After barely managing to scrape a win against the minnows of Hong Kong, the Indian men’s cricket team would now face their arch rivals Pakistan in the next league match of the 2018 Asia Cup, currently being organized in the United Arab Emirates.
One needs no rocket science to understand the age old rivalry between the two nations, ever since the united India was partitioned in 1947. Any cricket match between the two is bound to flare up emotions on both sides of the border; unprecedented reactions are sure to come from the side whose team loses the match.
While Indians see the match at Asia Cup as an opportunity to avenge the humiliation suffered in the finals of the Champions Trophy 2017, where we lost brutally to Pakistan by 157 runs, the rival team looks forward to this match as another opportunity to extend their new found confidence against their arch rivals.
During this ultra competitive scenario, Indian tennis player Sania Mirza tweeted the following:-
Soo less than 24hrs to go for this match,safe to sign out of social media for a few days since the amount of nonsense thts gonna b said here can make a ‘regular’ person sick ,let alone a pregnant one🙄Later guys!Knock yourselves out!BUT remember-ITS ONLY A CRICKET MATCH! Toodles!
— Sania Mirza (@MirzaSania) September 18, 2018
Not only was this tweet uncalled for, Sania Mirza also dropped a subtle victim card, which is not only bizarre, but completely atrocious to say the least. We’re no strangers to the fact as to how much famous the India Pakistan rivalry is around the world of sports. Forget cricket, our rivalry was once feared by the rest of the world in sports like field hockey and kabaddi, and even today, our teams in both the sports, especially the men’s category, are considered no pushovers.
Given such an intense rivalry between the two, it’s perfectly reasonable that the supporters from either side are equally passionate about the upcoming matches, and respond to their rivals with either jokes or memes, or even competitive slogans for that matter. However, the way in which Sania Mirza has portrayed such supporters as rabid hate mongers, who wouldn’t even spare her unborn baby, is just plainly despicable.
Without going into any character assassination, we find it rather strange that Sania tweets this from Dubai, while being woefully unaware of the current situation between the two nations and the struggles of the masses on either side. Such a mocking undertone in the tweet, denigrating the sports lovers of both the nations reek of the contempt that is too synonymous with the likes of Swara Bhasker, and we seriously hope that Sania Mirza is not taking any tuitions from her in terms of tweeting.
To be frank enough, the current tweet from Sania Mirza is not only ill timed, but also ill placed. Irrespective of whatever the result, this sporting rivalry between India and Pakistan is one of the few rare bonds that connect the otherwise volatile neighbors, and nobody should mock that for their own personal benefits. We hope that sanity is restored to Mrs. Sania Mirza in time and she doesn’t catch the road that has led Serena Williams to her downfall.