Restructure cricket? Let146;s start with the viewer

Who converted mere mortals into cricketing superheroes? The media 8212; and the viewer who watches the coverage and begins to believe it

They say, do not renew Greg Chappell8217;s contract, divest Rahul Dravid of the captaincy, ask Virendra Sehwag to retire, bid farewell to Anil Kumble, tell Mahendra Singh Dhoni to chop off his blond locks and never dye his hair again, appoint Sourav Ganguly as coach that way you rid him from the team but keep Bengal happy 8212; crucial since Eden Garden resides in Kolkata 8212; and above all, drop Sachin Tendulkar.

We say, sure go ahead and do all of those, but first, sack the media.

On second thoughts, don8217;t just sack the media, ransack it. Deflate the tyres of their outside broadcast vans, snatch the microphones and cameras out of their hands, pull down their satellites, protest outside their offices, better still enter them and tear down their studios 8211; most of all, burn their effigies and deface their photographs 8212; or paint your TV screens black just where their faces normally appear. Do this every time they let us down, make an error, get the plot all wrong. In other words, roughly what many of our cricketers did in the matches against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Let8217;s guillotine the media, the way the media has been asking for their heads.

Who converted mere mortals into cricketing superheroes? The media 8212; and the viewer who watches the coverage and begins to believe it. Who made everyone believe, including the players themselves that they were better than the best? The media. Who refused to believe the evidence of their eyes in the recent losses in West Indies and said that we were not just conquerors of the Caribbean but possibly of Australia and South Africa? The media and all the current cricketers, ex-cricketers, the cricket historians, the crystal ball gazers, the tarot card readers, the numerologists who assessed our chances on air 8212; all of whom were either short-sighted or plain did not want to see?

And what about the advertisers, the companies that have inflated the cricketers8217; egos and wallets with their generosity at least they put their money where their mouth is? Who were willing to pay disgustingly enormous sums to players and TV channels to peddle their wares? It got so that every headline that had anything to do with cricket was sponsored by blah-blah and blah-blah. Even the scorecard. No wonder then, news channels featured cricket not only as the top story and breaking news but devoted more shows to cricket than any other subject 8212; even Bollywood. Shall we sack them too, alongwith the media?

Well, while we are about it, what about dismissing the Board of Cricket Control of India? The BCCI, the richest cricket board in the world, sells cricket telecast rights at outrageously high prices; the broadcaster chases advertising support to recoup that sum and make a tidy profit, which means they need plenty of cricket coverage for sponsorship by advertisers hence the outlandishly high levels of coverage across news channels and sports channels. And to have plenty of coverage for advertisers, news channels need plenty of viewers; in order to have plenty of viewers they have to have plenty of hot air, on air hype about Team India why would you want to watch cricket coverage that told you India would lose? so the media devotes all its time telling us the Boys in Blue will Hit Back even though anyone who saw Rahul Dravid8217;s face after the Bangladesh match, knew that he was the one who had been hit 8212; for a six.

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Lastly, what should we do with the viewers? Why don8217;t we retire from the fray, the TV set? Why do we watch all that passes for expert comments and analysis with a willing suspension of disbelief? Why do we conspire with the media, the advertisers, the BCCI to fool ourselves 8212; and then take out our gullibility on the team?

Shall we burn our own effigies?