Hands

On 'hard'ness and tenderness

On a May evening in 2011, beneath Wembley Stadium’s steel arch, Barcelona beat Manchester United 3-1 in the Champions League final. The scorecard was kind to United. When the final whistle pierced the London air, something beautiful happened. The artists of Barcelona - masters of the modern game, virtuosos who had just painted a museum piece - turned into children chasing an autograph. They ran towards United midfielder Paul Scholes, hoping to get his shirt. Scholes, 37, his legs perhaps playing their last such final, found himself surrounded by rivals who had morphed into admirers tripping over each other.

Scholes, craftsman of the midfield, collector of trophies, warranted such reverence.

Shirt-swapping is football’s little ritual of equality. It happens most nights, on most fields. Ninety minutes of battle melts into this simple exchange - sweaty jerseys traded like peace offerings, handshakes between players who moments ago were trying to tackle each other into smithereens. Good game.¹

You might miss these moments, because television has other stories to sell. By the time players gather for these quiet exchanges, cameras start turning away, to willing players and stressed-out coaches for immediate, fog-minded thoughts.

Shirt-swapping, though, is a tradition, not a rule. So you’ll find many who prefer different exits: the straight-down-the-tunnel specialists, the referee-blamers with their ready speeches, and the snarlers who need to be guided away by calmer teammates, their rage still rising like smoke from their hair after ninety minutes of perceived injustice.

The cameras love these moments. They catch them from every angle, package them into bite-sized outrage for Instagram and longer feasts for YouTube. Television studios stretch these seconds into hours of debate, while newspapers turn them into week-long sagas of character analysis.

These clips spread like wildfire on social media, usually accompanied by the cold emoji - apparently the digital badge of a Boss Move™. Eventually, they become proof of “passion” and “hunger”.

Take Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, for instance. A mild man by nature, the kind who’d apologise to a chair for bumping into it. One night, when he was Cardiff City coach, he was asked about Liverpool’s potential title charge. This former Manchester United player shot back, “I couldn't care less.” The clip landed in every United fans’ group chat. What a guy! He gets it.

You have to admit, it makes for pretty good entertainment when somebody fires a shot at their rivals. If this person can coat it with some vitriol, some personal remarks, maybe some unpardonable language like Connor McGregor, oh boy, you have everyone’s attention.

The dirtier the diss, the spicier the story. And we all have incredible spice tolerance.

Sport comes to us packaged as theatre. The athletic contest itself is rarely enough; it needs its subplots. We’re sold heroes and villains, our warriors against their enemies.

Growing up, Manchester United vs Arsenal was the hottest game in the English Premier League. Two exceptional teams, the finest in England, among Europe’s elite. The football was cutting-edge, but the sideshows made it blockbuster. Two midfielder-captains, Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira, who’d rather snipe each other out with bricks than shake hands. The younger teammates, fully doing their captain’s bidding, going at their opponents as if this was a war, not a game of football. Their coaches, Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, meant to be the adults in the room, instead traded barbs like schoolyard rivals. Both found creative ways to tell the press how the other was stealing a living.

I loved it then, and I’d love it just as much now. But I don’t remember too many shirts getting exchanged during those matches.

Speaking of entertainment and compelling TV, let me draw you closer on the timeline, to Virat Kohli. Superstar cricketer, successful, and a man who’s turned intensity into a personal brand. His bat speaks loudly, but his words sometimes scream even louder. Kohli will hit a delectable cover drive - a shot so visceral to watch it will evoke mildly sexual noises from a docile audience - and then tell the bowler where he plans to put his bat.

When Kohli took over India’s ODI captaincy in 2017, fate handed him a scriptwriter's dream - an India-Pakistan final in the Champions Trophy. The first major final of cricket’s most electric rivalry. India were overwhelming favourites coming into the game. That afternoon in London, Pakistan didn’t just win; they dismantled India by 180 runs. This margin was kind to India.

During the post-match ceremony, as medals waited to be distributed, cameras caught Kohli sharing a laugh with Pakistan's coach Azhar Mahmood and batter Shoaib Malik. The media took him apart. An Indian captain, finding humour after such a humiliating defeat, that too in a final against Pakistan?

It wasn’t his first such transgression, and it wouldn’t be his last. During a World Cup match against Australia in 2019, Kohli walked up to the Indian crowd and asked them, sternly, to stop booing Australian batter Steve Smith. More recently, after a 10-wicket lashing against Pakistan, Kohli was the first to walk up to Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan for a congratulatory hug. They too, filled with admiration, respect, and genuine warmth, hugged him back.

Credit: The Independent.

There is a higher chance of me landing an Olympic medal in gymnastics than this moment being part of an India vs Pakistan promo. 

