You don’t suppose the Nobel Committee will award the Ambani brothers the Nobel Peace Prize next year, in case they just decide to kiss and make up. Giving blow-jobs to the brothers on the air-waves/in print will become so much easier then. Not that it is particularly difficult right now. Heck, maybe the ‘Holy Calf’ should be given a Nobel Peace Prize for ‘cuddling’, can you possibly find a more peaceful activity than ‘cuddling’? Not that I can think of, even though I would rather cuddle a naked woman. Talking of naked women, I take this website to show evidence either of Darwin’s theory at work or hormones in our food – (it’s got most Playmates of the Month from 1958-2008, so its quite unsafe for work, but… so is listening to Pearl Jam’s Backspacer at volume - even though it is a kick-ass album).
Does anyone else have my peculiar Wikipedia fascination? Not that I'm fascinated by Wikipedia, but where I can spend hours just randomly surfing Wikipedia finding out bizarre things - yesterday I spent hours reading how whales evolved (and related articles, some having nothing to do with anything in general). Don't ask me why or even how I got there. Maybe the copious amounts of Kingfisher Blue I had drunk while Veeru and Dinesh Kartik were batting had something to do with it. But, despite the fact that I support Delhi - no I am not going to fall prey to parochialism and support KR - methinks they're missing AB deVilliers. But it is always good to get in a few games at Feroze Shah Kotla.
-----------------------------------------------------
A couple of answers to the last post, I have no idea where my friends mom is, I don't even know if she is alive. Sure, it won't be that difficult to find out, I'll have reactivate some contacts, maybe even some I would rather not, but it can be done I guess. Dealing with death is never easy, no matter what age you you have to stare it in the face. I guess I had to deal with it so up close and personal when I was young that I lost a bit of my, I won't call it innocence, but, I lost something.
Both those times I never attended the funerals, the first one I attended was a few weeks after I finished my Class XII boards when another school friend died in Uphaar fire. I won't forget the chaos and the horror of a mass funeral. It isn't as if I had not seen death close up otherwise, as a kid on a drive back from Chittorgarh to Udaipur we saw an accident scene, which let me assure you wasn't pretty. But then again, that wasn't someone close to me. Maybe, all these things helped me acquire that crazy detatched demeanour they say journalists need, call it cynical or whatever, it has to come from experience. Which is why I could pull off assignments like this without getting caught up in the human tragedy of it all, and avoid, for better or for worse, bleeding heart syndrome.
Which is why I cannot become a Naxal apologist like Arundhati Roy. That said, seeing how the sugar lobby has bled Maharashtra dry and the immense poverty in some parts of the state. Weirdly enough, in my 16-odd months as a reporter in Bombay I saw more of interior Maharashtra than I should have - and that is where my antipathy towards Indica's comes from. Yes, there is a dichotomy in India (two India's, maybe not), the rich, even some of the apologists have never seen how poor the dispossed actually are and what the problems really are.
But the fact remains, violence doesn't solve anything - as the Communists have shown in West Bengal - the oppressed can become the oppresser within a generation. And one worse than the previous oppressor ever was. There are solutions to these problems - it is not as if the Naxals are 'anti-development' as some insane NGO's would have you believe. I've seen how ham-handed rehabilitation programs for the dispossed have been in Orissa. Heck, a majority of the Naxal's are nothing more than sexually-depraved extortion racketeers! Some more equal than others.
There are no attempts at trust building by successive governments in the state and centre. As well-meaning the 'Holy Calf' really is, and I won't be a cynic and say that he is a hipocritical bastard whose brother-in-law spends tens of thousands on drinks for him at Delhi's better bars. Because that leads to the rhetorical question - how many 'cuddles' could a bottle of Chivas buy?
OK, I take this post as a nother example of my tremendous ability of 'flow of consciousness' writing with no real aim in sight. But it is so much more fun that structured pieces about fat and balding farts! And then again, it is just the start of 'Swag' week. Yay!
Showing posts with label Cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cricket. Show all posts
Monday, October 12, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Random IPL Rant
Just thought that I would climb on the IPL bandwagon as well. You know, it is the same crazy logic I had when I started smoking - everyone is doing it! By the way, if Ramadoss freaked out about smoking in movies (particularly SRK in Devdas), I wonder what he would say about Abhay Deol's extreme substance abuse in Dev. D? Smoke for thought...
Here is the funny thing, I never thought that the news channels would give the IPL so much support. When Chidambaram started his disasterous attempt to dovetail the Gujarat riots into the IPL yesterday he got a lot of flak from journalists.
And the flak seems to have been counter-productive, Arun Jaitley who was for several days behaving like a petulant schoolboy stirred. You can say a lot of things about Jaitley, but not about cricket. Despite the chaos that rules the DDCA – Delhi today has three permanent members of the Test team and when Virat Kohli makes it there, which hopefully should be sooner rather than later given the kid’s stunning form this domestic season – Delhi players will dominate the Indian team.
Not a Bombay-esque domination that happened in the 60’s and 70’s and that started the quota system, but domination nonetheless. And Jaitley has had a role to play, maybe not training wise but definitely a political role in getting these Delhi boys into the team (and Sehwag and Gambhir have spoken about this in the past, Sehwag even got married at Jaitley's house - love him or hate him, without Jaitley India might not have the best opening partnership in the world right now), and as events of the past few weeks have brought out in the spotlight, cricket is political. Very political and it has been like that since Jagmohan Dalmiya came into the picture. As are other Indian sports, but that is another story. But to be fair, the increased politicisation of cricket has happily coinciced with the team doing a hell of a lot better but still.
