BOMBAY, 28 February 2003 — The biggest and quite easily the most exciting World Cup of cricket is nearing its halfway stage and yet the identification of likely three qualifiers from each group remains as nebulous as the distance stars in the sky. From the 14 contenders, so far only one team looks a certainty to make the Super Six and that is Australia.
In fact, the pre-tournament favorites have as good as earned their place in the second stage and can sit back and relax while they wait for the fate of others to be decided. In Australia’s group, four teams, India, England, Pakistan and Zimbabwe are all in with a chance of grabbing the remaining two places.
In the other group, again there are five to compete for the three slots. With Sri Lanka suffering a shock defeat at the hands of Kenya, their certain hopes have turned to just a chance as good as those of South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand and the Kenyans themselves, who now have an outside chance of making it to the Super Six.
The fare so far has been quite entertaining and surprisingly, the spinners have held the upperhand in making victory possible for most teams. Some lesser known names like Collins Obuya (Kenya), Brad Hogg (Australia), Bunge (Holland), not to mention India’s own, Yuvraj Singh and Virendra Sehwag, have joined the well-established names to dominate the attacks of various teams. This is quite contrary to expectations.
Pre-tournament predictions indicated that the pitches all over South Africa would be more conducive to pace than spin. But not many had taken into account the fact that the cricket season in South Afarica, which starts in October, is now coming toward its end. The many pitches in use for the World Cup matches have already taken a lot of beating and their dry nature has helped the spinners, more the wrist-spinners.
Having said this, one was surprised that India did not prefer the profitable option of playing both the spinners (Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble) in most of the matches. Pakistan regretted the same fact after omitting Saqlain Mushtaq in the first game and then decided to play him regularly in later matches. India’s attack is not so great as to consider one of the best wrist-spinners in the game in Anil Kumble a luxury.
There is no denying the fact that India always looks to outbat the opponents. Even when the batting was not clicking and performing far below par, this attitude was persisted with. A good team is one that has a balanced selection, that makes marginal changes according to the opponents of the day. The-horses-for-courses is the best way to prepare for battle in this from of cricket.
Moving from the action of the field of play and the engrossing battles that lie ahead, one would like to comment on the television coverage of this mega event. There is no doubt that the biggest television viewership for cricket, as for this very event, is in the subcontinent, with India providing the chunk of followers as well as advertisement revenue.
But unfortunately, the channel that has the eastern rights, has fallen terribly short of delivering the goods by way of a decent enough coverage of the World Cup. The worst aspect of the production and the telecast is the choice of experts and commentators, as also the queer format that has been followed match after match.
To the poor communicative skills of the former international players picked from India, may be added the lack of expertise on the part of the anchors who have to hold stage for two hours before the first ball is bowled in the match or matches for the day.
A survey has shown that the viewers in India have been terribly disappointed by the show put up by the channel which has exclusive rights. The off-cricket take-off are invariably boring and even when the game itself is discussed, the topics are repeated ad nauseam. Take the great debate over whether Sachin Tendulkar should open the Indian innings are not. This was discussed not once, twice or thrice but many times over even after Tendulkar had reverted to the opening slot and proved quite successful. Some of the former Indian cricketers turned out to be poor commentators and even worse experts. Those experts from other countries, including a couple of them from Pakistan, who joined the panel, somewhat salvaged the show.
One is really surprised by two aspects of the ultimate outcome of the show put up by this channel.
First is the question of how a non-sports channel was allotted the rights when there were at least five regular sports channels were in the queue as bidders.
The only consideration for the ICC was the financial superiority of the ultimate winning bid. The other is that, after having got the rights, why pains were not taken to put up a good team of professionals as commentators and experts. The policy has been to just rope in any of the former players.
In one word, the entire show so far as been Amateurish.
