India’s ICC Championship loss to Pakistan on Sunday infuriated thousands of supporters who not only took to Twitter to express their agony but also burnt photographs of our players in public and broke TV sets in frustration. In Ranchi, additional security personnel had to be deployed outside MS Dhoni’s house out of fear of public outrage.
In the wake of the animosity, the popular English news channel Times Now started a trend on Twitter with the hashtag – #CricketersForgetBraves.
The media house took to the microblogging site to post the following:
TIMES NOW asks – Shouldn’t Kohli and team hold a gala charity ball for raising money for families of our martyrs? #CricketersForgetBraves pic.twitter.com/JptG8821BY
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 19, 2017
Like @GautamGambhir ,why haven’t Virat & his boys taken on India’s enemies who cheered for Pak? Share your views #CricketersForgetBraves pic.twitter.com/qonohebmL5
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 19, 2017
The topic was also raised in the channel on its popular Newshour Debate.
‘No time for salute or solidarity?’ Watch @thenewshour debate at 10.30PM #CricketersForgetBraves pic.twitter.com/7pejPOBeJ3
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 19, 2017
As Times Now believed that the shaming on social media and TV wasn’t enough, the media house hounded Indian cricketers in public asking, “Why didn’t you copy the hockey team and pay tribute to martyrs?”
.@hardikpandya7 refuses to take TIMES NOW question on why they didn’t copy hockey team and pay tribute to martyrs #CricketersForgetBraves pic.twitter.com/pT3FXH8R48
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 19, 2017
.@YUVSTRONG12 refuses to take TIMES NOW question on why they didn’t copy hockey team and pay tribute to martyrs #CricketersForgetBraves pic.twitter.com/6Pu4jOCZ1J
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) June 19, 2017
What is Times Now talking about?
On Sunday, the same day as the ICC Champions Trophy, India and Pakistan played against each other in the Hockey World League Semi-Finals, where India defeated our neighbour by 7-1.
In addition to winning the game, the Indian players made a statement – the team wore black armbands condemning the recent attacks on Indian soldiers along the Jammu and Kashmir border.
Times Now wanted Indian cricketers to follow the steps of our Hockey team – hence, the public naming and shaming across different media portals.
What Times Now doesn’t know (read: is deliberately trying to instil hatred in people’s minds by misleading them):
The ICC rules and regulations say: “Players and team officials shall not be permitted to wear, display or otherwise convey messages through arm bands or other items affixed to clothing or equipment (“Personal Messages”) unless approved in advance by both the player or team official’s Board and the ICC Cricket Operations Department. Approval shall not be granted for messages which relate to political, religious or racial activities or causes.”
You can read the full guidelines here, under Clothing and Equipment Regulations – Effective 22 September 2016 – keep
Not only in cricket, but players participating in any international sporting event CANNOT make a political statement while on the field.
In the 1968 Summer Olympics held in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two black Olympians from the United States, won gold and bronze, respectively, in the 200-metre race. Once on the podium, Smith and Carlos gave the “Power to the People” salute. International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage suspended Smith and Carlos from the U.S. team for making a political statement during the ceremony, and they voluntarily moved out of the Olympic village.
After India’s ICC loss on Sunday, Narinder Batra, President of the International Hockey Federation and former President of Hockey India, posted a series of hateful messages on Facebook in retaliation to a Kashmiri separatist leader congratulating the Pakistani team’s victory.
Dr Narinder Batra’s post which is now deleted
In response to Dr Batra’s post, International Hockey Federation (FIH) issued an apology, saying, “The FIH is aware of recent comments made by FIH President Dr Narinder Dhruv Batra via his personal social media channels. The FIH would like to emphasise that these comments were the personal thoughts of Dr Batra and not representative of the views of the FIH. The FIH would like to apologise for any offence that these comments may have caused. At the request of FIH, these comments have now been deleted and the matter will be reviewed internally in line with our governance processes.”
Dr Batra later deleted the post because any person representing a country or a sporting federation cannot make political and religious comments. But Times Now conveniently evaded mentioning this fact. In a press release, Dr Batra also issued an apology to the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) for his bias, “I would like to …
