From Zee To A

Just as i had come to the conclusion that nothing on Indian cricket could arouse my curiosity anymore,considering the things that had happened in the past few weeks,I found myself wrong,not just once but twice and on both the occasions I had to cast my gaze downwards to make sure that my feet were firmly set on the floor.It was the announcement of Indian Cricket League or ICL made by Zee TV supremo Subhash Chandra that had caught me unawares for the first time and before i could delve into the nuances of a professional domestic cricket league,the BCCI drew up a slew of initiatives to revitalize a staggering Indian cricket team thereby startling even the best of the optimists among the fans of the game.All this within a span of three days.
The idea of a domestic professional cricket league was something that i had been toying with for quite a long time as i found it rather odd that there was a huge amount of cricketing potential left unearthed in India where Hinduism manages only a close second in the run up for the most followed religion with cricket notching up the top spot.In a multi-sport country,say,the United States,a professional league is expected to be challenged by similar leagues of other games.No such problems here since India is a single-sport country and I have always wondered why the domestic cricket scenario was in such a downtrodden state.The enthusiasm of the public towards the national team can be spread to the poor cousins of theirs who play in the domestic circuit only by bringing in sponsors and live television coverage to the games.The BCCI's failure to cash in on this has paved the way for others to pioneer into it.
Among the many recommendations that the BCCI has come up with to improve the state of the game in India,two of them stand out from the rest.One is the expulsion of the contracts based on seniority and the other is the formation of a pool of thirty players who are eligible to play international cricket so that they could be rotated accordingly.The former would inevitably be the first step towards the end of the senior-junior system in the team and I hope that in future a player wont be forced to address his captain as 'Dada' or 'Kaka' to get himself into the playing XI.The latter suggestion would come into prominence if the BCCI is to join hands with ICL at some point.The BCCI could fill the pool of players with the best players in the ICL,especially since it is advisable to have a separate team for 20/20,which is exactly the format of ICL.

The Blue Eleven

The administrators of cricket in India have finally decided to put their heads together on what went wrong and what the need of the hour is to set things straight.In exultations of victory,no matter how cheap it may be,the weaknesses of a side are swept into oblivion.Hence this loss has urged those concerned to sit up and do something about the issues that need immediate attention if the show has to go on.
The fact that it's the only team with three of its batsmen in the 10000 run league mattered the least in the World Cup as the celebrated batting line-up crumbled against Bangladesh and Srilanka.Save for some amount of consistency shown by Munaf Patel,the bowling department looked mediocre and the fielding seemed even worse.The slackness in fielding could be attributed to the exclusion of Suresh Raina and Mohd. Kaif from the World Cup squad (thanks to their inconsistent batting) and that of Dinesh Karthik,who despite being in good form never made it to the playing eleven due to reasons unknown to anyone outside the team management.Coach Greg Chappel has,among the many bombshells that he has dropped,said that the senior players blocked the path of juniors.In any case,the trio along with Yuvraj Singh had brought something to cheer about as far as India's fielding was concerned in the past and in the World Cup the triumvirate's absence cost the team dearly.Such was the dependence of the entire team on its batsmen that their failure to pile up runs got translated into the team's downfall.
The recent dip in their ranking notwithstanding,Australia continues to be at the pinnacle of world cricket because they understand the basics of the game and are deft at doing it right,not just once in a while but game after game.For India to reach anywhere near their standards the batsmen should carry their bats with unfaltering confidence throughout the innings not panicking at the fall of a wicket or a two;our bowlers should realise that even as the day of retirement is closing on him,Glenn McGrath continues to top the list of best bowlers since he is consistent with his line and length.Do we need a specialist bowling coach to tell our bowlers (especially Zaheer Khan) that it's not about bowling an exceptional delivery in an over with the rest being scorable ones,not to mention the wides and no balls,but it's all about consistency. And i sincerely don't believe that Jonty Rhodes has to be brought in to tell our cricketers that while its overwhelming to watch diving stops and flying catches,sometimes the simple task of picking up a moving ball from the ground and throwing it to on to the top of the stumps is what that matters.
And finally,in the wake of recent revelations of the coach i think this has utmost importance,the teams from the Indian subcontinent are the only ones to classify their players as seniors and juniors with commentators and columnists using these terms freely without considering the criteria of such discrimination.There may be individual stars in a team but at the end of the day cricket is a team game and all the members must shoulder equal responsibility.If somebody is not able to put an end to this horrendous and anachronistic procedure of labeling of players,at the earliest,Team India is not going to recuperate from the mess to which they have dragged themselves in.

PS:The media from the Indian subcontinent go on lengths about talent in cricket.Actually,cricket is all about technique,talent is what singers,artists etc have.

Hit Where It Matters

It's no secret that those who spearhead the ad campaigns of a brand have a specific audience in their minds as targets to whom they might sell the product.In the case of television,it doesn't require me to exemplify the way commercials of various products are segregated among the many programmes that cater to viewers with different interests.And what about ads shown at cinemas prior to the start of a movie or,in some worse cases during intermission (a phenomenon of indian cinemas).
Last week i was one among the many who had assembled at one of our small town cinemas where a Hollywod flick titled '300' was being screened.Once inside,to my absolute horror,we were bombarded with an array of ads of jewellery and sarees with visuals which,no doubt,had left no lasting impression on the minds of the audience.Needless to say that the meaningless and gruesomely trashy music and lyrics accompanying those stupid visuals fell on deaf ears.In this southernmost state of a third world country,where viewers of Hollywood movies are predominantly male,it left me guessing at the logic (or the lack of it) in trying to sell (which is the primary objective of ads) exclusively feminine products to 250 odd men (not a single woman in the half-full auditorium).Agreed that at a time when ticket sales are dropping ,these ads are a source of regular income for the theatre owners.But,even out of such an obligation why screen those to the men who had come to watch death-defying war sequences and not to get disgusted at the sight of some anorexic models in their ill-fitting kancheepurams or banaras or whatever the hell they were covered up with. Couldn't they have kept those visuals depicting women adorned from head to toe in ridiculous patterns of jewellery back in their shelves,to be screened during the re-runs of a family drama where they could have had a more sympathetic and appreciative audience?
It was with a hint of trepidation that i recalled that in this part of the world,Hollywood movies(strictly speaking,those shown at theatres),meant supernatural themes and surreal characters.Atleast to those who are in the business of distributing these movies who argue that movies belonging to any other genre simply wont sell.So when a 'Ghost rider' makes it to the cinemas,a 'Sweet Home Alabama' or 'The Pursuit of Happyness' is left with no takers.Right or wrong they may be in their presumptions, but I'm not surprised since it conforms to our theory of 'target audience'.But what i dont understand is,(this is where the fear part creeps in) how come those who screen these supernatural action flicks are totally unaware of this very target audience that the distributors seem to be so sure of?

PS:Theatres in our small town which screens Hollywood movies shut down their equipments as soon as the movies end,without letting the credits to roll out or the theme song to play,ostensibly to save electricty!Maybe they should stop screening those idiotic ads instead of that.