Cricket does not belong in the core zone of a tiger reserve, yet a match inside Nagarhole has exposed just how vulnerable India’s so-called “protected” spaces really are. As reported by Sports Yaari, people were filmed playing cricket near the Nanchi safari point—deep inside the core of Nagarhole Tiger Reserve. This isn’t a minor disturbance. This is a direct violation of the only territory tigers can still call their own.
A Core Zone Is Not A Playground
The core area of any tiger reserve exists for a single purpose: to give tigers a space free of human movement, noise and unpredictable behaviour. A cricket match is the polar opposite of that. Sudden movement, loud reactions, unpredictable noise, clustered groups—everything about cricket disrupts tiger behaviour. It doesn’t matter who plays it. It doesn’t matter why. A core zone is a no-entry zone for a reason.
When humans appear inside that space, tigers don’t adapt. They retreat. They avoid. They lose ground. And every metre lost in a shrinking landscape becomes another trigger for human–tiger conflict elsewhere.
This Behaviour Reflects A Dangerous Normalisation
Forest officers clarified that the cricket players were tribal residents from nearby haadis. Their lives are intertwined with the forest—this is true. But even traditional presence must shift when the forest can no longer absorb disturbance. The behaviour itself—playing cricket—is not harmful in spirit. The location of the behaviour is. Because inside a core zone, even normal human routines become intrusive simply because the space was never meant to accommodate human noise.
The tragedy is that people play cricket there because the system has blurred boundaries for years. When line-drawing is inconsistent, behaviour adapts to those inconsistencies. That doesn’t make the act acceptable—but it exposes how the reserve has been allowed to drift into a grey zone where even core boundaries feel optional.
Rising Conflict Makes This Even More Reckless
Karnataka is experiencing increasing human–tiger conflict. Livestock losses. Fear in buffer villages. Tigers pushed closer to human settlements as corridors thin and forest quality drops. In such a fragile moment, any human intrusion into a core zone is reckless. Every unnecessary disturbance inside tiger habitat increases the pressure elsewhere: a spooked tiger shifts territory, a displaced animal moves toward villages, a mother with cubs avoids hunting grounds because human scent lingers.
Cricket inside a core zone may look harmless to the players. But to a tiger operating on instinct, it is a signal of chaos in the one place meant to be predictable.
Understanding Behaviour Without Excusing It
Haadi residents live in coexistence with the forest. They understand tiger presence, danger hours, movement paths. But coexistence does not mean the core zone is a communal yard. Their behaviour inside core space is understandable—but still unacceptable. The reserve exists to protect tigers, not to accommodate human recreation, however culturally rooted.
To blame the tribals alone would be dishonest; the real failure lies in the long-term normalization that made cricket in the core zone feel permissible. But acknowledging that context is not the same as tolerating the behaviour. Tigers must have at least one uncompromised space. Core zones are not symbolic—they are survival architecture.
A Reserve That Cannot Protect Its Core Cannot Protect Anything
A tiger reserve is judged not by its buffer, not by its safari zone, not by its slogans. It is judged by the integrity of its core. If cricket appears there, then enforcement is weak, boundaries are blurred, and the forest is absorbing pressure it cannot afford.
Everyone loses:
Tigers lose security.
Communities lose safety.
The reserve loses meaning.
The system loses credibility.
A core zone must be treated as sacred ground—silent, intact, and free from human presence. That is the minimum requirement for genuine conservation.
Behaviour inside the forest must reflect this truth. And sustained behavioural change will matter only when the message becomes unambiguous: tiger space is not human space, and core zones are not cricket fields.
Source: Sports Yaari, India
Photo: Sports Yaari, India
