Watching cricket

People might tell you that watching the match live, in the stadium is not the great experience it use to be. People will tell you that the DY Patil stadium is in the middle of nowhere and that tickets are too expensive. To a certain extent I agree with all these complaints, but I must tell you that even the horrible host is not bad enough from keeping me away from Navi Mumbai because once you are in the stadium (for the duration of 4 hours) you are completely safe from the onslaught of advertisements which are generously peppered with cricketers, film stars and cricketers girlfriends ( If they are not film stars). But not only do u delete the non-cricket parts of the match but also you escape the utterly commercialized and dehumanized part of the game as well and for once you can feel safe when you celebrate that amazing six without worrying whether someone is going to sue you for not calling it a DLF maximum.

Now I have been brought up listening to cricket on the radio (I studied in a boarding school) and am not new to the world of sponsoring but there something distinctly different about – “Yeh BSNL Chauka connecting India “and a Carbonn kamala catch, or a City moment of success or a DLF maximum or any of these other horrendously ostentatious name which have taken away the joy from a game which really is so amazing that it is quite hard to make boring. And to worsen things when the match does indeed get a little monotonous (for example when KKR is playing) we do have the MAXX mobile time-out to liven things up. I often wonder how a commentator like Ravi Shastri (who is indeed a little corny sometimes, I can never forget his Uthappa comment) who is normally so interesting can bring himself down to the level of reminding the audience every few minutes about that god-damn blimp and also the “Spirit of cricket” which as you will all know by now is a piece by one of the foremost contemporary artists in India ( sorry if I can’t remember his name, but I’m sure you do ). But of course im ranting now am I not – advertising must have it’s good side, take for example the United Nations Environmental Program Tip of the day – Dropping Catches Drops matches but Dropping Catches causes …… Pollution, really catchy don’t you think? (I salute you Mr. Shastri for saying this in front of TV with a stern face.)

Now of course I really do not need to say anything bad about the money, or the corruption or the fixing ( I have a source but you got to pay me 5000 a game) the media is you would expect having a field game but I would like to try offer my take on one misconception – the other day I heard a teenager argue that the IPL brings India fame, really that must be a good thing. Not to be outdone someone else added that it also creates world peace, after all when would you see Andrew Symonds actually being cheered on by an Indian crowd.