Taking the joy out of cricket - the media way

Time was when Star News was one of India's most popular news channels - that was when there were fewer news channels on air and the amount of choice available did not turn away viewers due to excess. 

And in India where cricket was never too far from the headlines,  this channel chose its own, uniquely crass way to grab viewers. After every match – Test or one-day – this channel would run a programme titled Match ka Mujrim. Its objective? To single out the player most culpable for his team’s loss and to declare him “guilty” – as a court of law would a mujrim, the Urdu word for accused.

The programme may not have been a lynch mob - but that was only because the hosts, the special guests, who sometimes included people like Bishen Singh Bedi, the in-studio viewers, and the millions watching were not armed to the teeth and they did not have anyone to physically lynch.

That apart, it was merely a question of vying for how much scorn could be heaped on the players and the mujrim, before declaring him guilty. It was tabloid TV media at it basest, and it was shameful. 

Star News probably does not run MKM any longer. But it has been replaced more than adequately by a wide variety of media that now do their utmost – often under the veneer of respectability –  to take the common cricket fan's joy out of watching the sport. And this trial-by-media has helped a lot of people see the “real” side of the same cricketers who they thought so highly of as the now ex-players throw their love of the sport to the winds and openly display their prejudices. 

Tony Greig's twitter account is one such example – a window into his mind, and one that leaves you with the disconcerting thought that this man was once arguably one of the most popular TV commentators in India – his present inability to distinguish those at the BCCI which he has no love for, from Indian cricket, its most loved players and eventually Indians who he is perpetually baiting, makes one wonder if there was more than just pre-season sabre-rattling to his "we will make them grovel" boast. 

Another interesting insight into the media's rabble-rousing over cricket can be found in Malcolm Conn's "rabble without redeeming features" piece. Conn wrote that the day before India scripted an astonishing assault to chase down 321 runs with twenty balls of the required 40 overs they needed to do it in, to have a mathematical chance of making the CB Tri-Series finals in Australia.

In that piece Conn, with no attempt at subtlety, portrayed Indian cricketers as free to go back home and wallow in their moneybags. Conn proceeded to lay into India's cricket players, claiming they lacked respect for the spirit of the game. Conn was offering this about a team has, in recent times, displayed the ability to place spirit above self-interest, even in the hardest of times. Whether it was the Dravid inspired decision to call back Ian Bell in the midst of the England mauling, or the Tendulkar inspired one to withdraw an appeal against Thiramanne, they were both decisions where India's cricketers could have stood their ground, and the laws of cricket would have been with them. That they did not take those options – despite the difficult times they were in – is testimony to their respect for the spirit of the game - an appreciation of which Conn was so obviously lacking in. It is probably in keeping with the tabloid spirit that Conn wrote that piece while being fully aware of the above incidents.  

The examples are endless - and all written from an Indian perspective, but they would, one suspects, be universally applicable.

What this all results in is a distaste for the political cesspool that cricket media is rapidly becoming. On one of the endless reruns a cricket channel ran of Sunil Gavaskar's 221 at the Oval in 1979, it is heartening to hear the commentator describe him as "the great Sunil Gavaskar" in a tone that mixes respect with admiration. That was the genteel, old-fashioned form of commentating upon and enjoying cricket. In those days, cricket did not have the endless jibes that text commentary reserves for Sreesanth today - the kind of twaddle that is written about the bowler by commentators makes one wonder whether these people have any respect for or inkling of what it has taken a cricketer to get there.

Today, though cricket has become about excess, it has become about a media that is both elitist and gutter at the same time. It has become about crusades and how "smart operators" have learnt to "leverage" the medium (“exploit” is just too crude a word, you see). 

People like Ian Chappell, not necessarily the most shy with a viewpoint, or the late Peter Roebuck represent a fast depleting breed who comment about cricket, its players, and its periphery without fear or favor. They do not come across as people with an axe to grind – instead their views seem to be rooted in what cricket stands for – which, in itself, is a quaint old-fashioned view of cricket. Not all their viewpoints find universal acceptance, but it is rarely, if ever, that they could be accused of the parochialism – commercial, dogmatic, or bigoted - that seems to characterize so much cricket writing. 

Such say-it-like-it-is commentary that is fast killing the enjoyment of cricket. The stuff that gets flung at viewers, readers and listeners alike is like an old video game, where the character in the game has to avoid the missiles which are being thrown at him to reach his destination. Likewise, it is possible to empathize with the average cricket fan for the constant assault of politics-passed-off-as-opinion that he has to endure while attempting to enjoy the little things that make cricket. 

It is this which takes the joy out of cricket and reduces it to a meaningless jumble of tweets, hype, politics and rubbish, and unless something changes, it is the very same media that will eventually drive the fans away from the sport.

Follow us on twitter https://twitter.com/#!/maidanmusings