THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES. AND IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME.
So this is it. This is the fortress. The impenetrable home turf where the mighty Indian cricket machine supposedly grinds opponents into dust. What a pathetic lie.
Look at the scoreboard. Just look at it. South Africa, a team everyone wrote off, piles up 489 runs. And what does the supposed powerhouse do in response? 9 for nothing. Trailing by 480. This isn’t a cricket match; it’s a public execution. An exposure. A complete and utter dismantling of a myth built on corporate cash and media hype. And it’s glorious to watch. Because this is what happens when you believe your own press releases. When you think showing up is enough. When arrogance becomes your official team strategy.
And let’s talk about that arrogance. Let’s talk about the single moment that tells you everything you need to know about the rot inside this team. Rishabh Pant, the superstar wicketkeeper, chirping from behind the stumps. He sees Senuran Muthusamy, not a household name, a guy who had to fight for his spot, batting with grit. And Pant tells his bowler, ‘maarne de usko’. ‘Let him hit it’. The sheer, unadulterated condescension. The absolute disrespect. It’s the voice of an empire that believes its opponents are mere peasants, there for their amusement. You’re not a threat. You’re a plaything. Just a sideshow for our entertainment.
But what happened next? What did the peasant do? Muthusamy sends the very next ball sailing over the boundary for a six. He didn’t just hit it. He humiliated Pant. He took that smug comment and shoved it right back down his throat in front of the whole world. And he didn’t stop there. He went on to score a century. A hundred runs of pure, defiant, hard-working grit. While the golden boys watched. While the system that worships celebrity over substance could do nothing but stare. That one shot was a rebellion.
THE MYTH OF THE SUPERSTARS
Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The system. The machine that creates these poster boys and tells us they are infallible. They sell you soft drinks and insurance and tell you they are heroes. But they’re not. They’re just employees of a massive corporation that has suffocated the soul of the sport. And when a real sportsman, a grafter like Muthusamy, or a powerful hitter like Marco Jansen (who smashed 93, by the way), shows up and just plays hard, honest cricket, the whole facade crumbles. It falls apart. They don’t know what to do.
And where were the Indian bowlers? Kuldeep Yadav got four wickets, sure. Good for him. A nice little line in the scorebook after the damage was already done beyond repair. It’s like getting a thank-you note from the people who just robbed your house. It means nothing. The rest of them? They looked lost. They looked like they expected the South Africans to just roll over and surrender because they were playing in India. But they didn’t. They fought. They worked. They earned every single one of those 489 runs.
And this isn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern. The entitlement is baked in. This team struts around the world, backed by the biggest cricket board with the most money, and they expect fear. They expect respect to be handed to them on a silver platter. But you can’t buy guts. You can’t purchase resilience with a sponsorship deal. And you sure as hell can’t intimidate someone who is hungrier than you are. South Africa came here to fight. India came here expecting a coronation.
A PREDICTION: THE COLLAPSE IS COMING
Now India has to bat. Oh, this is going to be fun. They have to face the music. They have to try and climb this mountain that their own arrogance built. Jaiswal is out there on 7 not out. A kid. And he’s got the weight of a billion expectations and a crumbling dynasty on his shoulders. But what about the big names that will follow? The guys with the multi-million dollar contracts and the carefully curated social media profiles? Do you think they have the stomach for this fight? For a real, gritty, back-against-the-wall battle to save the game?
I don’t.
I predict a collapse. A procession. I predict we’ll see flashy shots that get caught on the boundary. We’ll see frustrated faces and shoulders slumping. We’ll hear excuses about the pitch, the weather, the planetary alignment—anything but the truth. And the truth is that they were outplayed, out-thought, and, most importantly, out-fought by a team that wanted it more. A team that didn’t have the luxury of complacency. They had to earn it. And India forgot how.
Because the system doesn’t reward earning it anymore. It rewards brand value. It rewards being a ‘character’. It rewards toeing the corporate line. The entire structure of Indian cricket is a bloated, self-congratulatory beast, and it’s been heading for a fall for years. This isn’t just a bad day at the office. This is a reckoning. This is the bill coming due for years of believing you are the center of the universe. The rest of the world has been getting stronger while India has been busy counting its money.
So don’t be surprised when they fold for less than 200. Don’t be shocked when they have to follow-on. And don’t listen to the excuses that will pour out from the commentators and the ex-players on the payroll, the ones who are paid to protect the system. They will tell you it’s an anomaly. They will tell you the team will bounce back. But we, the ones watching without the blinders on, we know the truth.
We saw it in that one moment. The smug comment from behind the stumps. And the thunderous reply that flew over the rope. The rebellion has begun. The empire is a joke. And the peasants are coming for the castle.
