The Spirit of the Game or the Fire of Sport
Soham Gadgil, SYBSc
There are a few things that will always be a part of any sport, from indoor to outdoor, ball games or athletics, and even the newly emerging section of esports. The competition, the dedication, the fans, the viewership and with all of this, the sportsmanship and in contrast the sledging. Sports content on social media is filled with videos of great plays, wonderful goals, glorious shots and multiple statistics, however, equally exciting and viral are the fights and the trash talk. Then there are the heartfelt videos of players consoling each other and the moments advertising the spirit of the game. The most exciting part of the sports world is that both, the sportsmanship and the sledging are equally viewed, followed and loved, the love may lean a bit more towards the spicy side of sports.
Haka – The New Zealand Rugby War Dance
Professional sports matches as we know are sometimes a few hours and sometimes events like Test cricket take place over a few days. The amount of effort, physical energy and resources that are invested by these athletes bring a very significant mental aspect to these matches. An underdog going against a strong favourite, eleven people fighting it out for 90 minutes on a field or for five days going through multiple twists and turns. Considering all these factors, all teams and players try to get an edge over their opponents by winning the mental battle. There are two ways one is building team morale and the other to push the other team down. This tactic is widely accepted, in fact even promoted by coaches to bring that aggression and that fight in players to give their 110% on the field. Sports like rugby, football or American football are largely physical sports, players have a rush of adrenaline and this can be seen in the physical fouls in football or the anthem tradition before rugby matches, all this can be attributed to building a strong mental base or trying to get into the opponent’s head.
Virat Kohli v/s Tim Paine – The verbal battle of the 2018-19 Australia Tour
A few rivalries in the sports world always come with intense verbal battles and sometimes even physical. Every Indian cricket fan can never forget the era of test cricket when Kohli led a pack of eleven that feared no one even if they weren’t playing in front of a home crowd. Two instances that we as fans will never forget are the 2018 tour of Australia and the 2021 match in England played in the majestic stadium, Lord’s. The 2018 tour, the Kohli-led team became the first Asian side to win a test series in Australia. The Australian side didn’t learn from Kohli’s previous visit to the nation that he is not one to be sledged and this time, it was eleven players who decided to show the Australian side a taste of their own medicine, winning the battle of words as well the series. The fiery bouncers, the staredowns and the Australian batters feared to battle it out on the crease. The Lord’s Test match was also one where the English players dug their graves. In a match that went into Day 5 with England as the favourites, the tides suddenly turned as the England team sledging Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami ignited a fire in the Indian dressing room, a fire that transformed the stadium into a battlefield, Harsha Bhogle, renowned cricket expert described the atmosphere as eleven men ready to go to war. The war analogy was backed up by Kohli’s fierce words to his soldiers, “For 60 overs, they should feel like hell out there, giving rise to one of the greatest moments in Indian cricket. Kohli welcomed Ollie Robinson in his style, one of the English bowlers who had trash-talked his way through the whole test match. The words, “How boring was your innings Pujji? (addressing Pujara who played a resilient innings in that match) Maybe that’s how you survive a Test match. Come on big mouth, gonna bring your sheets today?” The sledging, the staring, the wickets, the anger and the revenge that followed, all compiled into one of the most famous test wins of Indian cricket history.
Virat Kohli welcoming Ollie Robinson in his own style in the Lord’s Test 2021
However, one undeniable fact is that not all players can sledge, or at least not all can back it up with their skill. A few players manage to get hatred from other players as well as the fans for how they conduct themselves while playing professionally, one such example is Nick Kyrgios, an Australian tennis player. Kyrgios doesn’t hesitate to show how he feels and expresses himself freely on the court, the aggressive shots attacking the body of the opponent or cursing at the spectators who bother him during his games. The tennis world is divided between appreciating him for his blatant personality and others blaming for his shenanigans for his lack of success. The breaking of racquets, disrespecting the opponent and the referees and verbally expressing his distress throughout the match, experts argue that his attitude largely attributes towards his lack of focus in important matches, the Wimbledon final of 2022 against Djokovic would be the prime example.
Another example that comes to mind as a Barcelona fan is the season of 2010-11, the El Clasico match against Real Madrid. It is one of the biggest rivalries of sports and to add to that, there were increasing tensions between the two teams off the field. Cristiano Ronaldo challenged them to score half the goals they scored against Almeria, (4 goals) against Real Madrid and then on matchday, the gruesome, aggressive and incredibly dangerous defence of Real Madrid against Lionel Messi. Multiple fouls, dragging Messi down on the ground with dangerous sliding tackles, and despite all this, Barcelona hammered Real Madrid 5-0. The iconic Messi Walk past Ronaldo looking at the scoreboard and Pique celebrating with the Barcelona fans showing with his hand that they scored five against their biggest rivals, Ronaldo seemed to be dumbfounded as his team was disappointed with their performance and Barcelona completed his open challenge with ease.
Gerard Pique celebrating a dominant 5-0 win against arch-rivals Real Madrid
A practice accepted across all sports is that all sledging and aggression is left aside, at the end of the match you shake hands with the opposing team and believe that you left it all on the field, even the trash talk. However, these shake hands have had their fair share of spice as well, the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Lucknow Super Giants match in the Indian Premier League, where Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir were almost at each other’s throats.
The very aggressive shake-hands between former players and football managers Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte after a hard-fought draw in the Premier League match between English professional football clubs Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. It just shows how much the adrenaline and the mental side of the sport affect the decisions of not just players but even managers and coaches. The physical effort invested in every single match is so high that establishing control through mental strength becomes essential.
Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte went head to head during the post-match shaking hands
The West Indian team gave the God of Cricket a guard of honour in his final match
Every sportsperson has his or her way of getting an edge over the opponent, it could be actual comments, pre-match routines or just shouts and screams that give some sort of energy. This aggression and this fierce competition make the moments upholding the spirit of the game even better. Sometimes, we forget that even these players that we watch are humans and even they need support after mistakes, injuries and heartbreaks which are also a part and parcel of the sport. To some extent, the players would understand each other better having gone through similar situations in their sporting careers giving rise to the heartfelt moments where a retiring player gets a guard of honour from the opponents, a record-breaking performance against your team gets appreciated and a player who loses by the barest of margins gets consoled by the winner. Finally, the spirit of the game and the fire of sport, both are essential for sports to be entertaining and even though they are contrasting approaches, it’s hard to imagine them surviving without one another.