Back to my convoluted logic on how the television channels dug their own grave supporting the IPL and making Chiddu look like a vindictive man, which he is, but that is a moot point. See, this is going to be a bad year for companies. We can all delude ourselves and pretend that things are going to improve soon or we could also delude ourselves into thinking that the bottom has fallen out. The only people journalists have actually succeeded in convincing that things are horrible are the guys who employ them and they have promptly cut salaries. In certain cases the owners were broke and in certain cases, not so broke (maybe even profitable) but the salary cuts might be hiding a deeper malaise which happened thanks to the shares for adverts business and the requirement to maintain a debt to equity ratio.
Now, as we all know the media in India is free. ‘Real’ prices of newspapers haven’t risen in years, almost all the money you pay to your newspaper-wallah goes to him. Now the same applies to telly channels. You don’t pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching them, heck people refuse to pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching their trying to be Good Times channel, which nowadays feels like watching a person in complete denial. Anyway, companies aren’t doing well. Usually because their managers screwed up and money laundering operations went awry because the bottom fell out of the Dubai Real Estate market as well. So that means smaller advertising budgets.
The no IPL brigade championed by Chiddu would have meant guys with ad budgets sanctioned would have been left with nowhere to advertise. Other than the news channels. Which would have meant that instead of a sponsored sixer or wicket, things like ‘This tantrum of Arnab is brought to you by XXXX or ‘This display of fake emotion by Barkha is sponsored by YYYY’. I mean we could have had something like that. Of course, both the people mentioned above don’t have a sense of humour, which is why they’ve been mentioned, but you get my point.
Now despite the IPL happening in South Africa, which will mean I will try my frikkin’ darndest to go snag an air ticket to watch some matches at least, the TV times remain the same. So we will not have to watch hysterical screaming, random editorialising or worst of all a litany of wrong facts every evening. Nope, I can watch Sehwag and Gambhir whack the ball every few days. Pity, I really did hope to watch a few games at Kotla.
But then again, as much as we love politics, we just love cricket more.
Here is the funny thing, I never thought that the news channels would give the IPL so much support. When Chidambaram started his disasterous attempt to dovetail the Gujarat riots into the IPL yesterday he got a lot of flak from journalists.
And the flak seems to have been counter-productive, Arun Jaitley who was for several days behaving like a petulant schoolboy stirred. You can say a lot of things about Jaitley, but not about cricket. Despite the chaos that rules the DDCA – Delhi today has three permanent members of the Test team and when Virat Kohli makes it there, which hopefully should be sooner rather than later given the kid’s stunning form this domestic season – Delhi players will dominate the Indian team.
Not a Bombay-esque domination that happened in the 60’s and 70’s and that started the quota system, but domination nonetheless. And Jaitley has had a role to play, maybe not training wise but definitely a political role in getting these Delhi boys into the team (and Sehwag and Gambhir have spoken about this in the past, Sehwag even got married at Jaitley's house - love him or hate him, without Jaitley India might not have the best opening partnership in the world right now), and as events of the past few weeks have brought out in the spotlight, cricket is political. Very political and it has been like that since Jagmohan Dalmiya came into the picture. As are other Indian sports, but that is another story. But to be fair, the increased politicisation of cricket has happily coinciced with the team doing a hell of a lot better but still.
Back to my convoluted logic on how the television channels dug their own grave supporting the IPL and making Chiddu look like a vindictive man, which he is, but that is a moot point. See, this is going to be a bad year for companies. We can all delude ourselves and pretend that things are going to improve soon or we could also delude ourselves into thinking that the bottom has fallen out. The only people journalists have actually succeeded in convincing that things are horrible are the guys who employ them and they have promptly cut salaries. In certain cases the owners were broke and in certain cases, not so broke (maybe even profitable) but the salary cuts might be hiding a deeper malaise which happened thanks to the shares for adverts business and the requirement to maintain a debt to equity ratio.
Now, as we all know the media in India is free. ‘Real’ prices of newspapers haven’t risen in years, almost all the money you pay to your newspaper-wallah goes to him. Now the same applies to telly channels. You don’t pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching them, heck people refuse to pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching their trying to be Good Times channel, which nowadays feels like watching a person in complete denial. Anyway, companies aren’t doing well. Usually because their managers screwed up and money laundering operations went awry because the bottom fell out of the Dubai Real Estate market as well. So that means smaller advertising budgets.
The no IPL brigade championed by Chiddu would have meant guys with ad budgets sanctioned would have been left with nowhere to advertise. Other than the news channels. Which would have meant that instead of a sponsored sixer or wicket, things like ‘This tantrum of Arnab is brought to you by XXXX or ‘This display of fake emotion by Barkha is sponsored by YYYY’. I mean we could have had something like that. Of course, both the people mentioned above don’t have a sense of humour, which is why they’ve been mentioned, but you get my point.
Now despite the IPL happening in South Africa, which will mean I will try my frikkin’ darndest to go snag an air ticket to watch some matches at least, the TV times remain the same. So we will not have to watch hysterical screaming, random editorialising or worst of all a litany of wrong facts every evening. Nope, I can watch Sehwag and Gambhir whack the ball every few days. Pity, I really did hope to watch a few games at Kotla.
