Powered by
Sponsored by

Hug and beef gate: Fan who paid Team India's bill at restaurant faces trolling

Beef on the menu, hugs in a bio-bubble: A fan’s tweet generates a perfect storm

indian-cricket-team-australia-navaldeep-singh-twitter Screengrab of the photos taken at the restaurant where Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Navdeep Saini were dining. A photo soon circulated on social media highlighting the beef item on the menu | Twitter

What’s the worst that can happen if you take a photo of the Indian cricket team at a restaurant in your home town and decide to foot the bill?

Not much can go wrong with that picture—unless you upload the photo of the bill to social media.

"They are not aware but I have paid their table bill :). Least I can do for my superstars," Navaldeep Singh wrote, after sighting the players at a Melbourne restaurant on Friday. 

“When they got know that i have paid the bill.. Rohit sharma said bhaji pese lelo yaar acha nai lagta.. i said no sir its on me. Pant hugged me and said photo tabhi hogi jab pese loge wapis. I said no bro not happening. Finally sabane photo khichwai :) mja aa gya yaar #blessed” tweeted Navaldeep Singh, a fan whose name would go down in infamy shortly after.

Two controversy-trains slammed into his Twitter: One about the claim that Rishabh Pant had hugged him—yet another violation of the players’ bio-bubble rules, at a time when both the skipper as well as five top players have been accused of breaching their COVID regulations. The second about the items on the menu: Steamed pork dumplings, stir-fried been and bean sauce, chicken manchurian sausage fried-rice and—the real shocker—two Diet Cokes.

Well, it’s not the Cokes that shocked most but the pork and beef: Foods considered impure to Muslims and taboo to Hindus respectively. While it’s not known who ordered these items, a section of fans took offence almost immediately. Accusations of hypocrisy flew wild on Twitter as Rohit Sharma was known to be vegetarian (though he may have just ordered the Diet Cokes).

In the hyper-polarised India of today, that the national cricket team could find themselves in a dining controversy even amid a pandemic is telling. But this has happened before: In 2018, when the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) shared the menu during lunch break of Test match against England at Lord’s, fans noted the inclusion of “braised beef pasta”. Enough negative comments arrived in response that when the BCCI later arranged a game in Australia in November, they reportedly asked cricket Australia to exclude beef from the menu.

The hug, however, was a more serious concern, given the ongoing controversies over Team India allegedly violating bio-bubble restrictions put in place as a coronavirus-era precaution (Australia has largely contained the virus albeit strict restrictions continue in many places).

Hugging a fan at a restaurant (with questions over whether they were even allowed to visit a restaurant) was a strict no-no—and both Navaldeep Singh and the BCCI later clarified that no hug took place. Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Navdeep Saini have all been placed in isolation following the incident.

However, this was enough to spark a controversy. Both the BCCI and Cricket Australia were investigating the incident, which comes amid mounting friction between both sides over COVID norms. Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya had earlier been accused of breaching COVID-regulations by visiting a baby accessories shop. Amid chatter that Team India had sought to have the next match moved from Brisbane, in opposition to the mandatory hotel quarantine they would have to undergo on arrival, Cricket Australia have said they received no formal request for the same.

However, at the maelstorm of these two controversies is the fan himself, Navaldeep Singh, who faced a tirade of internet meanness over his posts that have thrown Team India into controversy. Singh’s Twitter profile is now locked. With lakhs of views for the video he uploaded comes thousands of comments, not all of them nice. However, aside from the nastyness, there were also some timely memes. 

Hopefully, alls well that ends well—and Team India will get to play their next Test on January 7 while Singh, an aspiring tech YouTuber, will get to keep a valuable selfie with his cricketing stars.

📣 The Week is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@TheWeekmagazine) and stay updated with the latest headlines