The 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is seeing a rather unusual controversy – Indian fans have been booing, and in some cases, abusing, a star player of the national team wherever he’s gone to play. At the receiving end is Hardik Pandya, the erstwhile captain of Gujarat Titans, who has moved to Mumbai Indians. He is now the skipper of Mumbai Indians, replacing Rohit Sharma, who led the team to the title five times in ten years.
Franchises chop and change their teams and captains all the time – it is part and parcel of club sport. And yet, Pandya has faced really hostile crowds at every venue he’s played so far, to the extent that there were speculative media reports on some special security arrangements at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
What explains this hostility? Is this a phenomenon of what some commentators have described as “fan wars”?
Guest: Amol Karhadkar from The Hindu’s Sports Bureau.
Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian.
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