There’s a general problem here. I called a friend in NDTV who explained that it was getting harder, while covering entertainment and sport, to draw a line between news manufactured by sponsors and ‘real’ news because nearly every event in these areas was stage-managed or underwritten by some company or the other. It’s certainly getting harder for the viewer (or reader) of news. The Times of India acknowledges that it sells editorial space, only it doesn’t tell the reader which parts of the ‘news’ that he’s reading have been paid for. I’m not suggesting that NDTV or any other channel gets paid for coverage: what I am saying is that in a cutthroat environment, the fear of being left out has television news rooms aiming cameras at trashy non-events.

Much better to watch cricket footage that you know has been paid for. There’s a glorious Nike commercial playing on Indian television channels, set in a crowded Indian street. The traffic’s stilled by a snarl-up; boys swarm up buses and trucks to play on their roofs. Sreesanth gets out of a car to watch, an elephant fields, a truck-top batsmen is hit by a rising ball where his box would have been, the traffic starts to move but an intrepid, fired-up lad runs in and, heedless of the pitch that moves beneath his feet, launches himself into his pre-delivery leap. The frame freezes mid-leap, leaving the boy suspended in air: Just Do It.

It's a terrific little film. Currently, the cricket in the commercials feels more real than the cricket in the news.

Whatever they are-pepsi models or cricket fans.
But they surely get the attraction of the people.
I hav seen them cheering for India LOUDLY.
....after all they are also Indians.

so.......... i feel every indian shud cheer.
what else to say in this blog?????...i dont know.

this is just the start,i just THE SUN doesnt get a whiff of how much money can be made in indian cricket

I think the reasoning behind this is that, we love celebrities + we love cricket ... so any event that includes them both will get huge TRPs.
But I blame the news channels more, because in the last couple of months, the stuff that they dish out in the name of 'Breaking news' are utter nonsense; just pure sensationalism. Someday one channel will realise the need for more responsible content and see the reaction to that.

I am not an Indian resident, but in Pakistan also everything these days turn into commercial. Soulless songs, commercials, big prize money from higher officials and result, zero. I am tired of this flimsy stuff. What we want to see is some sports for the sake of it. For the spirit of it, not for selling products. Everything runs by the thought of making huge bucks. The more we see this hype, the more we witness suicides after India or Pakistan lose some crucial encounters in World Cup. Please stop selling everything, especially emotions. Don't transform cricket into trade and cricketers into monsters.It is just a game and eleven players are triers.

I have mentioned this before, but I will repeat it again. "Normal" cricket viewers read and comment on cricket blogs, certainly the ones at cricinfo. Philosophical comments like these, which don't have much to do with the game itself, but stem from a writer's creativity, or colorful observation, don't warrant a debate here. You need to write with a bit more passion about cricket--and Indian cricket team-- for this blog to be successful. Maybe it is just that I participate in the Pakistani blog and there is always something happening in Pakistan cricket. You might not have much to write, but this is totally ridiculous. You are paying too much attention to frivolity; at least shift gears to something which happens within a stadium.

Manufactured news, Cash for comment (apropos TOI), it's all as old as the hills. At least in India, we are quite blatant about it. Reminds me of the time when a 'neta' was interviewed coming out of a party room in the aftermath of a cliff hanger election ~12 years ago. He openly admitted that it was too early to predict who would be forming the government as, quote 'horsetrading is still going on' unquote!!

Contrast this with expressions of outrage and impugned morals a couple of years ago in Sydney, Oz, when it emerged that John Laws, one of the more influential shock jocks on radio, was accepting hefty financial considerations for his weighty on-air prognostications.

Well, I must say this is just the start. We will see a lot more of it in future. Not just cricket, any form of contact mechanism, physical, virtual or emotional will be exploited. Do you want an example what you will see sometime soon? Take this.
There is a tv program advertisement printed on eggs, yes eggs, that are sold in supermarkets. Incidentally, it happened to me today only and I was taken aback. Sadly, there is no stopping this commercial juggernaut from rolling on and on.

the prob with us is we just love cricket and get all hyped up but on the cricket field we are just failures and if u dont agree look at our records against other nations our cricketers enbarass us when we were in sa barry richards on commentary was saying india are a bunch of club cricketers and we with our population of a 100 crore have not been able to produce a single genuine fast bowler venkat prasad being our fastest lolz i think our cricket team is a shame and we should quit mollycoddling them they r a bunch of losers who earn millions for embarrasing a whole nation .

I must admit that I do have some sympathy with Omer Admani - there is a world cup very close, surely you could have found something a little more stimulating to blog about after over a week?

while serving in Times Now as a sports reporter we signed a contract with Shoaib Akhtar for the Pakistan series. But somehow the contract didnt worked out. Aarnab Goswami the channel EDITOR in CHEIF wanted the channel to be launched with a bang so he forced Faisal Shareif (sports editor) to make news out of nothing. The end product...Times now flashed a news that experts feels that Shoaib Chuks...and who were the experts for the claim ..a leg spinner Mushtaq Ahmed...and Jallaludin, the first ever hat-trick taker in ODI's.
what i wonder is that if Shoaib would still have been Times Now's face for the series would they still would have carried the story!!
Times of India too recently published India's itenary in the world cup which also contained india's matches with particular team in super8. According to that itenary India would Play AUS on 31st march.....
TOI obviously assumed that not only India would qualify for the next round but so would Australia and both of them top their group. And TOI is India's leading English Daily.
Guess for media cricket has just become a selling point and people like Ayaz memon are just more and more hard to find.

