The Indian cricket fan longs for heroes all the time. His or her favourite film stars or his or her favourite cricket stars. The list is endless. It goes on and on and on. It is not really a problem if the people follow their heroes. The problem begins when it turns into a dangerous obsession. This is exactly what is happening in this country. The marketing agencies take advantage of such an obsession and they milk money. Why am I writing about a dangerous obsession? There is a reason for this. Let me try to elaborate.

I do not know exactly when, but this obsession, atleast when it comes to cricket, must have started during the Gavaskar and Kapil Dev period. India was never a good cricket team during a large part of our cricketing history. It took us 30 years to win our first Test match. It was against England in Chennai. Nowadays, the likes of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and a few other teams are ridiculed for not being able to win games consistently. I am not going to dispute that because I am one among them and for good reason. Anyway, just because we could not produce world-class players, we were not able to win games regularly.

England, Australia and West Indies, the premier teams of the early, mid and late 1900s, did not rate our cricket teams that highly. Hence, they never considered inviting us or visiting the nation to play a series of Tests. Just like how BCCI is treating Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Ireland now. If not for the WTC, the BCCI will only host lucrative series that generate massive revenue. Well, this is not a part of this blog and it is only for information.

Anyway, getting back to being obsessed, it is not at all a healthy trend. Just like the fans of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli fight as to who is the better cricketer, so too did the fans of Gavaskar and Kapil Dev all those years ago. This sort of obsession gave a filip to the marketing guys who wherever they can get a chance, show the faces of these players. It is more or less a given that if a celebrity endorses a product, it is assumed that the product will be sold. Some of the players, though I must admit, have taken the decision of not promoting beauty products. Noble of them. Ofcourse, this is not restricted to India and Indians. It is prevalent throughout the world. I am however, will stick to India because I care about this nation.

Cricket is the only sport in which India competes at the world level. The performances in other sports leaves a lot to be desired. Till date, India have won 4 World Cup trophies whereas the only other World Cup that this nation has won is in Hockey in 1980. Cricket has become a national identity. Cricket is an unifying force in this land. Whenever and wherever a cricketer is seen in public, one can see a whole host of people going behind him. The team bus every evening will be surrounded by the fans.

John Wright, in his book writes, “everyone wants a piece of them, to touch them, shake their hands, be seen with them, take a photo of them with their mobile phones and introduce their kids to them. The sea of upturned, smiling faces waiting for a glimpse of their heroes is an enduring image of Indian cricket.”