Cricket is more than a sport in India and cricketers are nothing less than a celebrity. But there are always two sides to a coin and the same is with being a cricketer in a country where people consider it as a religion. In a country where Sachin Tendulkar is nicknamed as ‘God’, abusing and trolling a cricketer has now become a norm. One bad performance and people start bringing up everyone and everything related to that cricketer.

The biggest example of such senseless acts took place when India lost to Pakistan in the 2021 T20 World Cup. A few sections of the internet fans lost their head and started trolling the team for their first loss at a World Cup to Pakistan. Their biggest target was Mohammed Shami off whom the winning runs were scored.

For a cricketer who had passionately represented India in many games before, being called a traitor and fixer would have been the toughest thing to come across. But still, Mohammed Shami did not respond then. However, then captain Virat Kohli cleared that the team thinks of those people as nothing more than ‘spineless’ to target someone on the basis of their religion.

We don’t need to engage with them: Shami

After four months, Shami himself has also echoed the same thing as Virat Kohli and questioned such people’s love for the nation while they question his. Talking to the Indian Express, Shami called such trolls ‘nobodies’ and also said that he or any of his teammates don’t need to prove their loyalty to anyone.

“When people with unknown social media profiles or even one with a few followers point fingers at someone, they don’t have anything to lose,” the paceman said. “For them, nothing is at stake because they are nobodies… we don’t need to engage with them,” he added.

“We know what we are, we don’t need to say what India means to us because we represent the country and fight for the country. So we don’t need to prove anything to anyone by saying or reacting to such trolls,” explained Shami.

Notably, he is currently in rehabilitation, recovering from a wrist injury he had suffered during the South Africa tour.