Irish swimmer Michelle Smith had just stormed the first day of the Olympic Games, and won a Gold Medal. It was an incredible achievement from a woman who through her career up to then had seemed destined for much lesser things

The scent of a scandal 

The obvious but difficult question was whether her improvement was credible? Could she have won the gold medal without drugs? This was the start of the aftermath. We din’t know a lot about swimming but there was the old joke that a good result for Irish swimming was one where no one drowned. [....] we knew our newly minted national hero was the wrong age (26) to have made the improvements she had made. 

For and against

Long before we came home from Atlanta, the three of us were isolated and denounced. The debate over Atlanta took place in two languages. Paul, Tom and I attempting to lay out basis for asking questions about how an earnest second-rate swimmer should morph into one of the great Olympians. The other story was glorious: a week-long hallelujah, a fairytale written by journalists whose enthusiasm overwhelmed every critical faculty. Perhaps they also sensed what the Irish people wanted.

The denial

 ’Michelle, how did you feel when they played the national anthem and you saw the flag go up?’ Hear no questions. Speak no hard questions. A small handful made a cottage industry out of attacking the three of us in print and on the airwaves. We were attention seeking traitors who would get our comeuppance as soon as Michelle got around to suing us for libel. 

Denouement 

On the day of Smith’s last race she had a problem with her goggles and was late to the starting blocks. Not far from where the three of us sat were the nine or ten Irish journalists who had been writing hymns of praise. They din’t much like us that week and we weren’t their biggest fans either. But with Smith’s starting block temporarily vacant, six or seven of journalist fans rose from their seats and headed for the for the stairs that would take them down to the pool area. As they filed past us, one of them looked up and caught my eye. ‘She’s been done’[.......]. She hadn’t been done but it was a little insight into the minds of her believers. 

(Michelle Smith would receive a four year suspension for tampering with a urine sample)

(The above – apart from the sub-titles is from David Walsh’s supremely outstanding book ‘Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong’)

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Whenever a scandal goes beyond the realm of a conspiracy theorist and into the real world of ‘Hang on, this could actually be a scandal,’ the initial reaction isn’t really even one of shock. Or disappointment. Or ‘I told you so’ (maybe this but all of us do this to get a few retweets here and a few mentions there). The first thing I always check is whether the player(s)/team(s)/competition(s) that have been accused have any close association with me (the slate remains clean till now).

When the first S. Sreesanth, A. Chandila and A. Chavan allegations started flying, I din’t really bother (from a fan point of view). I hadn’t invested my time in supporting the Rajasthan Royals franchise, the three players din’t really mean anything to me apart from three names who might or not have fixed matches with bookies. I wouldn’t lose any sleep if the people conducting the investigations decided to postpone/cancel the Indian Premier League pending an enquiry.

Michael Hussey, Sachin Tendulkar, Brett Lee, Rahul Dravid and a few other assorted cricketers din’t partake in any of this. And as long as this select group of individuals don’t do anything silly, I don’t really think I will be affected or be shocked or be sad in anyway. I may feel sad that cricket is once again in the dock because of a few idiots who find the allure of the greens more appealing than wearing the colours of the team they represent.

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The message coming out of the news channels and the BCCI this past week is almost at loggerheads with each other. The news channels preferred to go with ‘A billion people betrayed’ as their main agenda. The BCCI decided to go with ‘IPL ain’t going nowhere, sonny.’

I hate the BCCI as much as the next guy. Most of their decision making makes me pull my hair out. But I was hoping that they would actually first think about the fans for a bit. An apology to the fans would have been touch a class for an unclassy organisation. You ask why? These three people were playing in a BCCI-organised competition, whetted by BCCI-approved procedures and hence you find them indulging in match fixing.

“I feel for the fans who have spent their time and money to either go to the stadium or watch it on TV. I apologise on the behalf of the three cricketers who have brought the game into disrepute.”  N. Srinivasan, You could have probably begun your press conference like this. Before going back to protecting your primary interest: IPL.

No, media, Non. A billion people don’t feel betrayed. You can shout as much as you want. You can bring in glamour names to attract the eyeballs during primetime. But a billion people being betrayed? That’s just hogwash.

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After watching Usain Bolt’s 100-metre race in 2008, one of my friends asked me, “How would it be if you wake up tomorrow to find out this headline scream in front of you: ‘Bolt tests positive; gold medal stripped’. I honestly din’t know what to say for a while. Then I opined ‘I might possibly spill my morning coffee.’

