Drivel in double doses
All major newspapers wrote at least twice and one wrote thrice. Clearly, editors are human also. But as the edits showed, they are not experts in cricket.
You don`t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
It never rains, it pours. India`s defeats and ignominious exit has spawned more edits that either a victory would have or perhaps even a nuclear war. Clearly, editors are human also. But as the edits showed, they are not experts in cricket.
All major newspapers wrote at least twice and the Business Standard wrote thrice. Its last edit suggested that it was time to "push the game to the edges of the collective attention and find a healthy mix of other things with which to occupy the mind." I could say the same thing about BS, yes?
The others didn`t go quite as far. The Telegraph (2 edits) said " The last post was sounded on Friday" and added that "Competition has opened up the World Cup. The Davids of the cricketing world are taking on and defeating the Goliaths," which is absolutely true.
Its other edit asked, "Apart from proving to be a hard lesson for the Indian team, the World Cup should also make the entire nation reflect on the nature and consequences of its `love` for the game. Why is it that cricket brings out the most infantile in Indians?"
Well, violence apart, why not? The paper, which thinks it is British, should have wondered why people in almost all countries, Britain included, react badly to humiliation in a sport that they love.
The Hindu also wrote twice, which is not surprising considering its editor has played in the Ranji Trophy. But its first edit was the murder of Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach. "When it was initially believed that Woolmer died of drug overdose, his death cast a pall of gloom over the World Cup. News that it is murder has cast a dark cloud over the very game of cricket."
However, its second edit, written after India lost to Sri Lanka, had nothing different to say. "what is particularly incongruous is that season after season, millions of dollars should continue to hinge on the fortunes of an underperforming, sentimental favourite. Organisers and audiences need to wake up to the reality."
The Pioneer (one edit) said that "the Indian team needs to be rebuilt from the debris of the Caribbean misadventure. None of the players can today justify his place in the side. What it calls for a root and branch makeover that cannot be achieved overnight. Considering that plain professionalism was at a discount, reform must begin at the top, which is to say the Board of Control for Cricket in India."
The Deccan Herald (also one edit only) said "every member of the Indian team must do some soul-searching. They were handed every possible tool they would have needed to knit themselves into a successful outfit. Yet when the time came to deliver, they were found wanting and terribly so."
The Indian Express (2) wrote its first edit about Pakistani cricket. This was after Woolmer`s death and Pakistan`s defeat at the hands of Ireland . "Today, the magnitude of the current crisis does not give Pakistan`s national executive that runs the affairs of cricket the luxury of cosmetic solutions. An institutional clean-up can be postponed no longer."
Its second was about India, after its exit but largely about Bermuda. About India , the paper had this to say. "The Indian cricket team — aging and ridden by politicisation — will sort itself out. But for an entire cricket-watching people like India`s, the absurdity of taking their numbers in terms of eyeballs and ad-spend as entitlement to a match-winning squad may take more doing to sort out."
More drivel and conventional wisdom has seldom been written on one topic.
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