The other SRK on IPL

FROM THE STANDS

S R Khelkoodkar

 

 

The IPL is well under way, with almost ten days behind it. And it has been a qualified success, so far. Teams that were supposed to win (read Rajasthan and Chennai) started the series by losing, and teams supposed to lose (Bangalore and Deccan) won. (Kolkata does not count, since nobody had any expectations of it.)  There is nothing like unpredictability to hook the public. Coupled with the big sixes and the hot cheerleaders, this meant that the IPL’s second innings was on a good wicket. Individual players also added to the fun. The gods of Indian cricket delivered and how. Sachin, Rahul and Saurav showed the world that Twenty20 was not just a young man’s game. And those were only the Indian elderly players. Hayden and Ponting, to name a few older foreign player, also left a lasting mark, if only on the bowler’s ego.

 

With such excitement and hype, the newspapers should have it easy, and should have done a good job of covering the IPL. But let’s see, they’re also pretty good at disappointing. The three newspapers analysed are the Times of India, DNA and the Indian Express.

 

19^th April: DNA started the whole IPL sedately, with tame coverage of the Mumbai and Bangalore games on the front page. The sports pages held an interview with Brendon McCullum of the  Kolkata Knight Riders about his relationship with John Buchanan, the coach. Who cares? The focus of the second sports page was that age clearly did not matter, as Tendulkar, Dravid and Kumble showed. The third sports page provided something invaluable to an IPL fan: the complete schedule with the date and Indian Standard Time of all the matches. This was the best part of the opening day coverage of the IPL by DNA. The rest was pretty boring and orthodox.

 

The Times of India also featured the IPL matches on the front page, complete with photographs and eye-catching headlines. But that is par for the course for TOI, they do it to everything, even a dog crossing the road. The innovation was on the sports pages. Two whole pages were devoted to the IPL, and both pages had a different banner, both bright and well designed. With lots of photographs and statistics bolstering the writing, the two pages were very well designed and were an IPL fan’s delight. The TOI clearly delivered, having thought about how to cover the IPL. Well done! DNA needs to borrow a leaf or two from TOI’s book, or should I say newspaper.

 

The Indian Express had a large photograph of the Bangalore team celebrating, and had a small write up of the match on the front page. Boring. The lead story on the sports page was the Indian football league and how Churchill Brothers won it. Yes, I understand that football must be given its due, but devoting a full page to the football league is ridiculous. You do that when there is no other news, not on the day after the IPL’s first matches have been played! There has to be some thought about the readers and what proportion of them care about the Churchill Brothers. The rest of the sports pages were full of the IPL, but that cannot be seen as a redeeming factor since that was the case for all the other papers. The bald fact is that the Indian Express made a mistake with its main sports page.

 

28^th April: Almost ten days later. The IPL no longer makes the front page of DNA, or any other paper for that matter. This is fine, since nothing extraordinary happened in the IPL to render it front page news. DNA covered the IPL in much the same way as it had when the series started. It was boring, and needed a breath of fresh air, if not a gale.

 

Those new IPL banners stood the Times of India in good stead. Even when the coverage was normal, the banners added a certain excitement to te page that was completely lacking in DNA. TOI’s partiality towards large eye-catching photographs also might have something to do with it. They even got Mandira Bedi to write! Now that, even the stodgiest fan would have to read, just out of curiosity. What could that woman have to say about cricket that actually got published?

 

The Indian Express seems to have caught up now. They too have special IPL page banners and large photographs, although the first sports page is still not devoted to the IPL. Considering the number of people interested in the IPL, how can the Indian Express not realize that it is imperative to put it on the first sport page?

 

The coverage of the IPL has been good so far, with some exceptions. DNA needs an overhaul of its sports desk. Are they all old or something? Where is the excitement, the life? The other two papers are doing a good job, especially the Times of India, which seems to be in its element.