As the landscape of Indian cricket undergoes a tectonic shift, former all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin has sparked a necessary firestorm regarding the sport’s internal culture. Speaking at the Revsportz Conclave in Kolkata, Ashwin, who bid farewell to the international stage in December 2024 following the iconic Boxing Day Test delivered a blunt critique of what he terms a ‘disease’ infecting the game: the rise of orchestrated fan agendas and the suffocating superhero culture that prioritizes individual brand value over the sport itself.

Ravichandran Ashwin critiques fan armies, warns against idolising cricketers

Ashwin’s observations go beyond simple social media trolling. He pointed toward a sophisticated business structure where player-centric narratives are manufactured and amplified by PR machineries. He noted a scary pattern where private conversations held at team breakfast tables often reappear online under the guise of organic fan opinions. While Ashwin was careful not to accuse active players of planting stories, he highlighted that the modern cricketer is now an entrepreneur, and the pressure to increase brand value has led to an environment where speaking ill of peers has become a tool for self-promotion.

“Where did all this begin? We started creating narratives around players. We started painting a superhero culture, a cinematic culture. Who even talks about cricket now? Nobody speaks about the game itself,” Ashwin stated at the event.

The veteran off-spinner, who ended his career as India’s second-highest Test wicket-taker with 537 scalps, lamented that the essence of cricket has been lost. Citing an example from early 2025 regarding his technical analysis of Shubman Gill’s dismissal, Ashwin noted how the discourse immediately devolved into personal comparisons rather than a study of the game. For Ashwin, the shift from analyzing a delivery to defending a “superhero” signifies a departure from the intellectual core of Indian cricket.

“Some time ago, I put out a Twitter thread about what Shubman was doing that was leading to his dismissals in a certain way. For me, it is always about the ‘what’ and the ‘why,’ never the ‘whom.’ But immediately it became about comparison—why only Shubman and not someone else? I was like, do you even follow what I do? The point is, we moved the game away from its essence, its centrepiece, and made it about the ‘who’,” he added.

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Dismantling the star culture: The Gautam Gambhir and Sunil Gavaskar mandate

Ashwin’s critique aligns perfectly with a broader movement currently sweeping through the Indian dressing room. Following a challenging 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, head coach Gautam Gambhir has been vocal about his mission to “build a super team, not superstars.” Gambhir, fresh off leading India to a historic Champions Trophy 2025 title and a third T20 World Cup win in March 2026, has consistently argued that the media’s obsession with individual TRPs and social media followings is detrimental to collective success.

This sentiment was echoed by legend Sunil Gavaskar, who recently urged the BCCI to enforce stricter accountability. Gavaskar’s no-holds-barred advice emphasized that the ‘pampering’ of stars must end, advocating for a culture where total commitment to the national badge is the only currency for selection. With stalwarts like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli transitioning into the final phases of their careers, the management’s focus has shifted toward equalizing the dressing room.

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