DD's commentary team seems to be on a player-counselling ego trip rather than briefing the stats-starved viewers of the vital details.
BHARATANHOW sedulously systematically DD ruined, as a spectacle, India's prestige grudge match vs Australia! During that Diwali-mood abiding October 26 Sunday afternoon when DD enjoyed its wonted reach of 65 million Indian homes! Pray, what did these millions of homes (with spots enough on their living room walls already) really get to view that DD D-Day? Spots, More Spots, Still More Spots! The picture of Rahul's India rousingly turning the dinner tables upon Ricky's Australia (that Do The Dew Gwalior evening) was, purely incidentally, sandwiched between spots looking to be running into 65 million.
The moment Sachin reached his 35th ODI 100, the spots came like a shot. No way therefore of knowing, on the dot, as to how many balls Sachin's 100 took to make. How many fours he hit. Alongside that Laxman-tall six. Things have gotten to a stage where batsmen simply have to DD-ensure that they do not reach a landmark, bowlers that they do not bag a wicket, so long as it is the 1st ball, or the last ball, of the over.
Okay, you just can't expect DD to change its spots. But what about its commentators? Coms drawing their fees from the Consolidated Fund of India? Coms being paid, in effect, by the viewing public having the V.P. Singh "Right To Know"? Isn't it the paid duty of these coms to keep their eyes riveted on the screen monitor as one devilish DD spot follows another? So as to be in a pat position to let the viewing public instantly know — as such a com at last gets the chance to chip in — that Sachin's 100 came off 119 balls. With 9 fours. Plus one sexy shot six.
"Techniquerying" of batting or bowling styles, instead, is what we get, most of the time, from Sanjay and Manni. Alongside Siva, Atul and who not? If not Lal Ghoda Arun? While these men, if truly mikogenic, have to make it their com business to brief stats-starved viewers on the vital details listeners have DD "spot" missed. Details viewers want to know without a telemoment's delay. But then DD's commentary team (angrezee led by Sanjayuppie) sounds, most of the way, to be on a player-counselling ego trip.
It is punishment enough for viewers not to be able to follow the Antipodes accents of Danny Morrison and Geoff Lawson. For Indian coms to be stats-letting down Indian viewers is the cardinal broadcasting sin. I know what would have happened if I had failed to furnish, on the button, such figures on AIR. There would have been a not so gentle tap on my smug back by AIR's ever alert Programme Executive. To suggest that I was growing too big for my non-cricket boots.
Is there no DD "scoring" check at all, then, on these mid-30's cricket coms talking nineteen to the dozen? For how long do they expect hapless viewers just to settle for Katrina Kaif "coming of cleavage"? As that fantasising dehatee groom, Fevistuck on her form, mythically goes Katrina chasing? Katrina here does have viewers at her fingertip beck and call with her ingenue face. Yet how even Katrina, since, has sophisticated the art of PLANO digitally showcasing herself. She was Katrina Torquette, wasn't she, before she damp squibbed on the Boom screen? As a supermodel, Kats has moved savvily on. From the NatWesternised setting in which, teens adoringly, she reportedly amended her name to Katrina Kaif. How now her talking eyes tell our team's Kaifs and Strays that she is no longer a "catch" to be reached in just one Andy Bichel leap.
Set the trendy Katrina against that awkwardly cosy Alpenliebe couple making lollipop love. Making love to the accompaniment of that 1957 Musafir Dilip Kumar-sung thumri in Raag Pilu! Overday and night, Charu divines that the Fourth Umpire is falling flat in the laidback DD studio. This in the face of that gallant Sir Walter Ralegh Ayyangarb sported by Kris Srikkanth. Chika's off-the-scruff comments are at least easy on the ear. Where Roshni Chopra is easy on the eye. A desperate ploy, this, by Charu to win some Mandiratings, for DD, by glamorous proxy. But how does Charu help DD's already lost cause when the channel is in no mood to pay Ma Prem Rithambara her Sony price? For persuading her to display her Tarot card-sharping wiles?
So Charu needs to watch his Bangaloretta step when he ventures to rope in the Roshnis of this Miss World. Didn't Charu have a cute young thing, up front, telling us that India was still in the Mohali Test hunt? After the Kiwis had posted a sum total of 630 for 6 (decl)? As Ten and Lax were making a game attempt to close in on that Kiwimposing score, the Charu charmer had viewers know that India still had Mohammed Kaif to come. In the Mohali Test!
It is the trivia-contrasting levels, bravely sustained by EspnStar, that makes its Geoffrey-Ravi roundup still BEST OF THE DAY. There is no gimmicky move, here, to Wilkowtow to Shilpa Shapely. Simply because Barkis Boycott is willing. Let DD and Sony get one ballpoint clear. That Candy Floss is so effective, and no more, in the teeth of Sujatha Padmanabhan being now there to English Sportcenter, now there to Hindi Sportsline.
This is what the spirited young lady making the sporting scene, in this age of youth, truly impactively means. While the Bedi Bounty is but an invite to Divya Datta to have, with our players, an apple fling. By way of a Shaadi Ka Laddoo style of retort to Mandira. After Divya vivaciously walked out of the Bedi-Kaushal movie of that name. A Divya Kadam that found Mandira KSBKBT out of step. What a super actress Divya Datta is! Where Mandira is still play-acting. On India's Road To The Finals.
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