Does a personal controversy malign a sportsperson's on-field image?

One evening some months ago, Sunil Gavaskar arrived at a gathering of cricketers. A reporter asked him a question about the allegations of abuse and match-fixing against Mohammed Shami by his then wife, Hasin Jahan.

Gavaskar was annoyed. “Sambandh kya hai iss event se?” he demanded to know. (What was the relevance of the question at a cricketing banquet?)

Journalists’ questions do not have to be relevant to any event. They have to be relevant to news. If the Shami controversy was entirely personal in its nature, the cricketing fraternity had a valid reason to not talk about it. But one of the allegations made by Hasin Jahan was match-fixing. The reporter’s question was legitimate. Gavaskar, however, was not convinced, and walked off in a huff.

After India’s win in the Adelaide Test against Australia, the Shami question will pop up again. It will be an existential question, however. What do we — the fans — make of Shami? On the one hand, he made a vital contribution to a rare Indian win in Australia. His breakthroughs in the first innings got India back in the game after India had made a mess of their batting, save for the heroic century by Cheteshwar Pujara.

Shami did not just bowl well. The news from Adelaide was he also conducted himself in a likeable way with spectators and teammates. He signed autographs. And when a fan requested him to be a messenger and get Virat Kohli’s signature, he agreed.

The same Shami was, this March, accused of violence, abuse and disturbing forms of harassment by Hasin Jahan (the two are divorced now). It was a bit like the OJ Simpson situation. Simpson, an American football great, was accused of murdering his wife and her male friend in 1994.

What does scandal do to fans’ perception of an athlete?
At first, there is hope that the bad news isn’t true. One famous line in sports history sums this well — ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe’. In 1919, eight players of the Chicago White Sox baseball team were accused of fixing the World Series for money. Among them was ‘Shoeless Joe’ Jackson, a popular star.

When he was suspected of selling his soul, America cried, ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe’. OJ was as mythical a figure. But he did not get the same sympathy because the crime he allegedly committed was far worse than throwing games. Also, OJ was known for his diabolical temper and frequently brutalised his wife.

Sportspersons are our surrogate friends and family. We follow their ups and downs for years. There isn’t a day I don’t think of Roger Federer’s career, for example. And whenever there is a case like Shami’s, or when Mike Tyson comes visiting, I wonder, ‘What if Federer does something terrible? What would happen to my estimation of him?’

He will be demoted to jerk status. But I will not stop loving his tennis. And that is how it is for most fans. In other words, the audience perhaps does not care how performers are as people, as long as they are not murderers or child abusers.

Meanwhile, in the Shami opera, Hasin Jahan has joined the Congress.