Media wars that cricket could do without
By Santhosh S - 13 April 2001
I heard someone tell me that walls unite people. It shook me up, for I
always believed that it took a bridge to unite people and that the
walls divided them. This lovely game of cricket has over the years
united people. The friendship of Ian Botham and Vivian Richards was
one of the most pleasing sights on a cricket ground; two men who were
the face of world cricket for more than a decade. Their camaraderie
was there to be seen in victory and in defeat.
The recent Test series between India and Australia has been one of the
best played in recent history. Ideally, the wonderful cricket played
by the two teams should have helped the people of both the countries
to get closer to each other. Instead we found the media trying to
build walls to mark their territory and divide two cricket loving
nations.
To a country of one billion people, winning a Test series doesn't make
any big difference. We have seen this effort to fan up pseudo-
nationalistic and patriotic feeling out of the success on the cricket
field. Cricket is just the game that entertains; it does not solve the
problem of the average man in the streets and farms in this country;
nor does cricket solve the problems of the people in Australia.
Indians and Australians are not a mean people. This was not a war
between nations; this was just a series of cricket matches. Yes, there
has been an unfortunate media war that resembled the notorious 'cola
war'. There is nothing cricket about all the noises we hear. They are
the feeble voice of the meek, tied to the big wheel that keeps
spinning to make more and more money for their masters.
It is about time we got back to our lives and started enjoying the
game of cricket. There is so much grace and beauty to a well-timed
cover-drive than to read about the charges and counter charges. Steve
Waugh and Sourav Ganguly are guilty of building up this unsavory
atmosphere for the Test series through their war of words, which must
have been a marketing ploy to generate more public interest. Final
frontier or not, get on with your game guys, we pay to see you play
with bat and ball.
The facilities, at least in the smaller venues in India, need to be
improved. It was a sad sight to see people not being allowed to carry
water into the stadium and hence forced to buy bottles of water sold
by a MNC. These are real issues that affect the people. The prime
interest has been shifted from the spectators to the sponsors. This
trend has to be changed or players will end up playing to empty stands
with just colourful advertising hoardings to cheer them.
Matthew Hayden was amazed to see the smile on every face that his eyes
saw in India. To feel like being a part of the big human ocean, you
have to come here and spend a few days with the people. There was this
pack of Australian fans that came to India and travelled with the
cricket team to cheer them.
Ken from Queensland was one of the ardent Aussie fans in India. Ken
didn't know much about an emergency situation back home and the
frantic efforts to get in touch with him. In the meanwhile his friends
in Australia, Julia and Claire spotted him amongst the crowd at
Kolkata, while they were watching the match on TV. They immediately
sent an e-mail to Cricinfo asking us to contact Ken as soon as
possible. We swung into action and made an announcement through the
public address system at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, during
the third Test match. Luckily, Ken was present in the stadium and he
got in touch with his family immediately. It is a wonderful moment
when cricket unites people.
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