Anjali Doshi: ‘Vicious and relentless’ online abuse after return to cricket broadcasting
Anjali Doshi says she has reported on cricket for two decades and has been subjected to vicious, relentless online abuse, most intensely after returning earlier this year to co‑host Wisden’s new show The Scoop.
Twenty‑four years ago Doshi walked into the Wankhede press box for the first time to cover an India v England one‑day international and recalls being one of only two women in the contingent and suffering intense impostor syndrome. Over her career she covered the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, the 2007‑08 “Monkeygate” series in Australia, the 2010 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the 2011 World Cup in India, worked for top Indian cricket websites, broadsheets and news magazines, served as cricket editor at NDTV 24x7, won a prestigious award for cricket broadcasts, co‑edited The Nightwatchman, edited Tendulkar in Wisden and interviewed Shane Warne, Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar.
Doshi says that in print and on television reporters once worked in a bubble where, unless someone knew you, they had no way of commenting directly on your work. Her first significant encounter with online vitriol came after a 2013 Wisden India piece on the male gaze and sexism during the IPL, in which she questioned the role of presenters who knew little about the game; that essay went viral and drew accusations that she was envious of glamorous presenters and “a bloody feminist,” though those comments were limited at the time.
After a break, she returned earlier this year as co‑host of The Scoop and found the media landscape transformed by influencers, Instagram and TikTok dominating coverage, the “deafening noise of constant outrage from the Indian cricket ‘Twitterati’,” and a focus on one‑ and two‑minute clips created as reels driven by metrics. On The Scoop she produces an Inside Scoop three‑minute segment to offer her perspective and to highlight social issues around the sport, including its politicisation, colourism, racism and sexism.
Doshi says some of the worst abuse came after she criticised Sunil Gavaskar’s comments about Indian‑owned Hundred teams picking Pakistani players and after questioning the presence of cheerleaders in the IPL; she notes Gavaskar had written that the purchase of Pakistani players such as Abrar Ahmed – who was picked up by Sunrisers Leeds – would lead indirectly to the deaths of Indian soldiers and civilians. She also addressed what she calls the systemic sexism and patriarchy behind the fetishisation of white skin and the recruitment of cheerleaders in India, saying India had no culture of cheerleading in sport and pointing out that eight of the 32 NFL teams have done away with cheerleaders.
The abuse Doshi details includes being called a “whingeing cry baby”, a “jealous, sexually frustrated woman”, and being told to “shut up” and “fuck off”. She lists further slurs and threats she has received: being told to “get back in the kitchen”, called a traitor, “libraandu” and a “randi”, accused of sleeping with powerful men to get the job, told to take her clothes off, called a “servant who married her white English colonial master” and a “black Indian bitch”, and receiving messages such as “I hope you get stabbed in London by a militant. I hope that knife is bought from the taxes of Abrar. It will be the best news for many a treat to watch.” She says she has not “entered the cesspit of X” or read YouTube or Facebook comments in detail because calling out the abuse tends to trigger a fresh wave.
Doshi places her experience alongside other women in the game: former England cricketer Alex Hartley faced a “virtual tsunami of abuse” after criticising the timing of Brendon McCullum’s sacking and received messages including “I hope you’re gang raped”; Hartley says that abuse initially put her off being outspoken to the point she deleted her account on X and that “If I still firmly believe what I’m saying is true after I’ve given it a lot of thought for a few hours, I’ll say it.” Melinda Farrell says accusations she didn’t belong in cricket gradually faded but that social media trolling and stalking have increased, adding “While male journalists are abused too, none of it is gendered or sexualised” and “Social media is losing its value for me for those reasons.”
Doshi recounts a separate controversy Farrell discussed on the Cricketer’s County Conversation podcast, involving Hampshire’s brief interest in signing New Zealand cricketer Scott Kuggeleijn after he was accused of rape and indecent assault in 2015; the article states Kuggeleijn was eventually acquitted in 2017 via a retrial after a hung jury, that he had sent the complainant a text apologising for being “pretty persistent”, and that he said the complainant “might have said ‘no, no’ a few times” in court. Farrell says she explained “why women get upset and how this is so personal and triggering for some women,” and that she now posts less, imposes self‑censorship and has been affected by stalking in direct messages, adding “It’s exhausting” and “Ultimately, I have to get on with making a living and having a career.”
She also cites public figures who have shaped discourse, noting the impact of leaders such as Donald Trump on public behaviour, and describes former fast bowler Dale Steyn misrepresenting her comments about cheerleaders before telling her: “Be better.” A global survey by the International Federation of Journalists, she notes, found that nearly two‑thirds of female journalists face online abuse and harassment, which the survey equates to female journalists being harassed online every 30 seconds. Doshi invokes the #MorethanMean campaign video in which men read aloud abusive comments while sitting across from Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro, quoting its closing line: “We wouldn’t say it to their faces, so let’s not type it.” She concludes with a direct appeal to those who hurl abuse: “Be better.”
