My generation – the Baby Boomers who've seen extensive scarcity and deprivation – will know what I'm talking about. In our youth, mohalla cricket was 'the thing', but whether there would be a game or not depended on the rich fat boy who owned bat, ball and plastic stumps on a stand. He had to be humoured in every which way, mollycoddled to the extent that until he had scored runs to his satisfaction, the umpire would rule 'no ball' post-facto even if he was clean bowled.

He was crude and rude, and yet he bossed the show! We hated him but had to lump it because we were desperate to play cricket and that would be impossible without the fat boy's largesse! Even at that tender age, we employed the art of sinful compromise and submissiveness in the face of financial power.

I was reminded of cricketing injustice and my own abject conduct from the distant past by the present-day shenanigans of the rich, fat boy of international cricket – the Indian cricket establishment. It's grotesque! The entire international cricketing fraternity is presently dancing to the tune of Billy bhai Jay Shah, whose claim to fame is that he is associated with the supreme boss and don of India!

Not so long ago, my battered heart retched a little upon seeing an ICC-sponsored video of the World Test Championship final between South Africa and Australia in June this year, which SA won on the back of phenomenal performances by Aiden Markram and Kagiso Rabada. The video featured eleven separate shots of Jay Shah but only two of Markram, a testament to the dominance of politics in cricket, the almighty power of the Indian cricket syndicate and the craven submissiveness of other international cricket bodies.

The reality is that the Indian cricket establishment is today the bully on the international cricket stage due to its monstrous financial clout. It has coerced the International Cricket Council (ICC) into doing its bidding, however unreasonable the demands may be.

One recalls the ICC Champions Trophy, hosted by Pakistan earlier this year. The BCCI, unwilling to allow the Indian team to play in Pakistan, arm-twisted the ICC into agreeing to hold the tournament in a "hybrid model," with India playing all its matches in Dubai—a grossly iniquitous decision.

In the past, teams that refused to play in any country forfeited points. In the 2003 World Cup, jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, England refused to play in Harare, and New Zealand cried off playing in Nairobi, for which acts of dereliction, both teams were docked full points. But India dictates its own rules! Not only did the "hybrid model" cause a huge financial loss to Pakistan, but it also gave India a grossly unfair advantage, as its team sat pretty in one location while other teams criss-crossed to various venues, thereby denying them the benefit of acclimatisation to the playing conditions.

The tragedy of Indian cricket in the last few years is that it has been captured by a rogue regime that has moulded cricket in its own ugly image. Except for what happens on the field of play, or more precisely, the wielding of bat and ball, which thankfully is still in the hands of the players, everything else has been disfigured by its footprint.

Cricket has been commandeered as mascot for the regime's political and culture wars - for whipping up a Modi cult; ensuring that only those aligned to its ideology find place in the cricket establishment – the latest execrable example being the appointment of a cricketing nonentity as BCCI President; bending all norms and rules because it has the brute financial muscle to do so; engaging in brazen jingoism that has completely upended the most riveting cricketing rivalry between India and Pakistan and exacerbated anti-Muslim sentiment which is the regime's ruling passion; worst of all, converting the Indian cricket fans into hyper-nationalistic vermin, vicious as hell, who have transmuted the sacred "Jai Shri Ram" chant into a war cry.

India won the recent Asia Cup but returned home disgraced, fittingly without the trophy and the winners' medals. Having decided to compromise its nationalistic outrage at the Pahalgam massacre for filthy lucre, India agreed to participate in the tournament, which meant playing bete noire Pakistan. It is now clear that we went into the tournament with no intent to play cricket in the spirit of the game.

One felt so ashamed of our cricketer puppets, despite their wonderful cricketing skills. In abject compliance with a diktat from the political bosses, they spurned the basic human courtesy of a handshake with their Pakistani opponents. Instead of letting his bat do the talking and showing magnanimity in victory, Suryakumar Yadav strayed into trashy politics, taunted his opponents with needless references to Pahalgam, the valour of our armed forces, and, like a true toady, raved that "Modi himself bats on the front foot; it felt like he took the strike and scored runs!"

When we thought we had seen the worst of unacceptable behaviour, the team transgressed all decorum by refusing to accept the trophy from Mohsin Naqvi, the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) president and Pakistan Cricket Board chief. Predictably, our sanctimonious cricket experts, knowing which side is buttered, were quiescent.

Sportsmen across the world have been bending a knee, raising clenched fists or speaking out against injustice. Moeen Ali and Usman Khwaja have publicly condemned the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. But our guys paraded cheap patriotism and arrogance, dutifully doing the bidding of a regime that, to quote Sushant Singh, uses "cricket as a weapon of political hatred." One missed Rohit and Kohli, who would certainly have resisted being used as pawns in the game of dirty politics! Could this be the reason why Rohit has been dropped as ODI captain for the upcoming tour of Australia?

For over a decade, we have suffered the baleful influence of Modi, the one-man wrecking ball who has debased the rules of political engagement even as he subverts our democracy. He has divided us, destroyed our institutions, inflamed crony capitalism, inequality, unemployment, and what have you. And he is at it again! His disgusting and boorish intervention after our victory diminished us all! He tweeted: "Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins! Congrats to our cricketers!" His disparaging and vituperative message trivialised war and the sacrifices of our armed forces by equating it to a game of cricket. And he undermined the spirit of cricket by viewing it as war by other means!

The great Kapil Dev once said, "If you play good cricket, a lot of bad things get hidden." Sadly, in the Asia Cup, the bad things overwhelmed the great cricket we played. And we lost!