But then again, as much as we love politics, we just love cricket more.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Best served cold?
I don't get the IPL connection in the story and let me assure you not too many people bought tickets to watch IPL games - at least I bought none, but still watched five of seven games in Delhi. And believe me, I was not alone. Anyway, this is a Sidewinder missile at 9X, makes for entertaining reading though. Won't get into the financial plans of General Entertainment Channels though, because I don't watch them and therefore have no frikkin' clue!
But to add to the point, the IPL is more than just ticket sales - I was told by an extremely reliable source, who cannot be named because of Ramadoss - that while the Royal Challengers Bangalore were godawful last year, sales of RC climbed some 30 per cent afterwards. C'mon even KKR dropped off after their amazing start, but because SRK managed to sell KKR as a Bong team rather than a 'Kolkata' team, it got the entire diaspora excited. Sales of other stuff certainly increased and the teams made money from selling lounges and general gobbledegook. But then again, in reality only Kolkata, Punjab and Rajasthan made any money last year. And while the first season was a ratings success and I'm sure that season 2 will be a ratings success, it remains to be seen if the IPL will make 'money'. Money does not guarantee success of more money - just look at Chelsea Football Club.
So how successful has the IPL really been? Maybe, we'll answer that once the elections are over. What will be really interesting this time is that the IPL and the General Elections, or least the campaigning will definitely coincide, and that should lead to interesting news bulletins. So for eight weeks, half the paper will be politics and half the paper cricket. But newspapers can still run larger editions, can you imagine the chaos in the news channels. Nobody will watch the news because everyone will be busy watching cricket. Dang, what an absolutely brilliant move by Lalit Modi!
But to add to the point, the IPL is more than just ticket sales - I was told by an extremely reliable source, who cannot be named because of Ramadoss - that while the Royal Challengers Bangalore were godawful last year, sales of RC climbed some 30 per cent afterwards. C'mon even KKR dropped off after their amazing start, but because SRK managed to sell KKR as a Bong team rather than a 'Kolkata' team, it got the entire diaspora excited. Sales of other stuff certainly increased and the teams made money from selling lounges and general gobbledegook. But then again, in reality only Kolkata, Punjab and Rajasthan made any money last year. And while the first season was a ratings success and I'm sure that season 2 will be a ratings success, it remains to be seen if the IPL will make 'money'. Money does not guarantee success of more money - just look at Chelsea Football Club.
So how successful has the IPL really been? Maybe, we'll answer that once the elections are over. What will be really interesting this time is that the IPL and the General Elections, or least the campaigning will definitely coincide, and that should lead to interesting news bulletins. So for eight weeks, half the paper will be politics and half the paper cricket. But newspapers can still run larger editions, can you imagine the chaos in the news channels. Nobody will watch the news because everyone will be busy watching cricket. Dang, what an absolutely brilliant move by Lalit Modi!
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Robot Chicken
I don't know about you but India ODI's are losing their watchability - we're pulverizing Sri Lanka. Last matchViru and Yuvi and this time Dhoni and Gauti (great to see both the Delhi boys do well though - Go Daredevils) Almost as badly as they're pulverizing their Tamilian citizens in the north.
Though their most famous Tamilian set another record today. We're treating their bowlers like their government treats their domestic press. I don't know about you, but cricket diplomacy as practiced by India is a bit strange - terminating the contracts of the Pakistani players even if they didn't do drugs. It will be sad to see Akmal and Tanvir go from Warne's team (they do have a loophole for those two and Misbah - but why Shilpa Shetty ugh!). Anyway, I spent a lot of time watching Robot Chicken of late and I'm pretty bugged that no network shows Adult Swim in India. Dang!
Monday, October 20, 2008
One of those days...
When you just want to go home, pour yourself a big drink and pass out with something completely inane playing on the telly. But then again, I had the entire weekend to prep for a bad week - you know the time when you see a big painted Tata truck driving on the wrong side of the road screaming towards you, but you still don't take evasive action, because this is India after all. But then again, my day could not have possibly been a tenth as bad as Ricky Ponting's. I'm actually thinking of running off to catch a few days of the Test in Delhi next week, though the city's smoggy overhang, particularly after Diwali will make for interesting air quality to say the least and I wouldn't want to hang around a place not protected by air filters, i.e: the open.
OK, now to get home.
OK, now to get home.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Where were you?
When India won the Prudential World Cup on June 25, 1983?
I was in Oxford, where my father was a doctoral student, and I remember asking my mother what local Indian students in the University were doing going mad and running with flags in the evening. My father unfortunately was back in Calcutta. So technically, I was closer to the action than most people, even though at the age of four I couldn't get cricket yet!
I was in Oxford, where my father was a doctoral student, and I remember asking my mother what local Indian students in the University were doing going mad and running with flags in the evening. My father unfortunately was back in Calcutta. So technically, I was closer to the action than most people, even though at the age of four I couldn't get cricket yet!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Updates
It has been a rather busy few days for me and the coming days will be even busier, thanks to circumstances beyond by control. Well, actually not circumstances beyond my control but rather because of a constant need to make more money. Anyway, while I also try to figure out some more guest columns from elsewhere and also try and get a grip on how the future will look for media on the whole, considering everything is going to be free, just read Chris Anderson's fabulous cover story in the current issue of Wired. I'll post a short excerpt from this piece, which is an universal truth about the media, but put brilliantly well.
