Ashwin Raghu on all of the recognizable elements and more of what made watching the last edition on television such a cringe-inducing experience.You’ll remember how much of a ruckus SET MAX’s presentation of the last cricket World Cup created - tarot card readers, Mandira Bedi, the whole shebang. For a while, it was fun laughing about some of the cleverer stuff that was written and said because of the easy pickings that the telecast offered. It got tiresome very quickly though. The tiresomeness was soon replaced by an acute irritation when you thought about how all those wasted hours could’ve otherwise been, plainly and simply, cricket talk.
Nothing I saw on the first matchday’s telecast told me that watching this World Cup on television is going to be any different. In fact, with further compromises regards advertising space in the years since the last Cup in 2003, we might actually be much worse off now during the innings - among other things, large banners hide the top quarter of your screen during replays (in a close-up shot the screen’s top quarter is often where you’re watching how the bat comes down). And while it has always happened on occasion, it now seems to have become policy decision to cut to ads right after the last ball of an over is bowled, no matter what state of play the ball is in.
(It bothers me that I’m even talking about this right now, when the cricket and the joy of how much cricket there is to look forward to is all that we should be talking about.)
I’ve already started to react. Almost reflexively. I refuse to let the remote control stray beyond grabbing distance of my right hand. I do not want to hear a single second of the ads between overs - you can turn your eyes away, but you can’t switch your ears off without pressing that Mute button. I realize that I can’t entirely turn Mandira Bedi off; I’m sure I’ll end up hearing her enough times through this World Cup - if only because I’m not in control of the remote (I’m watching the match at a friend’s place, I’m at a pub, etc). I watched some of the pre-match show before the West Indies-Pakistan opener. Not three and a half minutes had passed before I’m on the phone to a friend ranting about how Bedi had inappropriately cut in thrice in those three and a half minutes of conversation in the studio. Thrice! Do I need to be pissed off and raving about this half an hour before my favourite sport’s most awaited tournament is scheduled to start? Shouldn’t I only be licking my lips in anticipation right now?
As such rhetorical questions surged through me, I realized it’s going to be a long, hard road ahead for the cricket couch potato. At 47 days, the ICC World Cup defines Overlong Sporting Event in the dictionary. Watching the coverage through the length of such a bloated tournament can have drastic effects. You’ve got to fortify yourself every way you can.
For a while then, I try to consciously ignore Bedi: I attempt to shut my ear-brain communication off when she’s on air; trying to automatically tune out when my ears sense her vocal frequency. It works at times, and often that’s because the rest of the panel completely ignores her too (while Charu Sharma makes apologetic overtures and looks like he’s not quite sure whose side he’s supposed to be on).
Another two minutes of this, and I decide I’m better off watching just the match. I reach for the Mute button on my remote.
A couple of hours later, I’m watching the live telecast. Ramnaresh Sarwan just launched Danish Kaneria for six. A cartoon character materializes and dances to bhangra music that’s played right over the audio broadcast, and a banner appears in the middle of the screen asking me if I’m “Hungry for another six?”
I think I need to talk to my therapist.
Also by ashwin
- The Drama and Artifice of Twenty-20 Cricket - December 4th, 2006
- Southie Snack Attack - October 30th, 2006
- The Supermarket Surfer - 2 - October 2nd, 2006