What happens when your most private heartbreak plays out like a reality show for the entire country? For Dhanashree Verma, there was no hiding behind cryptic captions or disappearing offline. Her divorce was dissected in real time by strangers, memes, and headlines. While there was a lot of noise and accusations of cheating, the marriage being fake, and more, Dhanashree isn’t bitter or against love. But she admits that the relentless trolling by cricket fanboys does get under the skin at times.

Yuzvendra Chahal and Dhanashree’s divorce

After Yuzvendra Chahal and Dhanashree Verma’s wedding in 2020, fans wasted no time questioning her motives in the relationship. The cricket fanboys were sure that the only reason Dhanashree married Chahal was for money and fame.

But why is it that a cricketer’s wife always comes under fire? For Dhanashree, her popularity as an influencer seems to rub trolls the wrong way. Her dance reels and glamorous presence on Instagram were criticised. In 2024, Dhanashree was trolled for posting a picture with a fellow choreographer. Gair mard, you see.

From the day their divorce rumours started doing the rounds online to their actual divorce, the trolling and abusing kept getting worse. People left supportive comments on Chahal’s posts and hateful ones on Dhanashree’s Instagram.

Cricket fans’ obsession with cricketers’ wives

Some of these cricket fans have the audacity to lecture Dhanashree on being like Anushka Sharma, who supports and stands beside Virat Kohli at all times. But the irony here is way too strong. They are now supporting the same Anushka Sharma whom they trolled for years due to Virat’s poor on-field performance. People burnt her posters and called her “bad luck” just because Virat was out of form. While many labelled Anushka as “distracting” because of her stardom, they accused Dhanashree of wanting fame through Yuzvendra.

Dhanashree admits that this kind of trolling gets under her skin. But she called it out directly saying, “When you don’t know anything, how are you labelling the woman? People always comment. They commented even when I was not associated with anyone much before my marriage.” And then, as if things weren’t dramatic enough, in walked Yuzvendra Chahal in a T-shirt that said: Be Your Own Sugar Daddy. Social media had a field day with memes, no one accused him of trying to play the victim or get attention.

 

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Dhanashree also admits feeling scared of not getting work after the divorce but that fear didn’t come true. “I am still getting work and being appreciated for the talent I carry,” she said in a podcast with Humans of Bombay. Reports almost confirm Dhanashree as one of the guests on Salman Khan’s reality show Bigg Boss 19.

This isn’t just trolling

People abused and trolled Nataša Stanković, Hardik Pandya’s ex-wife, only because the Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians team didn’t perform well in IPL 2024. You won’t find any logic here because none exists. When fans get too frustrated with their favourite players’ performances, they troll the wife. If she supports her husband, troll her. If she doesn’t support her husband, troll her. These fanboys act like cricketers are superheroes undone by their ‘wrong’ choice of partners. But how is any player’s personal life important when it comes to cricket? Why is it so difficult to keep a cricketer’s personal and professional lives apart?

Deep-rooted misogyny is the issue here. Society treats these women as the “wives of cricketers,” without their own identities and achievements. When will cricket fans start thinking of their favourite players as capable adults responsible for their own actions? When will we stop abusing women just because they married or divorced a famous man?

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