Indian cricketer and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) off-spinner Shreyanka Patil found herself in the centre of an online debate after she re-did her popular dance moves from the song ‘Babli Badmaash Hai’ at a live event. The 24-year-old cricketer performed the moves on August 26 at the India Today Karnataka Roundtable and did a dance routine she had earlier posted with her followers on Instagram.
The performance quickly caught the eye of social media, with enthusiastic responses mixed with criticism. While some fans were impressed with Patil’s confidence and openness about herself outside the cricket field, others questioned whether a cricket-focused event should focus on a player’s dancing rather than her sporting achievements.
Patil seemed unfazed by the criticism. She took her critics as jealous trolls and said that the attention itself keeps people talking about her. Her response spoke to her more confident public persona, especially as she has become a well-known figure in Indian women’s cricket and the RCB.
The cricketer has never hidden her love of dance and entertainment away from the cricket field. Her previous Instagram reel of ‘Babli Badmaash Hai’ was already getting a lot of attention and recreating the routine in public again put her in the limelight. Patil didn’t let the criticism determine how she presented herself; she said she enjoys dancing and looks at it as another form of expression.
But the episode has reopened a familiar dialogue about professional athletes and their lives away from sport. Cricket fans like players not only for their performance on the field but also their attitude, fashion choices, social media posts and activities off the field. Social media has become a more important forum for younger athletes in particular to connect directly with supporters and show a more personal side of their lives.
Patil’s supporters argued that there is no reason a professional cricketer can’t enjoy music and dance while keeping her sporting commitments. She wasn’t going to be exposed and would have to come out and tell others about that, but fans appreciated it because she was confident and seemed to perform well in front of an audience.
Some social media users questioned the attention paid to the dance performance at the same time and also questioned the coverage of the dance performance. The focus on Patil’s cricket skills and achievements deserves to be placed on her dancing, and she is an athlete, but their performance as a professional cricketer could be overlooked in the media, they said. This debate highlights the different expectations placed on the athletes, and more specifically women athletes, and what people are often subject to the public’s attention not only in terms of their physical appearance but also in terms of their lifestyles and behaviour and how they perform in public and in terms of their performance in cricket; they have different expectations in general.
Patil is one of the most promising names in Indian women’s cricket. A talented off-spinner and lower-order batter, she has represented India and developed herself as part of RCB’s women’s cricket team. Her performances have helped her build a growing fan base, and her energy-driven personality has made her also very popular on social media.
Shreyanka Patil performed the same moves in the India Today studio that she was trolled for. 😅🔥
— Jara (@JARA_Memer) August 27, 2026
She just cooked all those hypocrites who trolled her simply because she’s a girl. If the exact same reel had been made by a male cricketer, everyone would’ve been praising him as… pic.twitter.com/3LV9b7JRlw
That is why this latest controversy is less about the dance itself than the question of how sports personalities should behave in public. Patil’s answer tells us that she is comfortable with how a cricketer’s identity goes with her outside the game.
Yet another viral moment for Patil’s social media presence: Babli Badmaash Hai. But it is not clear if this moment is a moment that has really caught the eye of some of her critics, but she seems determined to make the fans’ attention on her own terms, and it’s not that she wants to give up because trolls are calling her out.
As women’s cricket in India is winning more and more fans and has a wider audience, players like Patil are becoming more and more public figures in the sport. Their personalities, interests and social media activities are naturally becoming part of the conversation as well. Patil’s dance performance in particular has stirred up some controversy, but it also served to highlight her confidence and willingness to keep herself in the public eye.
