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A lot of the blame for the Indian cricket team’s woes in England has been laid at the door of the wives and girlfriends, aka WAGs. For perhaps the first time, we had a premier batsman travelling in the company of his female friend – tabloid rumours say girlfriend – and tongues wagged incessantly when the said batsman failed miserably in the Tests.
Virat Kohli
Might the presence of the WAGs on the tour have taken the focus of the players away from their primary duty in England, which was to play to the best of their ability? The answer cannot be a clear cut ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Actor Saif Ali Khan has been quoted in the media defending the cricketers with the argument that when a batsman faces a cricket ball coming at him at speeds of over 140 kmph, he will not be thinking of his country, far less his wife or girlfriend, but only of his safety and of a way to put that leather missile away. Well, he speaks the truth, but only partly.
Being with the spouse or a girlfriend on a two-month-long tour can both benefit the players as well as detract from their performance. Two months is a long time to be away from family in a foreign land. And while our cricketers are not exactly unused to travelling, they are still humans who will enjoy the proximity of their loved ones. Family can provide a sense of stability in their personal lives, solace when they hit the doldrums and encouragement in times of despair. And seeing how the Indians performed in the Tests, the women must have had their hands full.
It isn’t as if the absence of the WAGs would have left the cricketers piously engaged in only the task on hand of beating England. They are celebrities, and as everywhere across the world, celebrity opens doors. Sports journalists who tour with the team return with innumerable stories about, ah, how do we put it delicately, the ‘opportunities’ that come the players’ ways. These are often salacious stories that never make it to the sports pages. But friends of sports journalists will corroborate how these tales brighten the conversation over beer back home. All this means that even if the WAGs had been left home, distractions of the type being insinuated would not have been eliminated.
However, the young Nawab of Pataudi is wrong on one aspect. A cricketer need not be considered distracted only because he is thinking of his wife or girlfriend while facing a delivery from a fast bowler. Distractions can be of different kinds. A cricketer and his loved one are, first and foremost, human beings. A bad stomach, a temperature, a touch of the flu, a food allergy, anything can create a sense of anxiety in the mind of someone who has to leave the ailing person behind in the hotel room for hours at end. Again, it would be foolish to think that, unlike regular people, the cricketers will not have moments of disagreements, perhaps tiffs as well, with their WAGs over a two-month period. Are these all not capable of affecting the concentration of the player during play?
The topic of whether any sportsperson should be accompanied to his performance by the spouse or a partner crops up every time a big sporting event is held. The subject occupied endless column-space in newspapers during the FIFA World Cup, as it does at the Olympic Games. But the fact is that there are no definite conclusions on how the presence of spouses affects the performance of an athlete. Perhaps, the truth, as in India’s case in England, is that it often provides detractors a weapon to beat the non-performers with. Other than that, it always offers prurient thoughts to idle minds.
(The author is an associate editor at Business Standard, and, like all Indians, thinks he is an expert on cricket)
