Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Pathetic To See Cricket Analysis On Indian News Channels

Rubbish is the word that sums up the analysis of cricket World Cup and cricket related issues on Indian news channels. The Indian media goes overboard on cricket-related discussions. There is exaggeration of praise for some players when they do something brilliant. Some players are called 'Gods' who are not as mighty as many of the human beings or their contemporaries. Whenever something goes wrong, the news channel simply go overboard in criticizing the players. The so called experts, most of whom are former cricketers too sound immature most of the time in their analysis.

It is a festival whenever India achieves a victory, and that is well and good. But it is an absolute doom whenever India performed badly and this World Cup is no exception. Before the contest between India and England, there was so much hype around the game. The prediction of the experts rarely come true. I did not see many experts picking England favorites for the game. Sidhu gave India 80% chance of winning the game between England and India. In fact England came very close to winning the contest despite losing the toss and having to chase a big total. Eventually they managed a tie.

The scenes were contrasting on the News Channels after the tie between India and England. The cricketers who were being celebrated in advance as likely heroes who would won India the game till before the match began were heavily criticized after the contest concluded. If Indian cricketers have watched the the program in which their performance Versus England was evaluated and criticized, I cannot imagine the kind of effect that would have on these Indian cricketers and how it would effect their performance in rest of the World Cup tournament.

What is more painful is the way Indian media started celebrating an Indian victory even before the start of the World Cup 2011. Some people want it for Sachin Tendulkar. Steve Waugh sharply criticize the very need to win the World cup for an individual cricketer. He rightly said that India should win it for the county and not for an individual cricketer. How can India call a cricket as a God who could not get a single World Cup for his country despite being one of the few to represent the country in as many as five edition. Moreover if one has to celebrate an Indian victory in advance why is the competition held and what  is the purpose of other teams participating in the tournament.

Being patriotic and ambitious is one thing, but you got to be rational in your thought process and approach. It is often embarrassing to see the Indian media asking some irrational questions to the foreign cricketers. These foreign cricketers are more professional and from an entirely different culture. The Indian media being ridiculously obsessed with their cricketers during the analysis involving the foreign cricketers makes one feel abashed.

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