Cricket from Near and Far

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.