"The most common of the economies built around free is the three-party system. Here a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties. Sound complicated? You're probably experiencing it right now. It's the basis of virtually all media.
In the traditional media model, a publisher provides a product free (or nearly free) to consumers, and advertisers pay to ride along. Radio is "free to air," and so is much of television. Likewise, newspaper and magazine publishers don't charge readers anything close to the actual cost of creating, printing, and distributing their products. They're not selling papers and magazines to readers, they're selling readers to advertisers. It's a three-way market."
Well, I'll do a proper post around this sometime soon, but as Richard Hammond would say on Top Gear, it is time for the news. And we begin with Sakal, a Pune-based Marathi paper owned by the Pawar family. It is writing for this paper that Dilip Vengsarkar got slapped on the wrist by the owner's brother. Anyway, they feel they now need an English language paper and are on the verge of launching a broadsheet daily in Delhi which will supposedly be edited by Badshah (Anikendra Nath) Sen who was last editing the Kathmandu-based The Himalayan Times, Nepal's largest selling English language paper. After running a news organisation in the badlands that are India's neighbours, where I think Indian journalists might do well to spend a few weeks to understand what 'repression' is all about, I guess he would be battle-hardened.
And then there is HT, about whom we wrote that a new editor is on the anvil. The news was confirmed by three sources, then other sources denied it and now no-one knows what is happening. One story even goes that The V is coming back with people in tow. But, what is really interesting is how Private Treaties will pan out in the coming months. What is really interesting is the number of article placements of Private Treaties that is happening across the group, but even more surprising are the ideas that the marketing chaps come up with for their clients. You might soon be bombarded by a bunch of rags to riches tales, or riches to riches tales on places like the Edit Page of both ET and ToI. But with tens of thousands of crores wiped off the market, particularly of some of the rather long-shot scrips with crazy valuations, it would be interesting to see how valuations have been affected for TPT.
Talking about Times, it seems that their television channel Times Now is shedding people like the trees in Delhi are shedding leaves, which they always do in Spring. Spring in Delhi being just under 40 degrees. This after Times Now shed an investor a few months ago. Now, the channel claims it is doing well, and as far as news goes, it isn't bad, because they don't have the innumerable talking head shows that the two leading channels run, and nor do they run crazy campaigns when the middle classes feel they've been wronged. But, things are not going too well, and it appears that some senior ToI people have been asked to help out, which they have refused to do until they get executive powers. Watch this space!
And, I got this picture on email today and I was wondering why none of the papers carried it. If one of them did, please let me know, because I certainly don't remember seeing it in the brouhaha of a Tri-Series win. Click through for the faces of the guys, priceless! Anyway, looking forward to the Delhi Daredevils!
"The most common of the economies built around free is the three-party system. Here a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties. Sound complicated? You're probably experiencing it right now. It's the basis of virtually all media.
In the traditional media model, a publisher provides a product free (or nearly free) to consumers, and advertisers pay to ride along. Radio is "free to air," and so is much of television. Likewise, newspaper and magazine publishers don't charge readers anything close to the actual cost of creating, printing, and distributing their products. They're not selling papers and magazines to readers, they're selling readers to advertisers. It's a three-way market."
Well, I'll do a proper post around this sometime soon, but as Richard Hammond would say on Top Gear, it is time for the news. And we begin with Sakal, a Pune-based Marathi paper owned by the Pawar family. It is writing for this paper that Dilip Vengsarkar got slapped on the wrist by the owner's brother. Anyway, they feel they now need an English language paper and are on the verge of launching a broadsheet daily in Delhi which will supposedly be edited by Badshah (Anikendra Nath) Sen who was last editing the Kathmandu-based The Himalayan Times, Nepal's largest selling English language paper. After running a news organisation in the badlands that are India's neighbours, where I think Indian journalists might do well to spend a few weeks to understand what 'repression' is all about, I guess he would be battle-hardened.
And then there is HT, about whom we wrote that a new editor is on the anvil. The news was confirmed by three sources, then other sources denied it and now no-one knows what is happening. One story even goes that The V is coming back with people in tow. But, what is really interesting is how Private Treaties will pan out in the coming months. What is really interesting is the number of article placements of Private Treaties that is happening across the group, but even more surprising are the ideas that the marketing chaps come up with for their clients. You might soon be bombarded by a bunch of rags to riches tales, or riches to riches tales on places like the Edit Page of both ET and ToI. But with tens of thousands of crores wiped off the market, particularly of some of the rather long-shot scrips with crazy valuations, it would be interesting to see how valuations have been affected for TPT.
Talking about Times, it seems that their television channel Times Now is shedding people like the trees in Delhi are shedding leaves, which they always do in Spring. Spring in Delhi being just under 40 degrees. This after Times Now shed an investor a few months ago. Now, the channel claims it is doing well, and as far as news goes, it isn't bad, because they don't have the innumerable talking head shows that the two leading channels run, and nor do they run crazy campaigns when the middle classes feel they've been wronged. But, things are not going too well, and it appears that some senior ToI people have been asked to help out, which they have refused to do until they get executive powers. Watch this space!
