Cricket is a 'religion' — Why can't we simply keep it as a sport?

As the Indian men's cricket team was handed a crushing 10-wicket defeat by Babar Azam's Pakistan on Sunday in their opening match of the World Cup, jingoists and fanatics directed their attacks to the only Muslim player of the Indian playing XI, Mohammed Shami, just because they did not experience the evening they had envisaged.

The 31-year-old Shami became the main target after the defeat in Dubai after he conceded 43 runs in his four-over spell, even though India captain Virat Kohli acknowledged that his side had been "outplayed".

Though cricket has reached a stature of religion in a country like India, the problem lies when the sport is religionised by people, who tend to call themselves as fans. No doubt, cricket holds a special place in the hearts of Indians — people have so much passion for cricket that they take leaves for matches, they reschedule their meetings and plans. They even watch matches for hours as it takes 12 hours for an ODI match to get over.. Some spectators even have dedicated their whole lives to cricket.

The craze for cricket has reached one point where we have forgotten that it's just a sport and not a religious doctrine that could be moulded with jingoism and hyper-nationalism. Cricket clashes between India and Pakistan frequently heighten tensions between the neighbours, who have fought three wars since their independence in 1947. But sports itself should serve as a unifier rather than burn political bridges.

Former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag seemed to capitalise on the anti-Muslim sentiment by alleging that parts of India celebrated Pakistan's victory with firecrackers while making a case for allowing celebratory fireworks during the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Former Pakistan cricketer Waqar Younis sparked a fresh controversy on Tuesday when he said on a Pakistani news channel that watching Pakistani opener Mohammad Rizwan offering namaz "in front of Hindus was very special to him". Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar was also on the show.

India's one of the most revered cricket commentators, Harsha Bhogle, however, took to no time to call the spade a spade . He called the statement "dangerous" and said that the cricket world needed to be united and not divided by religion.

Bhogle said: "For a person of Waqar Younis' stature to say that watching Rizwan offering namaz in front of Hindus was very special to him, is one of the most disappointing things I have heard. A lot of us try hard to play such things down and talk up the sport and to hear this is terrible."

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In February this year, the stature of Wasim Jaffer, one of the most prolific cricketers in India with thirty-one test matches played for the country, highest runs scored in the Ranji Trophy — more than 12,000, Batting coach for Kings XI Punjab, was boiled down to is his religious identity — a Muslim. Jaffer was accused of choosing players for the Uttarakhand Team, which he headed till some time ago as a coach, based on religion. Jaffer resigned as coach because he was not being allowed to make the decisions he wanted on player selection and was accused of bias. But the Uttarakhand team manager Navneet Mishra has accused Jaffer of communalising the environment and choosing Muslim players.

Remember the portrayal of Kabir Khan, played by Shah Rukh Khan in Chak De India? The hero was dubbed a traitor when he lost a hockey match against Pakistan by missing out on a penalty stroke. Even after 14 years of the release of the movie, things haven't changed much in India. Amid the clouted sense of patriotism and nationalism, and dropping the religious argument loosely, we are just deviating from the fact that sport should just be a unifier, not the divider and ultimately not Hindus or Muslims would emerge as heroes, but the real heroes would be the athletes just playing for the pride of his/her country.