Mohammed Siraj, the lead pacer for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the 2023 IPL season, started his season off strong with an impressive performance against Mumbai Indians (MI). Despite the crowd chanting his name, Siraj recognized the fickle nature of Indian cricket fans and the potential for their opinions to turn on a dime. He shared his thoughts on abusive messages, noting how they can be detrimental to players’ motivation.
“It is easy to write abuses,” Siraj said on RCB Podcast with Danish Sait.
“But you don’t know anything about his struggle. How can you abuse someone then? Those messages kill your motivation. A guy is getting abused for no reason at all. Why? What’s next?” the fast bowler added.
Siraj recounted his experience of being labelled the future of Indian bowling by fans to being told to quit cricket and become an auto-rickshaw driver within a matter of days.
He also expressed his confusion over such extreme reactions from fans and asked for a more rational approach. Siraj highlighted the contrasting behaviour of fans, where players are praised as the best one day and criticised as not good enough the next.
“One day they call you the future of India, the next day they claim you are nothing and should drive an auto. I don’t understand this,” Siraj shared his experience with online trolling.
“When you perform well, people start praising you so much, You are such a good bowler, next level. When I was retained, it was called as best retention. Now they question why I was retained? There was no need for you to be retained. You aren’t good enough to play cricket,” he added further.
While Siraj appreciated the support of fans, he urged them to avoid abusing anyone. He acknowledged that ups and downs are a part of life and that maintaining a supportive environment is crucial for players to thrive. He asked fans to respect everyone’s struggles and treat them with dignity, leaving the choice up to them.
“Thank you for all the support but don’t abuse anyone. Ups and downs are part of life. That’s all I can say. Rest is up to you. You are aware of our struggle still you behave like that with us. That doesn’t affect us much but as a human all I can ask from you is respect everyone,” the RCB seamer concluded.
