FROM THE STANDS
S R Khelkoodkar
Some things never change. In the manner of sports journos everywhere, and in India in particular, support for a particular player extends only as long as his current performance justifies it. The latest to suffer from the see-saw attentions of the press is Virender Sehwag.
The PTI has carried a story - in several newspapers, the Times of India and the Hindustan Times included - on the evolution of Sehwag as a cricketer. According to the article, `There is something about the West Indies` that has caused it on more than one occasion. The last tour in 2002 brought about Sehwag the Opener while this one has given birth to Sehwag the Offspinner.
Currently Sehwag is a hero, what with his batting and bowling performances in the last test match. The slant to the article, fittingly, is of a hero out to right previous wrongs: "Therein hangs a tale. Sehwag lately has been a free-spirit shackled by inconsistent form; the asinine officialdom of Indian cricket who pulls him up for praising his former captain; the whispers on his discomfort with the tough, rigid methods of Chappell and the stream of openers who are being tried in one-day and Test arena.
"The last few weeks have seen that famous spirit restored. But somehow, great Indian batsmen down the ages have never been ones to spend extra hours on their bowling skills in the nets."
Needless to say, the exact same things were points of criticism not all that long ago when Sehwag`s performances were not as good as expectations. Equally needless to say, it probably won`t take too many low scores to reduce Sehwag to a villain again. We wait for the third test to see what happens, but when one sees such vacillation, one cannot help but wonder whether sports writers attempt to shape public opinion or whether they write to reflect it.
Another case in point: Harbhajan Singh. The last two test matches have gone down the wire, and in the end the Indians have suffered because of their inability to close out the match by taking the final few wickets. Attention, naturally, centres on whether it has been because the right bowlers have not been selected. The Hindustan Times has taken up the case of Harbhajan Singh, albeit through an interview with former West Indies offspinner Lance Gibbs.
The headline, a quote from Mr Gibbs, says: `If Bhajji is the best, why isn`t he playing?` But the article, which contains excerpts from the interview, contains no other reference to this. It was enough to make the headline, but not enough to feature anywhere in the article. Instead Mr Gibbs speaks at length about his time in the game, and the Indian spinners from back then. Why, then, use a headline that is only obliquely related to the rest of the text?
The Hindustan Times also ran a statistics piece on follow-ons and India`s chances to close out the second test match. Perhaps prophetically, it concluded that `With Chris Gayle- top-scorer in three innings for West Indies in this series - already back in the pavilion and two days to go in the Test on a pitch of variable bounce, it will need a miraculous innings from Lara or some divine help for West Indies to earn a draw from here onwards.` All of the above.
And to hopefully conclude the Dhoni-Lara affair, the PTI has run a story on how the ICC has decided that the TV umpire, when faced with a situation like the one that happened, must only decide whether a boundary should be given or not, even if the video evidence is not conclusive either way. In other words, if the boundary is given, the batsman will be not out, whereas if it is not given, the batsman is out. In all this, the ICC says, the fielder`s word should be trusted, and he should be given the benefit of the doubt.
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