5 Times Indian Cricket Fans Wrongly Targeted Anushka Sharma: Bollywood and Cricket have gradually become an integral part of India’s popular culture where modern-day films display an average Indian viewer’s expectations on screen and the nature of certain grave problems the countrymen are battling, whereas cricket and not the entire sports industry has been receiving tremendous support and is loved/watched more than the national sport if the country (hockey).
Some questions are better unanswered: What if the Indian Premier League is canceled this year? What if Bollywood just shuts down? Would an average Indian choose cricket over Bollywood or vice versa?
With the amount of attention both these fields have garnered, comes criticism. Criticism not only for the work of art or the way the game was played, not only for the participants but also for their near ones. It is very sad that a relation has to pay for the participants’ failure but the trollers simply don’t seem to give up. While talking on this topic one of the first names that come to our minds is Anushka Sharma, the actress wife of the Indian men’s cricket team captain, Virat Kohli.
Anushka has been prey for trolls pre and post marriage. However here are the 5 instances out of so many:
1) When RCB drowned
The Royal Challengers Bangalore must want to forget their 2018 campaign for they faltered in almost every match and failed to make up to a large fanbase. During this rough patch, the fans usually took on social media only to slam Anushka Sharma for not only Virat’s failure but also for the team’s poor form. Things turned worse when the actress was roasted on the field by a section that asked Virat Kohli to part ways and concentrates on the game.
2) The first time, the first troll.
Virat and Anushka had celebrated their wedding with great pomp and show before arriving in South Africa for a three-match test series. It was the first time Anushka Sharma was seen attending the Delhi batsman’s match as his wife and it also became the first time she was trolled for marrying him. She was called the unlucky charm when Kohli got out after scoring five runs in Cape Town. Social media trollers even spoke on how their honeymoon had distracted the player.
3) DDCA’s ceremony
That ceremony marked the highest point in Virat Kohli’s career as a stand-in the Arun Jaitely stadium was named after the 31-year-old. His wife accompanied him to the ceremony as his family but instead was trolled for being there. The fans crossed all lines and celebrated the Indian star’s success with sheer negativity. They asked questions on the presence of Anushka Sharma in the high profile event.
4) Legend, no Legend
“Three Legends, one photo,” Australian Open’s Twitter caption read, describing a picture of Roger Federer with the couple. India had marked the Australian tour with historic wins one after the other and with the tennis tournament around, Virat and Anushka made a point to visit the courts. Then was the time they met tennis great, Federer. However, the caption received stringent criticism when fans cropped the image and excluded Anushka Sharma from the picture of the greats.
5) Four runs
India was playing Sri Lanka at Headingley at the 2019 World Cup when Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were hitting the Lankan bowlers for clean hits, mostly fours. Anushka Sharma who attended this match was trolled when she was seen asking a fellow spectator, “Yeh four ka signal kya hota hai?” Then both of them were seen laughing over it. Fans couldn’t accept the fact that the actress didn’t know the signal for a four.
With everything said and done, Virat Kohli has so many times interfered and cleared his stand on how his gameplay and Anushka Sharma’s presence are two different things. Fans are people who support the star in his/her good or bad and don’t blame some other person for the same.
“Shame on those people who have been having a go at Anushka for the longest time and connecting every negative thing to her. Shame on those people calling themselves educated,” Kohli wrote to shun all the unnecessary criticism towards his wife.
It’s not just one case here, there are so many others going through similar nuances every day and it’s high time for the fans to realize their duty as constant support and not a justifying lawyer.
