Sometimes it’s in the title. For the India vs Pakistan T20 World Cup match, Star Sports hired an influencer named Fukra Insaan for the promotion. The thing is, when you hire a pimp, you get a promo pimp: poor taste, no class. Basically worthless – exactly what the word means.
Fukra Insaan, for the uninitiated, is a YouTube personality whose content is built around reaction videos. She excels at borrowing other people’s moments and making them her own.
In retrospect, he was the perfect employee because that’s exactly what he was Star Sports tackled the India-Pakistan rivalry. They have borrowed decades old cricket rivalry, steeped in history, tension and real sports drama, and made cheap content out of it.
TROLLING THE RIVALRY
The ad reaped the 8-1 record India hold against Pakistan in the ICC knockouts. It’s a real statistic. It’s also the laziest possible thing to reach for. Imagine being handed the script of the world’s most watched cricket rivalry and you decide to go with the obvious.
Come on, give us something that makes fans say aha, not yawn over the stats everyone knows.
Remember the 2007 final – the ‘in the air and Sreesanth takes it’ moment? Guess how the batter that Dil-took the catch was trolled for years? “Misbah five runs. This is the art of trolling captured in one moment, one line. No score. No smug influencer. Just five words that, twenty years later, will revive the grief of an entire nation.
Pakistan cricket gave Indian fans real drama, moments of heart-pounding tension that made the score of 8-1 mean something more than numbers. Wasim and Waqar break down the batting line-ups. Javed Miandad’s last ball in Sharjah, his antics in 1992, Shoaib Akhtar versus Sachin in 2003, a contest so fierce it needed no commentary. This rivalry needs no artificial heat. It carries with it decades of subcontinental rivalry, a history of division, and the specific madness of two nations that only comfortably meet on a cricket field.
Reducing it all to a YouTube influencer making smug faces in an elevator is not trolling Pakistan. It’s trolling the rivalry itself.
JOKERS OR CHOKERS?
Then came advertising in South Africa. If Pakistan’s promotion was lazy, South Africa’s was mean in a way that only the truly uncreative can do.
The creators went straight for the “chokers” jugular. They showed a South African fan getting caught. Star Sports would really like to make sure that the fans get it, so they made it as subtle as a Dada Kondke movie. Screen grab of Star Sports ad
South Africa is a first class team. They are the reigning World Testing Championsa side that has rebuilt itself into one of the most complete outfits in world cricket. Even the label “chokers”, if you bother to look closely, has a quietly heroic story behind it.
1992 World Cup semi-final and finish adjusted for rain. They didn’t suffocate, they were robbed. The semi-final in 1999 and Lance Klusener’s amazing last-wicket partnership that took South Africa to the brink only to end it. It was a tragedy, not a weakness. Last year’s final, where they pushed the eventual champions to last place. Each near-past was closer, braver, more excruciating than the last.
There is real drama in South Africa’s story that makes them respect the real fans. Making fun of someone choking on food is the creative equivalent of laughing at someone tripping over a hidden string. It’s evil without being clever, cruel without being funny.
THE JOKE IS ON THE BROADCAST
What makes it doubly embarrassing is that Star Sports is the official broadcaster. His role is that of a narrator, a witness, not a partisan troll.
Star Sports did it once. Mauka Mauka’s love-it-or-hate-it campaign had a point of view. It understood that great sports trolling must recognize the dignity of an opponent before poking them. But the 2026 campaign is crass, cringe-worthy.
You can’t think of the Ind-Pak World Cup and not think of Mauka Mauka.
This ad is ICONIC because it did the impossible:
– It screams loyalty to your team, but it’s also in the spirit of cricket
– It’s a wild shadow, but it’s not hate
– It’s an ad to support Team India, pic.twitter.com/oa8tdabRS2— Mad Over Marketing (@MadOMarketing) October 14, 2023
The irony is crushing: in trying to extol India’s opponents as worthy targets of ridicule, they have revealed how little they think of Indian cricket fans.
They assumed we would settle for smug looking fans. They assumed we would giggle at a man choking on food. They assumed we didn’t know the difference between a joke and a riot. They thought stupid was the new smart thing. But when it tries cheap tricks to attract more Indian eyes, the joke is on the air.
Just look!
Finally, sport is about humility. It’s about the dangers of arrogance. In the 1987 World Cup, every time Pakistan took the field, their fans taunted their opponents by chanting the RD Burman song, Aa Dekhe Zara, Kis Me Kitna Hai Dum (Come on, let’s see who has the power.)
Pakistan were eliminated in the semi-finals.
Star Sports would remember the story well. When you spend your energy mocking the opposition, you’ve already lost the plot.
A true fan knows that cricket will settle scores. This is always true. And that’s why they give opponents the dignity they deserve.
Because they know India might have their own fukra moment on the field.
Sandipan Sharma, our guest writer, likes to write about cricket, film, music and politics. They believe they are connected.
T20 World Cup | T20 World Cup Schedule | T20 World Cup Points Table | T20 World Cup Videos | Cricket News | Live Score
– The end
Issued by:
Saurabh Kumar
Published on:
February 19, 2026