Level Field

On the mental gymnastics of experiencing great art from great artists, but on canvas paper made in factories owned by a mafia boss

Last Sunday, as the fifteen members of the India squad walked up to the dais to collect their Champions Trophy medals, I was looking for Varun Chakravarthy. A global title is special for everyone, but this one meant a little more to him. Three years and some months back, on this very ground, his international career had been flattened and banished to the wilderness. Varun was the mystery spinner in India’s bowling attack at the 2021 T20 World Cup, but Dubai’s late-October dew turned his fingers to jelly, his skills to dust. Pakistan and New Zealand’s batters tore through him, taking apart every variation he possessed, one ball and blow at a time. And India, it seemed, gave up on him just as quickly.

“After the 2021 World Cup, I received threat calls. People said, 'Don't come to India. If you try, you won't be able to'. People approached my house and tracked me down, and I sometimes had to hide. When I was returning from the airport, some people followed me on their bikes. It happens. I can understand fans are emotional.” - Varun, speaking to a YouTube channel

Even for this tournament, three years into a soaring comeback, he was a late inclusion, brought in after Jasprit Bumrah withdrew with injury.

Varun’s turn for the medal came early – players were called in alphabetical order of surnames. He walked with big, wide, sparkling eyes, his face barely breaking into a half-smile, his steps tentative. He stole glances at the packed stands of Dubai International Stadium as if checking whether this moment was real or mirage – him, a world title holder, a key cog in the spin-bowling machine that had given India their edge. While his teammates strutted with chests puffed out like Hollywood stars on Oscar night, owning every second of it, Varun moved slowly, absorbing each pixel of the scene. You could tell he wasn’t sure if night skies would ever again rain such stardust upon him.

Varun Chakravarthy’s life reads a bit like a Japanese thriller fiction. He made his acting debut in 2014 in the Tamil movie ‘Jeeva’, studied architecture until 2016, abandoned his first love and practice to become a professional cricketer in 2017, cracked the Indian Premier League by 2019, and made the India team in 2021. And, as IndianExpress’ wonderful Venkata Krishna B discovered, there was a time when Varun was just a net bowler to former India opener Kris Srikkanth’s son Anirudha, collecting a measly Rs 500 per session.

His is a story that makes the heart lean in, that makes you will a player forward. In Indian cricket, such stories bloom wherever you look. Jasprit Bumrah without shoes until a neighbor’s kindness; Virat Kohli batting for Delhi the morning after his father’s passing, crafting 90 tough runs with grief still wet on his red, puffy eyes; Rishabh Pant climbing back from a crash that nearly killed him; Rohit Sharma rebuilding his career after six years of performances that rose and fell like uncertain tides.

When Ravindra Jadeja hit the winning boundary, there was elation, yes, but little exhilaration. India have been so far ahead of the rest, so dense with talent, that their victory seemed less achievement and more confirmation. Jadeja bats at six-down for this team – a luxury that, as Jarrod Kimber put it, is like using a Lamborghini to fetch milk from the corner store.

Just look at those who didn’t make the playing eleven. Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, and Rishabh Pant were on the bench. Back in India, preparing for the IPL, were Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, and Yuzvendra Chahal. Jasprit Bumrah, the world’s best cricketer, was last spotted at a Coldplay concert in his hometown Ahmedabad, a shy smile crossing his face as Chris Martin serenaded him with, “Jasprit, my beautiful brother…”

On an recent YouTube podcast, Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc summed it up in perfect words: “I think they are probably the only nation that can have a Test team, a one-day team and a T20 team play on the same day against Australia in the Test, England in the one-dayer and South Africa in the T20I; and India will be competitive.”

A world title, with all this context, becomes a catalyst for celebrating a top team climbing another mountain. But that hasn't happened. Much of the narrative around India’s triumph has instead focused on their supposed advantage – all matches in Dubai, no hotel changes for two weeks, while others hopscotched between cities, sometimes between Pakistan and Dubai.¹

Was this a serious and unfair advantage? Those with emotional and financial ties to the Indian team, like Sunil Gavaskar and Gautam Gambhir, dismissed such talk as regular cribbing. Then Mohammed Shami, with the directness of a bouncer, made them look foolish by stating the obvious truth: familiarity brings clarity, which – played right – brings an edge.

The instinct to discredit the overwhelming favourites usually comes from traveling journalists, a list of ready-made excuses to sugarcoat their own team’s misery. This time, the noise has collected force from within the playing circle itself. When the South Africans and Kiwis start grumbling, it’s time to pay attention. My theory is that their irritation has less to do with this single tournament and is, instead, an outpour of built-up frustration from years of watching the sport’s governing body, the ICC, transform into what one can now call the India Centric Circus.

Either way, they weren’t wrong. India did have the scheduling advantage, as they have had at major events for years now. Cricket runs on India’s money, and those in power a decade ago lacked either will or strength to deny India’s request to reshape the ICC’s once-egalitarian revenue structure to benefit the already wealthy².

But it feels a bit odd to place this asterisk beside this team's achievement. For all the advantages handed to them, for every rupee they bring back from ICC coffers, they still had to walk the path without stumbling. Padded and cushioned Nike shoes might give some comfort, but they can’t help a bad runner win a race.

This India white-ball setup – both ODI and T20 teams – have been so good it almost doesn’t seem real. They’ve won 22 of their last 23 games at world tournaments. Across three different global competitions, their only defeat came in that World Cup final at Ahmedabad. They bat better than everyone else, bowl tighter than everyone else, and field at a level that’s consistently above-average.