The Border Gavaskar Trophy advertisements show Kohli's chest-clash with then-Australia captain Tim Paine in a meaningless, contextless moment, set to the background of soaring battle music. Compare this to a tableau from twenty years ago. At the end of an epic Test match, Steve Waugh jogged the length of the field to find Rahul Dravid. The Australian captain, never one for grand gestures, handed the match ball to his rival - a simple token of appreciation for a performance of timeless steel.

There used to be footage of it, but only in extended highlights on TV channels who had nothing else to show. This shit is boring. This doesn’t trend, doesn’t spark debates, scores no likes on the content machine.

We want battle music and hero arcs, redemption stories and demons being slayed. While describing the first day’s play from the current Perth Test, I could tell you that Jasprit Bumrah bowled a spell that roared Indian cricket to life. He restored respect and voice to a team that was down in the dumps and struggling to breathe, after a 0-3 bashing at home and getting shot out for 150 within two sessions on day one of the Australian tour. Or I could tell you that Bumrah is an exceptional bowler with the skill and accuracy of a Korean archer. He is unplayable on most days. This day, he was able to execute his plans to near perfection on a helpful pitch, and the Australian batters, already in suspect form, were no match.

Hand on heart, which one is making you lunge closer to the screen?

It’s not a flaw. Just as sport is delivered as theatre, we consume it much in the same way. While talking to your young nephew about India vs Pakistan cricket, would you pause the tales of Imran Khan’s fierce bouncer to Mohinder Amarnath, or Venky Prasad saying “good evening” to Aamir Sohail, to mention how Dilip Vengsarkar and Javed Miandad's wives went shopping together during tours?

Kiran More, India’s former wicketkeeper who played through some of the most heated India-Pakistan contests, reveals the warmth beneath the icy surface. “Me, Dilip, Vishy bhai went to Javed's place,” he tells Sandeep Dwivedi. “What food, what stories. We stayed till 3 am. Even now, Javed and Zaheer bhai call on Diwali, I wish them on Eid. It's brilliant... just brilliant.”

During the 2024 Paris Olympics, India’s Neeraj Chopra was a favourite for the gold medal in men’s javelin throw. But, early into the final, Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem casually jogged in, yawned, and sent one of the best ever throws in all of javelin history: 92.97 metres. Neeraj finished with the silver.

Late that evening, journalists and TV cameras reached Neeraj’s home near Panipat, Haryana. His mum, Saroj, was asked about Neeraj’s performance, the disappointment about not getting the gold, and the even greater disappointment about losing it to a Pakistani.

Mrs Saroj Devi looked straight into the reporter’s eyes, and said, “Hum toh bahut khush hain. Gold jiska aaya hai, woh bhi hamara ladka hai. Mehnat karte hain sab.” (We are very happy. The boy who got the gold is also our boy. Everyone works hard.) There were firecrackers going off in the background.

When Arshad Nadeem’s mother was told about this interview, she responded with, “He (Neeraj) is also like my son. He is Nadeem's friend and also his brother. Wins and losses are part of the sport. May god bless him, may he win medals. They are like brothers, I prayed for Neeraj too.”

I have saved all possible links and articles of these two interviews. They are a beacon of grace and tenderness at a time when it is getting increasingly hard to pass such stories on, because there is decreasing evidence of it. Everyone wants to be seen and shown as hard.² Being called soft is a grave insult in sport. It essentially means you don’t have the stomach for a fight, you are not man enough.

Which brings me to this one message.

All this rambling, this entire essay, was a long-winded way of arriving at the most heart-warming moment in sport this week. Rafael Nadal played his last competitive game of tennis, and Roger Federer sent a note. What you see below is page 1 of 3, so do go through the whole thing.

rogerfederer

A post shared by @rogerfederer

I don’t want to psychoanalyse this, but there are a few conscious decisions in this message. The RF logo wears Spanish colours, and “Rafa that!” plays on “Roger that.” But between these touches lies something extraordinary - a champion secure enough to tell his greatest rival that he never really could figure their game out, that he’s glad his children trained at their academy. It’s hard to imagine a higher compliment.

In 2022, when Federer played his final match, Nadal stood beside him. The tennis that evening was footnote; the most unforgettable sight was these two titans of the game, who’d pushed each other for nearly two decades, bawling their eyes out while holding hands.

Credit: CNN

When we pass on the stories of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, we will speak a lot about their tennis - of course - but maybe we could spare a moment for their vulnerability, their tenderness, and their grace when neither of them really needed to show those sides.

1. The most famous shirt-swap involved a very famous person

2. A current India cricketer is an Andrew Tate fan. I’ll let you guess which one.