aditya kumar's weblog

From what I have seen so far, Set Max’s coverage of the Cricket World cup has been trashy. I am surprised by the lowly standards touched by this channel.

There is nothing wrong in starting the “coverage” of the match, a couple of hours before the game actually starts and they have tried to rope in most of the so-called experts of the game. Indeed, everyone has his own opinion and the panels usually end up saying everything plausible about the game of the day. Where Max has gone wrong, and this surprises and concerns me the most, is messing up with the basics of sports telecasting. There is so much hurry for showing the advertisements that you can be sure of missing the last ball of the over in case the 6th ball of the over happens to be a no-ball. We have often blamed the state broadcaster for a telecast of this quality but now MAX seems to be giving DD a run for the money. Let’s see who is more messy. This shows how professional the channel is.

Then there is that stupid animated character (Wasn’t it present in the 2003 edition too?). Two bad things there — it’s a little too big on the size and it makes a lot of noise. The sound level is way too high.

My personal favorite sports broadcaster is ESPN Star Sports. I believe they end up with the best cricket commentators. Most of it has been a result of their experience and expertise with broadcasting sports events. It’s sad that the channel hasn’t been able to broadcast most of the Indian cricket events but I have looked forward to their broadcast everytime.

Coming back to Set MAX, the World Cup has barely started and I am already disappointed by their live feed. It is true that whatever they dish out to the cricket starved society of ours will be accepted without complaints as long as it’s cricket, but that doesn’t mean you put a fly in the soup everytime you serve it out!

The more I see of Sreesanth, the more a character he appears to me. Towards the end of the days play, South Africa at a good 139 for 1, Sreesanth bowling to a well set Amla. Our hero starts his run-up from — guess where — Somewhere near long off. Running topsy-turvy, parabola like, as he approaches the crease, he’s completely behind the umpire and then finally comes out with a, another guess what — slower delivery. So he is trying everything legitimate to knock off the concentration of batsman. Reminds me of this historic test match when Gillespie bowled to Laxman (or was it Dravid?) with his arms flapping like a bird.

Except that, in both cases, the batsmen didn’t oblige.

And Muralitharan. Look at his face while he bowls — his eyes are not only focussed at the point where he intends to pitch the ball at, but almost popping out with his mouth wide open. Goosebumps guaranteed. Oh and that peculiar chinaman from South Africa, Paul Adams. After a bit (?) of twisting and turning while he bowls, at the point of delivery — his eyes are in the sky(!) . He’s taken more than a 100 test wickets like that. Without even looking at the batsman.

Sreesanth could have taken a cue or two from Andre Nel, his South African counterpart of sorts. Both are good bowlers but have a long way to go. Nel, by now, must be knowing the names of all the ICC Match refrees at the back of his hand. And yet he gets away with it.

How could you justify these antics then? More often than not, these are unsuccessful attempts by desperate bowlers. I think the answer lies somewhere in the fact that, over the last decade or so, cricket has turned out to be more of a batsmans game and bowlers need to do something different. Though things like these have added to the amusement of the spectators, I doubt if it has done any good to the bowlers.

Now that I have travelled to all the four metros of the country (and lived for 10 years in two of them), I hereby proclaim that Kolkata is the most metropolitan city of all.

You could be surprised but that is what I feel. Of course, like always, you may or may not agree with me.

Let’s go at the beginning. Let’s just ask ourselves, and this is a tricky one, what exactly is a metropolitan city? Is it high rise buildings? Is it the big roads and the transportation that makes a city a metro? Is it the food? Is it the dressing style of the people? Is it People?

I think in the acceptability of various cultures lies the real essence of any metropolitan city. High rise buildings are only a few decades old.

When I went to Kolkata, I had to look at it as a metro. I had expectations but looking at this city, I wanted to go back and check out the meaning of the word “Metropolitan”. I needed to evaluate the city but I was forced to re-evaluate the benchmarks first. Because I feel, over the years, the definition of a Metropolitan city has been messed up with.

In Kolkata, there is a certain openness to everything. Because when a guy from Bangalore walks on chowringhee road, they don’t call him a madrasi like they do in Delhi. Because there they start off their first sentence in Bengali and by noticing your bewildered look, they smile and say it again in Hindi. Because there the UP wallahs and the Biharis are considered partners at work, rather than being treated as outsiders as they put up with the cheap rhetoric of Shiv Sena in Mumbai. In Kolkata, you can have tea for Re.1.50 and then you can have it for Rs.10 as well.

