To some of us who have grown up
watching or playing cricket in school grounds and following international bilateral
cricket throughout the year, new concepts like t20 and various leagues are
parts of life today. Like Mobile phones and colour TV,PCs and the World Wide
Web, these are something which we have seen spread. So while there is no
denying that while an inter College two innings game could get upwards of 20000
people to watch in the 1970s Delhi, today it is IPL which brings in the thousands.
Yet, the bilateral series are very easy to follow today on mediums unknown in
the 1970s. Satellite TV and internet Radio have replaced Shortwave Radio as the
means of tuning into live matches. Radio Australia, BBC World Service airing
TMS and radio Pakistan commentary were usually available on short wave radio. All
India Radio had plenty of local matches. Just like old days when you could serendipitously
discover a Ranji Match being broadcast around the country sometimes in
languages you don’t completely follow, in between Bangladesh-SriLanka t20 while
surfing channels, I found an IPL match with Telegu commentary (the commentator
was Venugopal Rao, so I assume it was Telgu).
The high point of this off season
in India of course is the series between the West Indies and Pakistan in North
America. The matches would be aired on TV and there is enough radio commentary
available though not on Medium Wave Radio from Radio Pakistan which incidentally
was our only way to follow the initial matches of the World Championship of
cricket in 1985.One day cricket was held in so low esteem, even after two years
of India having won the World Cup that this multilateral even was not broadcast
on All India Radio till India started creating gigantic waves. The ABC
commentary was then broadcast like the BBC commentary was broadcast during the
World Cup in 1983 after a few matches. Semi finals and the final were shown on
Doordarshan and we got to see Channel 9 coverage for the first time. From there,
it has been a different journey for those who follow cricket from India.
There is live cricket being
broadcast across formats involving any number of teams in India. This winter,
we got to see a riveting one day series between Afghanistan and Ireland .However,
the various test series in New Zealand were not shown on TV in India. Radio
Sport was sporting enough not to geoblock us and we were able to tune in to
some good cricket broadcast passionately.
Before I conclude,I would point out that the absence of ball by ball coverage of
the so called Home season in India on
AIR really rankled.All India Radio has been the home of cricket in India and I
would have loved to have heard, on medium wave, short wave, FM,laptops and
notebooks, This is the AIR’s Home of Cricket. Alas, it was not so.
