Staff Writer - Archi
If you thought the Indian Premier League in India is just attracting foreign players, coaches or support staff, you are terribly wrong. The world’s richest domestic cricket league is also bringing in a horde of performers too in the country thereby making the IPL a great forum for cross-cultural unity.
Back home, they are bankers, school teachers or dancers. But all these young women came down to the Indian shores from far off places like Ukraine, Russia, Belgium and Norway to act as cheerleaders for the IPL.
The IPL has nine teams and the tournament ran from April 4 to May 27. Most cheerleaders for these teams are a mix of Indian and foreign faces.
For instance, the Kings XI Punjab team has 13 cheerleaders, 10 of whom are foreign faces. Of the 16 girls cheering the Delhi Daredevils team, 10 are foreigners. Most of these girls are aged between 19 and 23 years.
These beautiful girls sweat it out in the open cheering for their sides in the hot Indian summer for two long months. Not only that as the matches are played almost all over the country, these girls had to travel a lot too and virtually live out of a suitcase for these two months.
But interestingly most of them claim that it is not only for the money that they come down to India.
“International cheerleaders are coming here (India) because sports activity has became more intercultural and diverse now. We are not here to only make money, we have come to see India, experience the tradition, culture and, of course, dancing is part of it,” said Yuliya Yahovleva, a dancer from Ukraine who is a Delhi Daredevils cheerleader.
“We are enjoying the IPL season as we are getting a chance to travel a lot,” she added.
Buryank, a gymnastics coach from Ireland, says her family is so fond of Indian culture, people and philosophy that they too are actually excited to see her on the Indian soil.
“My mother still watches Indian movies, especially Aishwarya Rai’s films. When they (family) see us cheering in India, they feel proud. We enjoy dancing, singing; and what could be the better way to do all these than be a part of IPL?” she said.
The fascination for India is such that Ukrainian student Ivanna Prytula, who is among the Delhi Daredevils cheerleaders, is also learning the national language of India — Hindi at Kiev University back home.
“Hindi interests me and therefore I am learning,” she said and then went on a conversation in broken Hindi.
Oksana Tunkevyuch, who cheered for the Kings XI Punjab team, came all the way from Belgium where she is a teacher.
“India is a country we always wanted to visit. We wanted to explore different cultures that exist here,” she said.
While staying here, they have picked up some cultural traits of India like wearing a sari.
This traditional wear of the country is the most favourite
outfit of most of these foreign cheerleaders. “We all want to wear it (sari),” Tunkevyuch said while speaking on behalf of her teammates.
They are also crazy and love wearing the traditional accessories such as bangles, bindi, nose rings and necklaces too. Last but not the least, the maang tika (Indian marriage symbol for women), along with mehndi (colours) on their hands, fascinates them a lot.
The Daredevils. Photo courtesy nowpublic.com
However, the companies that bring these women to India chose them because they are hardworking and professionals. “They believe in hard and smart work and this is what we like about them. Most of them are very polite professionals, with no tantrums, and this makes work easy,” an official of an agency handling such cheerleaders said.
Talking about the selection process, he said: “They are hired after an evaluation process which includes interviews and written tests. We also give preference to those who are working in a group since that helps us in coordination.”
And if these girls are feeling at home here, people working with them are also finding it smooth to work with them. Most people, working with them, said despite the language barrier, it is easy to work with them.
“They are far more professional and less demanding. If you want them to be on time for practice, they will make sure they reach before time. Yes, there is a communication barrier, but that’s fine for us,” he said.
So it’s just not two months’ of fun and work for these young girls but it’s also about learning and knowing India for them.