At the same time, I know, Mumbai has a big heart. But Kolkata isn’t that bad too.

Coming to another aspect, and an important one, you can almost feel the pain of Ganguly’s 10 month exile in every man’s heart. I was made to feel a sinner when I confessed that I had almost forgotten Chappell’s obscene gesture to the crowd at the Eden Gardens. It’s fresh in the minds here as if it was yesterday. They have not forgiven the coach over that. They never will, I can tell you that.

The cook who prepared the fine meals for me in the mess I stayed in, never looked much of a talkative guy. Until, while he served me a bowl of rosogollas, I asked if he had ever been to the Eden Gardens. He gave me a look, as if I had asked him one of the stupidiest questions. Well, maybe I just had. Kolkata resident not been to Eden! And then a sudden smile, a glitter in the eyes and the tone of his voice revealed that I had set him off. Eden Gardens, many times! How can you come up with that? Right, stupid me. A gentle loosener to start up with, so to say. Hit for a six alright.

Then on to Saurav Ganguly. Has he ever seen him play? Oh yes sir, sure, he has played near our guest house. A day before the news was confirmed, about Ganguly’s inclusion in the test team. So what did he had to say about the Maharaja being out of the team for such a long time?


“No, the cry is not because a Bengali player was axed from the team. The problem is with the way it happened. Bengali or not, he deserved better”.

No doubt, he did deserve better and maybe he will get to that. I often heard Pradeep Vijaykar on radio. He always said that the people of Kolkata have an immense knowledge of the game. That is just so true — You can almost feel it here. They live for it. They think about it when they walk. They have cups of tea, discussing what went wrong the other day as if they could have changed the way it all went. An average Kolkata resident will be able to match his wits against the best of commentators on ESPN, that is the level of their matured opinions. To call Cricket “just a game” will be dishonoring their respect, knowledge and above all the love for the game.

I have heard they are more passionate about Football. I didn’t get to that. And trust me, I can’t imagine that.

As I write this, India has just won their first ever Twenty game.

It finishes within 4 hours, a timespan little over than a Bollywood flick, provides a carnival like atmosphere for the players and spectators, a high degree of excitement. They say that this game could be the future of Cricket. All said and done, I think that would be jumping to conclusions. But who knows — better would be to wait and watch.

I just hope that don’t overdo it and make it like present one-day cricket. Too much of this would kill the excitement. The game I just witnessed was taken lightly, by the spectators and it appeared to me, by the cricketing teams as well.

Cricket, I think they’ve (We’ve?) made it too serious. Too much analysis, too much news, things blown out of proportion back home in India. There are problems, and serious problems of course, but it goes a little overboard at times. This new format brings out a message, clear and simple: Keep the seriousness for the One-Dayers and the Tests. Let things loose for Twenty20 and when this is played between a high-pressure one day series, it brings just the respite to the players. Point is, this will taste best when used as a catalyst.

Now coming to ESPN’s splendid coverage of the game. The most interesting part of the whole setup was the captain conversing with the commentator, while fielding and managing things. Imagine Sehwag, talking on your television while he is fielding at the slips. He was practically shouting and meanwhile revealing how they address each other — “Zaaki”, “Mongi” and “Irfaan”. Then said, “Would be great to get one more wicket here, Ravi” and just then was Kemp out and there was that exulting shout.

I just hope that this is the win that gets the team together. It’s incredible how much difference a win can make, especially after a string of losses. Just after the win, they spoke to Sreesanth, Irfan and Karthik on the field. Small conversations, at different times, with each of these players. What interesting was that they all conveyed one point — that may this be the win that gets things going. I just got a feeling, somewhere these guys really want to get things going, (as they put it) and they are feeling the heat, the past few months have been pinching them hard.

A good game of cricket, after a long time. Not just because they won, but more because they fought for it.

Meanwhile, travelling time. I am off to Kolkata and then to Orissa for a week.

Just out and roaming.

A few months back, Graham Gooch had suggested that India are peaking a bit too early. That was the time when the new captain, Dravid was lauded for his captaincy and Coach Greg was the flavor of the season, his “experiments” bringing that extra dash and zing to what Wright had left the team. Gooch was severly criticised by a nation which was then riding high on the great season of cricket, something that we are not much used to.

