Shardul Thakur, Phil Jones, and the Walls of Our Minds
What is common between the Lord and the meme?
On 3rd January this year, Manchester United hosted Wolverhampton Wanderers in a league match. Owing to covid cases, suspensions, and other injuries, they were left with a near-empty bowl to choose their defenders from. So they picked Phil Jones. Since the summer of 2019, he had played two league matches, none in the last two years. A man who, despite being a professional footballer, is more associated with the words clumsy and crock than athletic. That night, Jones strolled out under the floodlights at Old Trafford, a place he has called his home for more than a decade. It doesn’t take a lot these days, but Twitter went nuts.
A few hours later, the Indian men’s cricket team were grasping for a wicket in Johannesburg. Their two star bowlers, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, had bowled a marvellous spell but couldn’t find the edge; and Mohammed Siraj was not fully fit. The captain turned to Shardul Thakur, picked as a bowling all-rounder who might not get too many overs to bowl. He picked three wickets in the blink of an eye, and ended that day with seven. Twitter went nuts, many times over.
Shardul and Jones occupy a golden space on the internet. They are the subjects of running gags, fodder for memes, a couple of jagged figures from otherwise chiselled worlds. With each of their Moments™ comes pandemonium. Everyone gets in on the joke, and jokes are always funnier when the laughter is shared. When Shardul got his first wicket, we lost our minds. He did it again?!?
Both Shardul and Jones are sometimes awkward, sometimes technically inadequate, but rarely elegant. While Shardul clears the threshold with his batting and bowling skills, Jones seems weirdly out of place. And while Jones at least has the body structure of an athlete, Shardul is a little rotund. It is accepted behaviour that every time we look at someone even slightly broad-waisted or awkward, our internal stand-up comic should wake up.
Full disclosure — I have chuckled at many of those jokes. There was a time when I weighed 96 kgs, and my classmates made a parody of Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina to contain the words gas and a not-so-kind nickname they had for me. It hurt, but the song was hilarious. Well, if Humpty and Dumpty are going to fall, so is Sarthak, isn’t he? Lol.
Keeping aside all the mockery, I believe the memes on players like Shardul and Jones are rooted in something else. We basically cannot explain what is happening with them. How is Phil Jones a Man United defender? How is Shardul Thakur turning Test matches in Brisbane and London?
With every new day of sport, we build a stronger mental model of elite athletes. They look a certain way and have a fluidity in their physical movements. It all feels like an extension of the muscles. At the highest level, most of them possess certain skills that they execute better than most. When someone we know of as a backyard bully enters that conversation, we are a bit thrown off, no matter how consistently they land their out-swinger.
Professor Bruce Wexler was a neuroscientist at Yale when he wrote the book Brain and Culture. While exploring our mind’s resistance to unlearning, he wrote:
“During the first part of life, the brain and mind are highly plastic, require sensory input to grow and develop, and shape themselves to the major recurring features of their environment. By early adulthood, the mind and brain have a diminished ability to change those structures...much of the [brain] activity is devoted to making the environment conform to the established structures.”
Long story short, our brains don’t like to — pardon the pun — change their mind. This is true for everything from our preference for certain colours to the personality traits we find abhorrent. It takes a lot to convince us that some of our strongly-held beliefs could be standing on flimsy, wooden planks.
If I were to close my eyes and build an India cricketer, I would not think of taking anything from Shardul. Because I have believed all my life that elegant technique and an athletic physique means a higher ceiling for potential. I would be wrong because I am not counting a key ingredient that makes good athletes.
Technique can only take you so far without mundane things like determination and drive. It is such a deeply-ingrained attribute that we take it for granted. It boggles my mind when I think of the sheer volume of floors one has to climb to even reach the upper levels of the pyramid. Those who don’t fit the conventional archetype, or lack a distinct weapon, have to go through a few extra ones to prove their value. Shardul and Phil Jones, like any athlete to have played at this level, stand at the very top. They are the one-percenters. Modern sport, the high-stakes, high-intensity industry, is not conducive to the casual genius.
So when Shardul runs in at Johannesburg, he not only has the mettle, but has probably extracted every ounce out of his technical gifts. He is acutely aware of his place on the margins of the first team. Eric Simmons, his coach at Chennai Super Kings, tells a story from the 2019 IPL final. Shardul was out on the last ball when CSK needed 2 to win. He was inconsolable in the dressing room, even though he got outdone by arguably the greatest ever T20 bowler. It is not that others would have been flippant, not at all, but these opportunities don’t come every day for the Sharduls of this world.
A few years back, Rahul Dravid had an interesting take on how we spot talent. We look for physical and technical attributes, like striking a ball, but often trivialise the mental fortitude needed to succeed. He contrasted his natural ability as a cricketer with a precocious talent like Vinod Kambli, and spoke about how maybe he was mentally more equipped than Kambli to handle the fame that comes with playing for India.
It is only natural that someone of Dravid’s calibre and nous eventually became a coach. What if — with all due respect — Sreesanth were to become the next Indian coach? And what if India started winning everything? It would be funny, not because Sreesanth looks or behaves a certain way, but because a set of variables that make up his cricketing identity would be achieving results in a perceived controlled environment.
The memes will flow, and Twitter will go nuts. When the inexplicable disturbs established hegemony, it is always hilarious. Like it is with Shardul Thakur right now. He owns the internet because he is different and doesn’t care for blending in. He goes about his business as a Lord should. That’s dynamite and I’m here for it.
P.S. - I am not suggesting Sreesanth become the coach.
You write so well! You make me read about topics I otherwise would not read and enjoy it too - all thanks to your writing 😊 That Dravid video is Gold! 💜 Thank you.
It is accepted behaviour that every time we look at someone even slightly broad waisted or awkward, our internal stand-up comic should wake up.
When someone we know of as a backyard bully enters that conversation, we are a bit thrown off, no matter how consistently they land their out-swinger.
I love your writing. People are full of contradictions and I feel those who don't pay attention to the noise and just keep doing what they are good at or where they want to improve, they become legends. Sreesanth as Indian coach though...
Your stylish post made me think, made a point and then ended with a blast! Are you sure you are not just damn awesome? I recommend you get tested please.
Much gratitude for sharing this with us.