To become this good, in times when every muscle twitch is analysed by optical cameras and GPU-powered software, requires both exceptional technical skill and an ecosystem that breeds success. One doesn't simply walk into a global tournament missing their greatest cricketer in a generation and stroll out with gold unless something remarkable is happening beneath the surface.

I am writing this as Manchester United face Real Sociedad in a European fixture. Playing in United’s central defence is 18-year-old Ayden Heaven; on their bench waits 17-year-old Harry Amass. At various points this season, they’ve been forced to turn to 17-year-old Danish striker Chido Obi.

Having to dig deep into academy squads is common for teams going through turbulent seasons. United are having one scripted in the hottest, darkest corners of hell. Their results and fitness have taken simultaneous nosedives, to the point where watching them these days feels like witnessing a car wreck in slow motion. Their new coach, 40-year-old Portuguese Ruben Amorim, has been trying to install a tactical formation without ever having his full squad at his disposal. With each press conference, more wrinkles appear beneath his eyes and fresh grey strands pop out from his well-trimmed beard. I wonder if he’ll turn into Michael Caine by the end of the football season.

The weekend before, I watched a team at the opposite end of the vitality spectrum. Manchester City were playing at Nottingham Forest. City, too, are suffering through a bad season, though “bad” by their standards means fifth on the Premier League table and an early Champions League exit. Against Forest, even while trailing, coach Pep Guardiola felt comfortable enough to leave 29-year-old Jack Grealish – a £100 million acquisition from Aston Villa three years ago – warming the bench.

Over the last decade, City and Guardiola have transformed one of Europe's most competitive leagues into something of a stroll, like a coronation ceremony performed annually for the same royal family. Last season, they became the first team to win four consecutive Premier League titles. During this time, City have touched the 100-point mark in a season, filled trophy cabinets with domestic silverware, claimed a European crown – all while playing football so aesthetically immaculate it sometimes resembles performance art more than sport.

There is, however, a “but” in this story.

In February 2023, the Premier League formally announced 115 charges against Manchester City, following a lengthy investigation spanning several years. These charges primarily relate to alleged financial irregularities during a period of unprecedented success for the club under the ownership of Sheikh Mansour, who acquired Manchester City in 2008. The allegations cover a 14-year timeframe and were triggered by documents initially leaked by German magazine Der Spiegel in 2018, which purportedly revealed emails between City executives showing financial rule violations.

Of the 115 charges, 80 pertain to breaches of Premier League financial regulations between 2009 and 2018, while the remaining 35 charges relate to the club’s alleged failure to cooperate with the Premier League's investigation. The specific charges include failing to provide accurate financial information for nine seasons, inadequate disclosure of player wages for six seasons, and incomplete reporting of then-manager Roberto Mancini’s compensation for four seasons. Additionally, the club faces accusations of non-compliance with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations across five seasons.

The core allegations suggest that Manchester City inflated sponsorship revenues from UAE state-controlled companies including Etihad Airways and telecommunications firm Etisalat by disguising direct investment from Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group as legitimate sponsorship income.³

The clip below is reported to be a footage of the Manchester City top-management group discussing their next steps with the case.

The verdict is expected any time now, yet the consensus remains that next season, City will again spend astronomical sums to replace the departing genius Kevin de Bruyne with another premier midfield talent. At one point during proceedings, City marched into court flanked by thirty elite lawyers, a legal armada deployed at wages that would make even Premier League footballers blush.

For something of such magnitude – a case like this could reshape English football’s landscape – the coverage remains curiously muted, almost whispered. These allegations are treated like typographical errors on official documents, near-forgotten footnotes. This happens partly because the story of football is crafted within the sport’s echo chamber, which relegates everything from illegal finances to ongoing sexual assault charges as mere “off-field activities” – distractions from the real plot point of how many goals Erling Haaland has scored this season.

The distaste for City’s methods surfaces elsewhere. They are rarely given the same pedestal as Ferguson’s United or Paisley’s Liverpool. Beyond suspicions about their financial manoeuvres lies a deeper sentiment – that City’s achievements resemble nothing so much as the spoiled child of an oligarch family buying his first Ferrari and believing himself a racing driver.

Their fans, however, will mount the same defence as those with crisp Kohli jerseys hanging in their cupboards. You cannot simply erase what Guardiola or Kevin de Bruyne or Ruben Dias have achieved. Their midfielder Rodri claimed the Ballon d'Or last season – that golden recognition of being the world’s finest footballer, judged through votes from football journalists across a hundred nations. Most of their players slide effortlessly into any starting eleven on the planet.

It’s a tough one, separating the player from the shirt they wear. How do you untangle them? The players represent the badge, get pictures clicked with industrialists financing dubious campaigns, dance alongside sports chiefs who just happen to be sons of their home ministers, and smile in gambling advertisements that flash across television screens during family dinners.

On the flipside, they do it because they have to. I don’t think either Varun or Rodri watch YouTube clips about their team owners. They just want to do their thing, to send balls arcing through thin air, to feel that moment when muscle memory and instinct merge to turn their limbs into wands.

It’s one of 21st century sport’s great contradictions. The art is great, worth surrendering many Sundays over, the artists made from a rare kind of flesh, but the brush is stolen, the paper is made from the ivory of poached elephants, and the factory that distills their paint employs primary school kids on measly wages.

1. South Africa flew into Dubai, waited for India’s game with New Zealand to finish, and then had to fly back to Lahore the same night.

2. Watch Death of a Gentleman.

3. Wild shit.