Sorry, if you really love the game then you should try to save it from being hijacked. Growing patterns in the game are not very favorable. This is not sensationalism, this is not emotional stuff, this is real world whose going after our value system not only cricket's tradition. We have to save it. These are the reasons because of which we see match-fixing, drug usage in the game. More money come in the game, more mutilated it will become. There is a game within the game.

Mukul - Cant blame NDTV. The public wants to see all this. So such gimmicks are being aired on TV. And remember that NDTV is just a news channel. SO it could do with some TRP ratings.

Everything is the part of the game. We follow cricket because we don't have anyother choice. Also watching these big celebrities like SRK or Chopra can excite anyone bcoz they r just means of entertainment, but only cricket can give you passion.
Now 20-20 is getting popular it is just a matter of time when 20-20 will be the most popular version of the game may be in next 5-6 years.

While we are at it, we could discuss Beckham's Disney campaign, Brazilian football team Nike ads, or Jordan's Nike ads. Also, isnt this blog paid for by the T-mobile banner ad on the top of this page? On this evidence, its not worth their money.

you write after a week and this is what you come up with. 481 words of confusion. is this about cricket, ndtv or toi?

we have all seen the nike ad, thanks for describing every scene of it again.

there is so much happening (as someone said before) in pakistan cricket, in indian cricket, teams are getting into battle mode and you dish out inane nonsense.

let me suggest a topic if you can't think of any..
the colonel can't keep his mouth shut for more than a week at stretch. what are your views on this.

and btw, don't you have any friends in star news. tell them not to manufacture news on selection troubles.

i wish priyanka chopra was on australian tv!!!!!!

In a country where no one seems to know about a sport called cricket, much less the World Cup, I feel a strange sense of loss. I used to hate the build up. 'Experts' on TV shows mouthing blindly patriotic lines to get huge cheers from the audience, simpering hosts talking about everything but cricket. The horrible over-the-top ads and music videos being cranked out. It was such a circus! But I must admit, now I would give anything to watch some cricket, even if its in an ad.

So I took your advice and went and checked out the Nike ad on YouTube. Cricket in a traffic jam to a catchy background song. Sweet!

Agree with you Mukul. In fact, I go one step further. Cricket itself is a business enterprise and cricket matches themselves are commercial products whose sole job is to help sponsors grab eyeballs. So, forget about covering the Pepsi event, I see no reason why news channels should cover anything about cricket either. After all, by building up this hype about world cup and alerting the viewers about this upcoming event they are only giving free publicity to ICC, Set Max and their sponsors right? It makes as much sense as news channels talking non-stop about happenings on some Ekta Kapoor soap actually, because cricket is nothing but an ad-driven entertainment show, except cleverly disguised as some event of national importance.

But I can understand some of the comments by cricket fans above. They don't want to be reminded of this commercial nature of the game. Continue to tell them how the players play for the country, keep giving them "insights" about who should be dropped and who should be picked and they are happy.

while the commercialisation of cricket will continue, the said channel in question steadfastly lowers its standards by the day. just the other day, i was shocked to see a ridiculous and absurd candid camera style show being aired at prime time (7pm), this on a news channel.

Madhu, I think the distinction between news, sports, entertainment is getting blurred. They are all morphing into different forms of entertainment.

NDTV's programming is now characteristic of a dumbed-down Indian media. For them India, as a nation, is pretty much covered between movies and cricket. Nothing else counts and the middle class is happy to lap it up. A country with a history of straight talking editors and newspapers has been reduced to a Bollywood green room.

Actually, Gautaum...I'm able to watch more cricket now that I'm in America...it's all about knowing the right people!...haha

The Nike commercial is awesome ..

In the old days they called such spaces in media advertorials. For godsake, the TOI will report the colour of your dog's poop if you paid them enough.

For different reasons two of the most colourfull team of world cricket India and Pakistan have fallen out and rather reduced to minnows for the time being but that does not mean that is the end of the world for them. They still remain potent force of world cricket and it is only matter of time they will be back to tune. But the way concerned quarter is overreacting is not cricket. The death of Bob Woolmer, retirement of Inzi from one day cricket, end of Chappel era in Indian Cricket only proves that we in subcontinent do not know how to take defeats in good sporting spirit.The true well wishers of Pakistan and Indian cricket must be rather sympathetic to their teams in this difficult period and stand by them. Who knows one of them may win the ensuing 20-20 world cup.But its true both countries must carry out cleansing of match fixing allegations from their cricket. We are often embarrassed with these dirty talks when we try to discuss subcontinental cricket here in Australia.