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Journalism of Courage
In this season of no rain and plenty of cricket, it is a toss-up between Michael Slater and Dean Jones for the cricketer who looks silliest in his fancy dress and is making a bit of an ass of himself.
Consider Slater: there are spin doctors and doctored balls, but what ails ESPN-STAR Sports that they must need introduce Slater in a white coat and stethoscope as a pitch doctor, alongside Anarkali who wears the shortest tunic in nursing history to resemble a waitress, rather than someone you would trust with your pulse?
Next on is Professor Jones, wearing a black gown and a black schoolmaster8217;s square hat, last in fashion when Peter O8217;Toole wore both in the film Goodbye Mr Chips. Jones is at the 8216;Ministry of Cricket8217; 8212; personally, it looked like a blackboard but his choice. He proceeds to reel off an endless number of extremely vital statistics to prove which team is stronger 8212; on paper, or in this case on the blackboard. His arithmetic added up to an Indian defeat of Sri Lanka in their first league encounter. In the event, his analysis was of academic interest, because we know what happened when Parthiv Patel walked out to open the innings.
That8217;s the problem with all this learned mumbo-jumbo 8212; it ignores the glorious uncertainties of the game, which is what cricket is 8212; a game. Not a series of skits from the British Carry On films of yore. Next, we8217;ll have Sunil Gavaskar dressed up as an Army General with Bipasha Basu8230;!! Remember, you read it here first.
Gautam Bhimani invariably reminds you of an overgrown schoolboy who cannot believe his luck. And, well he might not: he gets a free trip to every country where ESPN-Star Sports enjoy telecast rights to Indian matches 8212; and all he does is eat all manner of exotic dishes, visit the hottest spots, talk to the prettiest girls and sneak about the players8217; hotels to find out what Sachin Tendulkar eats that makes him the greatest batsman. Care to switch jobs, Bhimani?
You know what happens on the Shaz and Waz Show, so we don8217;t need to dwell on Ravi Shastri looking rather peeked after a long lay-off and Wasim Akram interviewing young girls for no reason at all. Oh yes, please bid a warm welcome to Shekhar Suman who has joined the new all-Hindi cricket commentary team as anchor. Offering a Hindi feed on Star Sports is wonderful, but Suman? The talk show heartthrob8217;s job description appears to be to insult everyone he can; given his extraordinary talents in the department, this should be as facile as his Laloo Yadav imitations. However, his real assignment is to do for Star what Mandira Bedi did for MAX during the World Cup: sex it up.
We are trying, rather feebly, to register a protest. We know viewers are lapping this up like waves on a Sri Lankan beach, we understand women are watching cricket like it is a soap and we admit to being plain old-fashioned 8212; but does the game of cricket really need these frills?
It8217;s all the fault of MAX: it treated the World Cup like a giant fiesta. ESPN-Star Sports continued to maintain a certain purity to the game during last year8217;s Australian tour. Suddenly, it has decided to turn the game into a costume drama. Oh, for the days when Shastri and Akram would talk only cricket, Slater would judge the pitch with his hand, Jones would use a computer graphic to match up the teams. Now their expertise is hidden beneath their disguises and we8217;re left admiring Nurse Anarkali8217;s legs or Jones8217; hat instead. Which leaves Bhimani to the succulent crabs8230;
