PHOTO: IDIVA
KARACHI: Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya came under fire from the Indian cricket board on Wednesday after he appeared on the popular talk show Koffee with Karan aired January 6. Pandya’s comments during the sit down interview with Karan Johar sparked an outrage with many people criticising him for being misogynistic and racist.
The 25-year-old cricketer was accompanied by fellow player Rahul KL on the show, both of whom received show cause notices by the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) in India, demanding an explanation for their comments. Pandya later tweeted an apology, saying he “got carried away with the nature of the show.”
In the interview, Pandya boasted about hooking up with women, saying that his parents were proud of him for that.
“The other day we were at a party and [my parents] asked me tera wala kaun kaun hai (which one here is yours?) And I actually sat with them and said yeh, yeh, yeh (pointing to women). Sab ke saath kuch na kuch karraha hai mere (I have done something or the other with these women here) … and they were like Wah proud of u beta (We are proud of you, Son).”
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At one point in the interview, he boasted about how his name and sexual innuendos attached to it. “My go-to pick up line is ‘Har-dik. Always’. It’s an icebreaker.”
In another one of his comments, he remarked how he likes “to watch [women] and observe how they move”.
“I’m little from the Black side so I need to see how they move,” he said.
Former BCCI general manager Ratnakar Shetty flayed Pandya as “a disgrace to the cricket community [for] the way he spoke on Koffee with Karan”.
“He has insulted women and also made a racist remark,” Shetty said, urging the BCCI to take “corrective steps” and lay down behaviour guidelines for cricketers.
Another Twitter user echoed Shetty’s thoughts, saying, “It might have been fun initially to watch two young sportsmen letting their guards down, but the obnoxious and misogynist attitude of #HardikPandya just was too much to take in.”
One Twitter user called Pandya “creepy and gross” for the way he spoke about women.
People were also seriously upset with the way Pandya spoke about Black culture.
Some users pointed out how this behaviour is normalised via pop culture while other blamed weak parenting for it.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the BCCI is considering barring cricketers from appearing on shows that have “nothing to do with cricket”.
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