Keep your eye on the ball

BY S R KHELKOODKAR| IN Opinion | 05/01/2009

FROM THE STANDS

The fact that the BCCI has set up a panel to monitor suspect bowling actions in domestic cricket is doubtless worthy of a headline. But a 500-odd word story in the Telegraph with a headline about the panel could surely have had more than a hundred words on the topic?

But no such luck, because the rest of the report dealt with other aspects of the BCCI, such as its profits this year and the inter-corporate tournament that it is organizing. The reporter clearly didn¿t have enough information on the topic highlighted in the headline. The obvious focus of the story was the inter-corporate tournament but not mentioned in the headline. So what was the desk or the page editor doing? I¿ll tell you what he was doing: just being lazy. His or her job is to fix problems such as these.

Frankly, this report reveals a laziness to write on a subject that may be of great importance: suspect bowling actions. Three different news feeds about the BCCI seem to have been cobbled together to form one incoherent report. What is worse is that the section on the inter-corporate tournament does not properly explain what it involves. Well done. Telegraph, especially since you like to boast about your cricket coverage. Time you realized that a short report on a specific topic is far more desirable and reader friendly than a longer report on a mish-mish of topics.

In sharp contrast The Hindu, in a report about the tournament, with a headline that said as much, fully explained what an inter-corporate tournament is, and who would be playing in it. "Cricketers employed by Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), including petroleum companies and banks, revenue departments of the Government of India and corporate entities can look forward to take part in a dedicated national competition with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) deciding to establish an inter-corporate competition in the 50 and 20 over formats from this year." The rest of the report dealt with the tournament in further detail. In short you got what you had paid for.

The Pioneer, too, had a short report on the tournament, dealing with the essentials, much like the Hindu did.

However, criticism dealt with, the Telegraph must be commended on the fact that it is the only one of the three newspapers mentioned above that made note of the panel created by the BCCI to monitor suspect bowling actions. Chucking is a serious offence in cricket, and apparently, according to the umpires in domestic Indian cricket, it happens fairly often, hence the need for the panel. The Hindu and the Pioneer missed this, and so missed out on probably a more juicy story than a boring inter-corporate tournament.