At times it is difficult to understand the Chennai crowd. This was the same crowd which gave Saeed Anwar a standing ovation when he got out after scoring 194. They gave a standing ovation to the Pakistan team after they won a closely fought test match in 1999. Murali Karthik once said during a match that “You’ll never hear them booing any player”. That testimony still stands firm. I haven’t heard any jeers for any player. The most culpable candidates too weren’t given any hostile reception.
Yesterday when the team sheet was read by the announcer, I wondered what would be the reaction for the opponent team players. Much had been fabricated by the media about the emotional draining caused by the world cup success. If it was true, then India’s bowling architect Zaheer Khan should’ve been given an arousing welcome, but that wasn’t the case. His’ was a much subdued one than what Saha received. Some of the cricket purists would argue that the reception is more to do with popularity and not anything else. This could be true but Bravo getting cheers more than Zaheer and Virat Kohli is showing few signs of what is to come in future.
Many columnists concurred with the TRP ratings that over dosage of cricket is the one to be blamed for the nadir that IPL has seen this year. I beg to differ there. An appraisal of the TRP ratings would give us a better view of why the ratings came down. That is a region wise ratings would give us a fair idea of what went wrong and where it went wrong. For example no one would have followed Knight Riders until the Bengal elections got completed and also some would have boycotted IPL because of “NO DADA” factor. They would have realized after some time “Hey Hang on a minute! KKR is playing better without dada”. Chennai on the other hand would not have missed the games played by CSK. So taking all those factors into account would lead us to a conclusion that TRP ratings would get better as your team does well.
Another counter view could be “Why did the first few years have very good ratings?” It was simply because of the excitement and more importantly the curiosity the IPL had created. The common cricket fan was unheard of player auction. They would’ve thought humans will not be auctioned, but no one considers these players as Homo sapiens anymore. The rest of crap that followed the auction, partly implicit and another part explicit by “sugar free Candy” Lalit Modi. So that accounts for the high ratings for the first 2 seasons. But from the moment Lalit’s endeavours became the cynosure, the on-field ratings began to drop.
I feel this is the normal behavior. You’ll see more such acts in the future. Fans will be giving more importance to the match played by their teams and also to some other good matches. But will IPL and BCCI be happy with that revenue alone? No way!
Also, I too have to accept the over dose of cricket. But over dosage is something the fans will come to terms in the coming years. And BCCI will also understand it and will fine tune its commitments.
I feel that the emotional drains, over dosage are important things for the rich and corporate class. But for an ordinary cricket it never is. For an auto driver in Triplicane, an electrician in Arumbakkam, a mechanic in Royapuram, there is no emotional drain. That too because of a tournament success. These are people who will never enjoy a tournament success year in year out solely because the national team plays only bilateral series more often. If there is one thing that can vindicate these players’ exorbitant salaries, that is giving something that’ll generate happiness on the faces of the above said people.
All football fans know how a weekend match can shape up their entire next week. The happiness it generates is unmatchable. Chennai has showed the way for the future. It is up to others to follow or still blabber like Arnab Goswami “How can KKR be important to Gambhir than India”.
I have decided to follow the Chennai crowd. Mallya Booooooooooooooooo……
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