From condemnation to jokes, how Twitter reacted to fans throwing bottles at Indian team in Cuttack

Fanatic Indian cricket fans have often resorted to violent and radical means to make their displeasure known when their team is down. From setting parts of the stadium ablaze to throwing stones at the houses of cricketers, these outbursts are sadly not unique in India any more. On Monday night, as India struggled in the second T20 against South Africa, spectators at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack decided to express their disappointment during the second innings by hurling water bottles at the fielding Indian players. [caption id=“attachment_2456642” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The bottles strewn on the stadium ground. Image Credit: Twitter[/caption] Put into bat, the hosts faltered against a disciplined South African attack and were bowled out for a paltry 92 in 17.2 overs. As South Africa steadily batted towards victory, the crowd started throwing water bottles on to the ground. This disrupted the match for close to half and hour but only delayed the inevitable as the Proteas cruised to victory. The disgraceful behaviour by the crowd, who did not respond to repeated requests on the public system to keep calm, was condemned across social media. Captain MS Dhoni didn’t seem to take the incident to heart, as was evident by his post match comments. ““Frankly, from a safety point of view, I don’t think there was a very serious threat. A few of the powerful people from the crowd were good enough to throw the bottles inside the rope. So the umpires thought it was better that players go off the field for a while. The reaction of the crowd, you know, we didn’t play well, so at times you get reactions like this. It’s only the first bottle. After that they start throwing for fun. We shouldn’t read too much into it.” But several other cricketers and fans called out the Cuttack crowd on the ‘disgusting’ and ‘disappointing’ behaviour.

However, several Indian Twitterati found a lighter side to the situation as well. There were several jokes doing the round on Twitter, perhaps the only funny thing about the incident.