And, I got this picture on email today and I was wondering why none of the papers carried it. If one of them did, please let me know, because I certainly don't remember seeing it in the brouhaha of a Tri-Series win. Click through for the faces of the guys, priceless! Anyway, looking forward to the Delhi Daredevils!
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
'Teri Maa Ki'='Monkey'
If this comment in my last post is to believed... actually it is very believeable actually. I mean, we have all heard delightful Punjabi abuses on the stump-mic quite often, and that is a freason I actually enjoy watching Pakistan play on TV, the gali's are darn good fun, but I miss Javed Miandad! Abuses just sound wrong in Bangla, but seem to have a certain verve in north Indian languages. Anyway, enough about my fascination with dirty words, if you want 'sledging' or whatever it is the Australians call it, out of cricket, turn the stump microphones up. I wonder how saintly we will think our cricket heroes are then. This is just a suggestion from a humble cricket fan, because I am very certain that even the 'Men in Blue' give their fair share out, but I for one would like to hear the Ozzie slip cordon in full flow.
Anyway, I wonder if it is a bad idea to ask a business magnate about his sexual proclivities during an interview. Well obviously it is, but you know sometimes when you interview people you have this desperate urge to ask people something completely unrelated to the theme of the interview, I mean imagine how much more fun shows would be if you could question Bollywood stars about their drug habits or politicians on getting caught in high-end brothels. I've always wanted to ask a senior editor on air about his trip to Laos along with a former PM's delegation on what two obviously underage Laotian girls were doing wrapped around his arm, but alas! We are a conservative country where nobody does drugs or has sex and God save us if too much cleavage is shown on TV, and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi wants to save us not just from cleavage but also salacious news stories. India is all happy, happy, joy, joy. We're all on a giant extascy trip!
Plus, if you do meet me at a Press event and like my blog, please do tell me but there is an email address presstalk (at) gmail (dot) com where you can email in your media tips and stories. If you have something relatively unsubstantiated, leave a comment, even if you are one of those idiots who seems to have a huge issue with me. By the way, to the commenter who wanted to whine to my editor, I must point out that my editor has been aware of this blog pretty much ever since I started it and has occasionally told me to tone down, which I would believe I have done since 2005. Yeah, I've rubbed some people the wrong way along the way, but this is just an opinion blog, I write it like I see it!
Cheers and to the guys who told me they read my blog religiously today, thanks, but do leave comments once in a while.
Anyway, I wonder if it is a bad idea to ask a business magnate about his sexual proclivities during an interview. Well obviously it is, but you know sometimes when you interview people you have this desperate urge to ask people something completely unrelated to the theme of the interview, I mean imagine how much more fun shows would be if you could question Bollywood stars about their drug habits or politicians on getting caught in high-end brothels. I've always wanted to ask a senior editor on air about his trip to Laos along with a former PM's delegation on what two obviously underage Laotian girls were doing wrapped around his arm, but alas! We are a conservative country where nobody does drugs or has sex and God save us if too much cleavage is shown on TV, and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi wants to save us not just from cleavage but also salacious news stories. India is all happy, happy, joy, joy. We're all on a giant extascy trip!
Plus, if you do meet me at a Press event and like my blog, please do tell me but there is an email address presstalk (at) gmail (dot) com where you can email in your media tips and stories. If you have something relatively unsubstantiated, leave a comment, even if you are one of those idiots who seems to have a huge issue with me. By the way, to the commenter who wanted to whine to my editor, I must point out that my editor has been aware of this blog pretty much ever since I started it and has occasionally told me to tone down, which I would believe I have done since 2005. Yeah, I've rubbed some people the wrong way along the way, but this is just an opinion blog, I write it like I see it!
Cheers and to the guys who told me they read my blog religiously today, thanks, but do leave comments once in a while.
Monday, January 07, 2008
United front!
We lost the Sydney Test to a bunch of cheating, lying monkeys, because that is what the Australian cricket team is. But what was even more surprising was massively united front the media presented today, 'We woz robber, guv'ner!' The Google News search shows that this is quickly deteriorating into an out-of-control situation. Wonder how soon it is before a demarche is issued by one government or another. Then again, I completely agree with what the Indian team is doing, as well as the media, and I believe that all Indian companies should quickly suspend all commercial deals with Australian players! Hit them where it hurts!
But only the Times carried a story on the front page, which has made a lot of people I know very, very upset!
But only the Times carried a story on the front page, which has made a lot of people I know very, very upset!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Kirket
The best way to get of travelling high to to spend the greater part of a day weaving between tractor-trailers, though there were points of time when you just saw lovely long stretches of empty tarmac stretching out into the dull grey haze. I was driving down to Jaipur to watch the final one-dayer between India and Pakistan, and yes, we lost, but I had a fairly good time none the less, even though flag-waving patriotism really isn't my thing, but what the heck, flags were bought and they were waved. Great deal of good they did! What was also peculiar was that half the crowd wearing gloriously bad fakes (sorry to be snobbish but 'Channel'? For crying out loud?) wanted to see Shah Rukh and Deepika, not to watch the Pakistani batsmen whack our bowlers to various corners of the ground.That said, the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur is lovely little stadium, as against the hell-hole that is Wankhede and the disaster zone called Kotla (though I will like to see the new 'Kotla' during the First Test starting Thursday). While Cricket is a great sport, I think TV has just taken over the 50-over game. The breaks between overs are ridiculously long and you suddenly realise just how much time the advertising takes up. So no matter what the purists think, the reason Twenty20 is becoming popular is not because India pulled off a fluke, but because the game is just so much easier to watch in a stadium.