Cut to today. We’ve come a full circle now, haven’t we? Dravids captaincy style is termed unaggressive. Chappell is in the eye of storm. But I can tell you, he is not as bad as the media makes him out to be. His only problem is that he speaks out his mind. Nothing wrong with that, except he speaks it to the media. While he has given a lot of masala to the Indian paparazzi, by the time he leaves India, he would have less Indian friends to come back to. Surely, he could have taken a cue from John Wright, but that’s another story altogether.

For some days, I had been wondering about this whole issue. This slump of form, these allegations and Indian cricket in general. Some observations. My two cents…make it four:

Observation #1, Specifically in India and Pakistan, traditionally, we have had a tendency of blaming the captain for all the debacles a team goes through. A prolonged slump carries a simple solution — sack the captain. Now, this seems to have changed. We don’t just call for sacking the captain, we also call for the sacking of the coach. We should stop blaming those two individuals, for they are just that — two individuals. A new captain-coach combination will not bring with them a magic wand to cure the team of poor form. As a matured cricket society, and I am sure we are one, we should stop thinking on these lines.

Observation #2, we have too many strokemakers. Way to many, actually. Guys like Dinesh Mongia, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, even Gambhir, are of the “strokemaker” mould. Now, you should have players like these in the team but these are too many. These players have a tendency to play too many shots irrespective of the nature of the game and the scenario. That seems okay in certain conditions but its suicidal in pitches of South Africa and Australia, where the basic idea should be to settle down and spend some time on the pitch before showing that flashy upper cut. This leads to a fragile middle order. Call of the hour, then? Players who can spend more time in the middle. You could call them the “test player” mould. I am not saying a batsman like that is the solution to all batting woes, but the probability of success is increased by a few folds.

Observation #3, sometime in the late 90s, it sparked off, this whole issue of home pitches tailor made for the batsman and that how they spoiled the typical Indian batsman by giving them conditions suited for batting. There was this talk of “improving” the state of the pitches and all that but I am yet to see any change. This is exactly the reason why we have hyped up players coming in the squad, doing nothing, game after game, only to be forgotten a few months later. Venugopal Rao, for example. Suresh Raina could be going the same way too. A bad domestic cricket system leads to many not-very-good players and finally to a team that wins only in home conditions only to loose everything in far away lands. Years have gone by, the pitches have been the same for domestic cricket. In fact first class cricket has seen less change (one of them being all the domestic matches being recorded on TV, a good move).

Observation #4, our cricket board has started acting like a money minded, mean, bad businessman. It’s getting business because of these times of no competition and it’s taking things for granted. At times, it has given a bad name to the country — I blame the administrators who manage the cricket in India. The BCCI is a very unprofessional body, often going to the lengths of ignoring ethical and moral practices. On the other hand, I have time and again stated, The ICC could be the worlds weakest sporting body — but if that is so, BCCI could well be the worlds meanest, most unprofessional and ironically, one of the richest, sporting body.

Talk about being sporty…bah!

If I were not a cricket fan, I would laugh at all the cricket promos that go on the TV. The “blue billions”, the ones which promise you taking to the World Cup and especially the one which increases your prepaid mobile phone balance when India wins.

And then, I would pity the cricket fans. I would look at them, for the poor souls that they are, foolish people who stay awake half past midnight, very well aware that they have to report at work in the morning, only to see their team go from one defeat to another and in the process getting bundled to “lowlies” like 91 runs.

But I can’t, since I am one.

Tell me if I am wrong, but I am tempted to think if the last one dayer was not poured over by the Gods, we would be 0-2 by now. The Gods have been with us, for the most part of the season. When they haven’t been, there’s been sunshine and the results have been for you and me to see.

I could have written this tomorrow. New morning, a new day, new thoughts, the best time to write. But I write this half past 1 AM, for humiliation tastes best when fresh.

You know, the problem is not with defeat. I am not against the idea of getting defeated. The problem lies in the manner of achieving, (yes, we are achieving) defeat.

Barring a couple of players, the willingness to go on is absent. Their eyes are cold and don’t talk, just like their bats. Look for yourself, it’s not much difficult in this age of zoom cameras.

I just hope our so called heroes in South Africa realise this. I wish they loose sleep too, just like their fans.

If you are to feed me with defeats, I ask you to put a topping of Grace on it.