As India faced a ten-wicket hammering to the neighbours in Dubai in their first Super 12 game of the T20 World Cup 2021 with Shami conceding 0/43 off his spell, the experienced Indian fast bowler was subjected to abuse and Islamophobic comments from inhumane right-wing troll accounts over Twitter and Instagram.
Those remarks didn’t go down well with the Indian cricket fraternity as most of the prominent names came out in support of Shami. But none went to the root cause of the abuse and trolling quite like the Indian captain himself.
Virat Kohli called it for what it was, reiterating that for a game where most of the Indian side failed, Shami was solely targeted because of his religion.
“There’s a good reason why we are playing on the field and not some bunch of spineless people on social media that have no courage to actually speak to any individual in person,”
he said in the pre-match press conference ahead of India’s second match against New Zealand on October 31.
“To me attacking someone over their religion is the most, I would say, pathetic thing that a human being can do. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion and what they feel about certain situations, but I personally have never ever even thought of discriminating [against] anyone over their religion.
That is a very sacred and personal thing to every human being and that should be left there,”
he added.
Kohli also made a wider point on the flourishing of these anonymous troll accounts on social media, questioning how people could be allowed to abuse others behind hidden identities and it’s “sad” that they could derive happiness out of others’ misery “because this is literally the lowest level of human potential that one can operate at.”
Kohli reminded those Islamophic trolls the massive contribution that Shami has had as one of his team’s “primary” bowlers across formats and said if someone wants to look past that and the man’s “passion” representing India, he wouldn’t “even want to waste one minute of my life to give any attention to those people. Neither does Shami and neither does anyone else in the team.”
“We stand by him fully. We are backing him 200 percent, and all those who have attacked him can come with more force if they want to: our brotherhood, our friendship within the team, nothing can be shaken.”
Abusing Indian Muslim cricketers for their religion is barbarically going on for years in India. But with the advance of social media and the allowance to create these anonymous accounts, people now also have a platform to vent out their anger and abuse the players and can easily get away since their identity is hidden.
Shami need not prove his Indianness to anyone, but his case is another prime example of the state that the country finds itself in and why there has to be proper laws and regulations in place over social media to avoid such instances.
As they approach a virtual knock-out, the Indian team needs Shami to be his best – physically and mentally – to try and make a statement against his abusers and help India win over the Kiwis in Dubai. Kohli said his pacer will definitely be up for it since he possesses the “mental toughness” and “courage” that his abusers can never boast of.