And don't you really think India needs some other sports to develop really fast? Something fast-paced without a break every four minutes, like football for example. hey, its easier and better to play football on a game console than it is cricket (Have you even tried Yuvraj Singh Cricket on a 360?). But if that oily nut PRDM keeps running the sport, nothing is likely to change anytime soon. Anyway, I think I'll confine myself to Delhi for a couple of weeks.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Thoughts on Cricket
I got to know late last night that the Times of India was about to print a story that was about to dominate TV talk-shows for the whole day. Sachin Tendulkar's fascinating comments to the newspaper made for great reading. Of course, if I remember correctly, this was the first national media vehicle to use the term 'Endulkar', but then again, I still feel that if you want to make an impact, ToI remains India's most effective media vehicle. Sachin's comments have given a sea of retired former cricketers, many of them in the team which won the World Cup against all odds and because of Kapil Dev's heroics in 1983 (I wasn't at Lords, but I was in England at the time, I might have been a pint-sized blubberball, but still) who never made enough money from endorsements, who raking in the cash as 'experts' on one channel or another. You always get the contrarians - Kris Srikkanth and Bishen Singh Bedi's, but after watching TV today (so what if India and Pakistan have decided that we might talk peace, Cricket is far more important - of course, if you're Headlines Today you do an half-hour special on the 'Fastest Train in the World') no matter what you might think about Sachin and why he must go, you also realise why a nation reveres him.
I like cricket, I make attempts to watch matches whenever I can and I have never figured some things out. Other than Mohali, (and now I believe the new stadium in Hyderabad) most cricket grounds in the country range between atrocious and disgusting. Even the mosh-pit that is the Eden gardens is a wonderful place and but thank your lucky stars that there hasn't been a stampede as yet. As a country, we play only one sport and follow only one team at that, chances are other than a handful of journalists, few cricket writers would actually know the stars coming through the Ranji ranks.
Anyway, that is not the point. I said I like cricket, I am not passionate about the sport however, I do not have time to be passionate about the sport and nor do I see the sense in people spending hundreds of crores signing up stars to promote the game. Pepsi would make a lot more sales if they reduced prices to Rs 8 instead of asking consumers to subsidise the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But then again I do not decide marketing budgets, I only occasionally write about them.
But why do many people get so passionate about cricket? While, some people can blame Jagmohan Dalmiya for being a brilliant marketing man or the teams of the early-to-mid 80's actually being good before the sport degenerated in politics, I blame people like Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, KPS Gill and Suresh Kalmadi. These are people who have not let other sports grow in this country to the detriment of the country, because sporting success and sporting events are extremely effective social harmony tools and personally, I wouldn't mind going to watch a game every once in a while. The lack of other sporting options actually works to cricket's detriment in India. Look at it this way, countries which have populations smaller than that of Greater Bombay sent teams to the World Cup in Germany and you expect me to believe that across the land we can't find 22 decent football players that we can turn into world-class pro's? Do you know how embarassing it feels when you play EA FIFA on a console and see India's football ranking at 118. Do you know how idiotic you feel when India come next to last in Hockey? And in Olympics Sports, we spend crores sending a Bollywood troupe over to Melbourne, but medals - what medals? One Silver and Rajyavardhan Rathore becomes a hero. One Silver! One point one billion people and we get one second-place prize. Pitiful.
It is disheartening to see our performances in cricket degenerate to that of our performances in other sports. But when politicians get involved, what can or should you expect! The players morphed into Tigers in a Pepsi ad, they came back like frightened pussycats!
I like cricket, I make attempts to watch matches whenever I can and I have never figured some things out. Other than Mohali, (and now I believe the new stadium in Hyderabad) most cricket grounds in the country range between atrocious and disgusting. Even the mosh-pit that is the Eden gardens is a wonderful place and but thank your lucky stars that there hasn't been a stampede as yet. As a country, we play only one sport and follow only one team at that, chances are other than a handful of journalists, few cricket writers would actually know the stars coming through the Ranji ranks.
Anyway, that is not the point. I said I like cricket, I am not passionate about the sport however, I do not have time to be passionate about the sport and nor do I see the sense in people spending hundreds of crores signing up stars to promote the game. Pepsi would make a lot more sales if they reduced prices to Rs 8 instead of asking consumers to subsidise the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But then again I do not decide marketing budgets, I only occasionally write about them.
But why do many people get so passionate about cricket? While, some people can blame Jagmohan Dalmiya for being a brilliant marketing man or the teams of the early-to-mid 80's actually being good before the sport degenerated in politics, I blame people like Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, KPS Gill and Suresh Kalmadi. These are people who have not let other sports grow in this country to the detriment of the country, because sporting success and sporting events are extremely effective social harmony tools and personally, I wouldn't mind going to watch a game every once in a while. The lack of other sporting options actually works to cricket's detriment in India. Look at it this way, countries which have populations smaller than that of Greater Bombay sent teams to the World Cup in Germany and you expect me to believe that across the land we can't find 22 decent football players that we can turn into world-class pro's? Do you know how embarassing it feels when you play EA FIFA on a console and see India's football ranking at 118. Do you know how idiotic you feel when India come next to last in Hockey? And in Olympics Sports, we spend crores sending a Bollywood troupe over to Melbourne, but medals - what medals? One Silver and Rajyavardhan Rathore becomes a hero. One Silver! One point one billion people and we get one second-place prize. Pitiful.
