When you watch footage of cricket matches from 30-40 years ago, the first thing that strikes you is that players rarely celebrate after taking a wicket or scoring a hundred.
Get the batsman out, a smile or a simple raise of a hand, and back to the top of the run-up for the next ball – that was the routine for bowlers then.
The odds of seeing that now are pretty low as most bowlers (and fielders) now regularly come up with celebrations that you would more likely associate with football.
The latest trend in the world of cricket celebrations is to break out into a dance after taking a wicket or a catch. We’ve seen a lot of this in the IPL, and unsurprisingly, it is the West Indians who have taken the lead. Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Darren Sammy are some leaders of this ‘dance movement’.
Chris Gayle has further popularised South Korean singer Psy’s insanely popular ‘Gangnam Style’ within cricket circles.
The Jamaican, who has earlier celebrated wickets for the West Indies with the dance, debuted it in the IPL during the match against Pune Warriors. After scoring a brutal 175 unbeaten innings of just 66 balls, Gayle also dismissed two Warriors tail-enders — and duly celebrated his superb outing with ‘Gangnam style’.
Dwayne Bravo brings out one outrageous jig after another after taking a wicket or a catch. Darren Sammy also has a history of doing celebratory dances in international cricket, but has celebrated wickets (and his first fifty in T20s) in the IPL in the same way as footballer Carlos Tevez celebrated a couple of his goals a few years ago. Sammy has made a habit of removing a baby’s pacifier and sucking on it, for his newborn baby girl.
Harbhajan Singh produced a dance, which is a cross between Gangnam Style and Bhangra after getting Chris Gayle out, and a football-style ‘finger to the lips’ celebration against Kolkata.
And then, there is the other breed of players who celebrate personal (or team) successes as if they have just wiped out an enemy battalion in World War II. Virat Kohli, RCB captain, for example, celebrates his team’s wickets and his own personal landmarks with anger rather than joy. A lot of other young players celebrate in a similar fashion, apparently to flaunt their aggression.