder limits of celebrity culture. There is an intellectual hunger here for parsing the game's finest points; for debating, for hours on end, who should bat where in any team you might care to mention. And with the stats to back up the argument.
In India, it's not uncommon to be told something like, "Of course you'll remember the second day of the fourth Test at the Kotla in 2015, when Ravindra Jadeja took 5/30 and South Africa were bowled out for 121." If you do remember, well done. If you don't, it's best to nod and prepare to learn something.
Contrary to popular opinion, Indians are not interested only in Indian cricket. It's true that their stadiums fall as silent as a mortuary at midnight whenever a non-India player does anything well in matches against their teams. But it is just as true that 54,923 spectators - almost all of them Indians - showed up to watch New Zealand play South Africa at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Saturday, when there wasn't an India player in sight. You wouldn't be able to fit that many fans into any cricket venue in New Zealand or South Africa. And to think more than twice as many will likely be in the same place on Sunday to watch the South Africans take on India in a Super Eight showdown.
Indian cricket gets a bad rap because of the behaviour of the cricket board, and there is plenty of justification for that. But neither the broadcaster nor the board are Indian cricket, which is a credit to the world game. It is its busy mind, its beating heart, and an engine fuelled by nothing less than love. These people are steeped in cricket, not cupcakes.