It is disheartening to see our performances in cricket degenerate to that of our performances in other sports. But when politicians get involved, what can or should you expect! The players morphed into Tigers in a Pepsi ad, they came back like frightened pussycats!
Monday, October 16, 2006
Conspiring to Win!
The last time I watched a cricket match it was at Wankhede when Flintoff and his team pulled off a great win against Chappell's lab rats. Since then some of things have changed, not too many
things, England is still a crappy one-day team and we still have no clue about the game, but know how to make tons of money out of it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, my friend had organised very good passes for the game - India vs England at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. The reason most of the Champions Trophy matches are being played at the non-Metro centres (other than the CCI in Bombay) is the entire ambush marketing thing, and many stadiums such as Wankhede and Kotla have previous long-running naming contracts and also some of the associations backed by Pawar wanted to play hardball with the ICC - even though two of the BCCI's chief's biggest supporters Lalit Modi and IS Bindra are getting a lot of matches.
Anyway, I set out at seven along with my family - my first 'family trip' in several years.
The drive to Jaipur was not easy because it seems that Maruti must have dispatched half their stock off to Western India yesterday. There were very few stretches where I could open up the car and it took us an unusually long five-plus hours to get to Jaipur, and even though it was a Sun=day the old city was open, Diwali is next Saturday after all. Because it is tourist season and there was a match going on, we ended up staying in a fairly downmarket, yet not uncomfortable hotel called Hotel Neelam off MI Road.
We made our way to the stadium soon afterwards, my friend had gotten us some really swank tickets - in the Rajasthan Cricket Association President's Box. Lots of glass, airconditioned, Plasma TV's, free food and well soft drinks. The aircon was great, but the place had. Not bad. But then the match started, and my god I wished
I was in the heat and not in a sound-proofed room, I just did for some strange reason, this is not a good way to watch a game, but there was no lack of enthsiasm among the folks inside, hey even I did my fair share of jumping around. We were pretty much on top of the wicket and though the sightscreen did cut out our view a bit, it was a pretty good place to sit. Much better than the Vithal Divecha pavilion at Wankhede.
England put up more of a fight than they did. All out for 125, in fact once Pathan got Strauss and Flintoff, the game was pretty much over. Freddie Flintoff is like the talisman of the team, once he goes the team collapses. Kevin Pietersen did provide some fireworks with a few fours, but 125 was pathetic. Great bowling by Patel and Pathan and even Romesh Powar, though Bhajji took an awesome catch!
Then we started the innings, and Sachin, Sehwag and after the latter departed for 9, Pathan started hitting the ball everywhere in an eight over burst before dinner. That was fun. But why it took us 30 overs to win is beyond me. It was crazy, as if someone had taken a side bet if India will take 30-plus overs to win, I even heard murmurs of such side-match 'arrangements'. But why did we lose six wickets. I mean 126/6 is not a great score by any stretch. Anyway, net-net it was fun. Fun enough for me to decide that I will go to Mohali to watch India play the Australians, that should be a good match!
I still don't understand what the scene with the fireworks in the middle of the innings was? It was just surreal. Anyway, I got back to Delhi earlier today, traffic and speeds were a lot better on the highway, but Gurgaon traffic in the middle of the day sucks, it took almost an hour to get from Gurgaon to Delhi. To be fair, the traffic pile-up starts at Dharuhera, 40kms before Gurgaon. But driving is still the fastest and most convinient way to Jaipur. And I got a great pic of the Amer Fort while leaving, the morning sun was beautiful. I should really go to Jaipur again soon.
things, England is still a crappy one-day team and we still have no clue about the game, but know how to make tons of money out of it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, my friend had organised very good passes for the game - India vs England at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur. The reason most of the Champions Trophy matches are being played at the non-Metro centres (other than the CCI in Bombay) is the entire ambush marketing thing, and many stadiums such as Wankhede and Kotla have previous long-running naming contracts and also some of the associations backed by Pawar wanted to play hardball with the ICC - even though two of the BCCI's chief's biggest supporters Lalit Modi and IS Bindra are getting a lot of matches.Anyway, I set out at seven along with my family - my first 'family trip' in several years.
The drive to Jaipur was not easy because it seems that Maruti must have dispatched half their stock off to Western India yesterday. There were very few stretches where I could open up the car and it took us an unusually long five-plus hours to get to Jaipur, and even though it was a Sun=day the old city was open, Diwali is next Saturday after all. Because it is tourist season and there was a match going on, we ended up staying in a fairly downmarket, yet not uncomfortable hotel called Hotel Neelam off MI Road.We made our way to the stadium soon afterwards, my friend had gotten us some really swank tickets - in the Rajasthan Cricket Association President's Box. Lots of glass, airconditioned, Plasma TV's, free food and well soft drinks. The aircon was great, but the place had. Not bad. But then the match started, and my god I wished
I was in the heat and not in a sound-proofed room, I just did for some strange reason, this is not a good way to watch a game, but there was no lack of enthsiasm among the folks inside, hey even I did my fair share of jumping around. We were pretty much on top of the wicket and though the sightscreen did cut out our view a bit, it was a pretty good place to sit. Much better than the Vithal Divecha pavilion at Wankhede.England put up more of a fight than they did. All out for 125, in fact once Pathan got Strauss and Flintoff, the game was pretty much over. Freddie Flintoff is like the talisman of the team, once he goes the team collapses. Kevin Pietersen did provide some fireworks with a few fours, but 125 was pathetic. Great bowling by Patel and Pathan and even Romesh Powar, though Bhajji took an awesome catch!
