The Nation's a Stage, not: Of Disenchantments and Disillusions

For all the good that the IPL has done for sports and sports broadcasting in India, it’s done more harm in return. It’s quite evident in the way the studio presentation program has been put about.

On the face of it, though I can simply say that there are a lot of parallels between the panel of experts for the IPL and the FIFA World Cup. But to say that would be a huge understatement – and not in the complimentary way. 

A host who talks about everything except football – even to the point of callously disregarding the fact that a few stadiums are still under construction with a remark that by the time the event reaches the midway mark, they will get done – a glamorously decked up model/ compère who looks like she’s come for a premier of a hot-shot Hindi movie and a couple of experts, namely Peter Crouch and Mikhail Silvestre.  

The hosts are still bearable as are the experts. It’s the addition of John Abraham that however forms the entire point of contention. An overkill that was completely unwarranted, his addition completely spoiled any lingering interest in watching an already downward spiralling pre-match-show program.

In the IPL studio program however, one gets to listen to Mr. Sidhu’s wacky – this I do mean in a certain complimentarily fashion – but here, listening to Mr. Abraham’s comments on his personal experiences of being a football fan grated on nerves. Even more so, when he made the biggest blunder – at least to a Man Utd fan – of referring to the club as Man U. As someone who’s made the mistake once in her rookie days and the repercussions that followed, it was a faux pas that should have – considering that the host of the show had just touted him to be an immensely huge fan of the sport – never occurred. 

For a nation whose addiction is second only to football, perhaps even surpassing it in some quarters, this is the kind of thing that shows us with our weakness to glamorise everything. Even a much glamorised sport like football. 

With regard to the IPL, the core of the format relies on glamour – indeed is it not the more contemporary re-blending of a sport that was once the epitome of formalness and gentlemanliness? IPL and T20 cricket may thrive on making the cricketing format smaller for those who had been otherwise disenchanted with cricket, as a whole. Football doesn’t suffer the same predicament as cricket with an already short time-span and various other coffers providing entertainment; including the footballers themselves, who are the heartthrob of millions and gazillions of girls across the world. 

These things however are never meant to be aired on an expert panel. Especially on an expert panel on football, for the most prestigious event that the sport boasts of. These are thus personal opinions, restricted to remain between friends and fellow football aficionados. If I were so knowledgeable a fan, I ought to be aware of this, and if at all I didn't have light to shed on the tactics of teams playing for the day, would keep silent so that the experts can do justice to the questions put forward.

There again, many of the questions that the host raised before the experts were disconcerting and were more to do with issues that merely brushed the periphery of the sport, than anything of significance.  Including the one asked by the lady about the future of the football balls, once the event was done? 

That question was cringe-worthy. In her defence, while the question may have been intended for those really clueless about that fact; no one, intending to catch up with the World Cup, here and there, would have wanted to be caught out with such ignorance to their name.

She could have well framed it in a different way. But she could have also done without the question altogether. It wasn’t needed and nor was her excitement to ask it of Crouch and Silvestre. The broadcasters too perhaps felt its redundancy. Whatever the reason, she was conspicuously absent for the second day’s pre-match coverage proceedings. 

As was John Abraham, who was a huge letdown with his inability to separate the fan from the tactician superseding his claims of being a true-blue football enthusiast at the one panel where it mattered the most.