Then we started the innings, and Sachin, Sehwag and after the latter departed for 9, Pathan started hitting the ball everywhere in an eight over burst before dinner. That was fun. But why it took us 30 overs to win is beyond me. It was crazy, as if someone had taken a side bet if India will take 30-plus overs to win, I even heard murmurs of such side-match 'arrangements'. But why did we lose six wickets. I mean 126/6 is not a great score by any stretch. Anyway, net-net it was fun. Fun enough for me to decide that I will go to Mohali to watch India play the Australians, that should be a good match!
I still don't understand what the scene with the fireworks in the middle of the innings was? It was just surreal. Anyway, I got back to Delhi earlier today, traffic and speeds were a lot better on the highway, but Gurgaon traffic in the middle of the day sucks, it took almost an hour to get from Gurgaon to Delhi. To be fair, the traffic pile-up starts at Dharuhera, 40kms before Gurgaon. But driving is still the fastest and most convinient way to Jaipur. And I got a great pic of the Amer Fort while leaving, the morning sun was beautiful. I should really go to Jaipur again soon.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Greg as India's Sven
It seems that the Indian media's general hostility towards Greg Chappell of late has spread to ESPN as well. Has anybody been watching SportsCenter of late, its like an anti-Greg polemic, at least the first fifteen minutes are accusing the Australian of everything from messing around with a fairly well established batting order (why is Dravid and not Sehwag opening, like I can read another article on that) to playing with careers (Pathan's) and not including certain players (Zaheer and Kaif - it could be that these two boys' disciplinary issues - bonking anything and everything during tours - might be a factor, at least thats what scribes on tour have said after several drinks. After all regular sex during the WC screwed Ronaldinho).However, I prefer to think of the Indian cricket team in the same vein as the England football team - at least in terms of media coverage. Look at it, overhyped and occasional performers. They do well and everybody lauds them. But at least the Brits have a decent football league, we only have one team. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that Greg Chappell has become our Sven-Goran Eriksson. The media hates him and criticises
everything he does. Fair enough, unlike Sven, Greg doesn't have an unnatural fondness for a certain player (Beckham) nor does Greg lead a more active sex life than his players (as I've said before, the big ballers with the exception of the Punjabi have been eliminated) in fact, it seems doubtful that Greg gets too much action, just look at the guys face (in that pic, it seems that must have been taken after a session with Ms Alam). At least, Sven had that silly smile that schoolboys have when they've been caught with their pants down.Anyway, I'm going to watch India play in India for the first time since the Test match fiasco at Mumbai where Flintoff, Strauss and Pietersen trashed us. Now, I have a very weird feeling with England playing Flintoff up the order. Anyway, I get to spend Sunday in Jaipur and hopefully we'll win.
PS : Have you seen the Pepsi advert with Dada? I really liked it. Kudo's to him for doing it and the copywriters at JWT, I didn't know that they could come up with such an advert.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Farcical Sports
Sports officials have a knack of making the mundane interesting. Just one month after the World Cup had a series of officiating fiascos, and we still don't know if the ref or his assistants actually saw the Zidane incident, Cricket degenerates into a farce.
In the subcontinent, it has all become about racism. And this isn't a great time to be brown in the UK, you really gotta admit. So the ball-tampering incident, which is really a clash between two stubborn heads has become about something it should not be. Even though, I really do believe that Hair is an 'old guard' umpire who pines for the tradional days of the sport before us 'brownies' came and ruined it.
But, I do believe that people are choosing to read way too much into the incident. Cricket did not need this incident at all. Is the ICC stupid for letting man who is not respected by one side umpire a game? Yes, it is. At the end of the day, sports depends on the nuetrality and repect that the players have for officials. Anyhow, way too much has been written into the issue and I don't want any more. But, I wonder what will happen if the sub-continent decides to bid the ICC, Alvida!
Anyway, at least Golf celebrates a Black-Brown man!
In the subcontinent, it has all become about racism. And this isn't a great time to be brown in the UK, you really gotta admit. So the ball-tampering incident, which is really a clash between two stubborn heads has become about something it should not be. Even though, I really do believe that Hair is an 'old guard' umpire who pines for the tradional days of the sport before us 'brownies' came and ruined it.
But, I do believe that people are choosing to read way too much into the incident. Cricket did not need this incident at all. Is the ICC stupid for letting man who is not respected by one side umpire a game? Yes, it is. At the end of the day, sports depends on the nuetrality and repect that the players have for officials. Anyhow, way too much has been written into the issue and I don't want any more. But, I wonder what will happen if the sub-continent decides to bid the ICC, Alvida!
Anyway, at least Golf celebrates a Black-Brown man!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