Possibly along with a billion other coffees.

Many people – Spurs fans, journalists who have an anti-Arsenal slant, Arsenal fans who are sick of the sight of Arsene Wenger   Piers Morgan and Stewart Robson who are both sick of the sight of Wenger and rival fans who have had enough of Arsenal because of Wenger’s ‘supposedly lofty ideals – were proclaiming that March 3rd, 2013, was the day the contours of power shifted in North London. The day Spurs beat Arsenal to go ahead of Chelsea into third place.

After the game, Andres Villas Boas, claimed that Arsenal were ‘in a negative spiral and that his side are on an upward spiral.

“The difference this year is that we are on an upward spiral in terms of confidence whereas they are in a negative spiral and once you get into that negative spiral it’s difficult to get out of it.”

Defensive bastion

While we have been in a fair few slumps before, Villas Boas couldn’t have got his statement more wrong. Since that defeat, Arsenal’s record reads like this: WWWWWDWDWWW (9 wins and 2 draws; including the victory against Bayern Munich away from home in the Champions League). Arsenal didn’t just show Championship form since the defeat against Spurs. They showed that with mettle, spirit and just about enough finishing quality in the final third of the pitch, they could not only win ugly but also develop a battering ram in terms of achieving maximum output. The style and the elegance of past Wenger sides went out of the window for a better defensive shape and that proved to be the difference in the end as they conceded a meagre five goals (only one goal away from home) circa that night against Spurs.

Statistics can be very misleading but this defensive run goes beyond mere numbers. And perhaps indicates that Steve Bould, the assistant manager and someone who has not had a very cordial replationship with Wenger this season, if reports are to be believed, has had some sort of defensive impetus since he came to the forefront last summer.

Out of the five goals Arsenal have let in, four have come from set plays (two penalties and two free kicks). The last time Arsenal let in a goal from open play away from home came in that sobering 2-1 defeat at White Hart Lane. All this clearly indicates that there is a genuine inclination to defend better as a team, to maintain shape when not having the ball and not get caught on the counter. Which is perhaps the reason why Arsenal haven’t had more joy at the other end. The ploy looked deliberate to get into the top four but now the work starts for the backroom staff; how to strike the balance between defence and attack without compromising or inhibiting the attacking virtues of the team.

After Villas Boas’s positive spiral comment, Spurs’s form have read thus: LLWDWDWDWW (only Premier League). While this isn’t a particularly bad run-in sequence, the loss against Fulham at home and the draw against Wigan away from home culminated in that 5th spot. Those looked like the tricky sort of banana fixtures and Spurs slipped up in both.

But that in itself doesn’t mean that Spurs have had a bad season. Daniel Levy may have ultimately gift wrapped the 4th place (failing to deliver Joao Moutinho in August and Leandro Damaio in January) but he has one superstar in that team and a very able supporting cast who will again be there or thereabouts next season. The challenge for them is to retain Gareth Bale for at least one more season (or if they choose to cash in – assuming he will be worth north of $90mn – buy 3-4 more players who will not only compensate for the loss of Bale, but also help Spurs make that step up.

Right to celebrate 

You are seven points below your arch rivals in the League. You have had a poor season; knocked out by Blackburn and Bradford in the domestic cups while it took Bayern only 90 minutes to dismiss your European challenge as something worse than notional. Then you claw your way back and then finish 4th in the last day of the season. If all that happens, you are well within your right to celebrate.

But the next step is the key for Arsenal. The celebration should be limited to acknowledging that they achieved something approaching ‘bare minimum’ and not ‘optimum level’. Milan played Siena last night and their owners and players went bonkers when they had qualified to the Champions League after two late goals. Are you saying that AC  ’7 times champions’ Milan shouldn’t celebrate?

The monetary benefits and the role that the Champions League during recruitment is a key part and non-qualification would have pushed back the advantage that Arsenal have had in the last couple of months because of the new commercial deals in place.

Time to make the step up 

When Arsenal moved to the new stadium, finishing fourth did not just become a by-word for relative success; it also became very, very important in securing the short-term financial status of the club. Lots of people have accused the Arsenal model of selling their most important players to keep the club in the black but in truth, given their huge debt and their interest payments, any other model (without having a benefactor in the Sheikh Mansour or Roman Abramovich mould) would have seen the club in mired in red. Swiss Ramble described about Arsenal’s recent profits and financial numbers in this excellent post of his.

But there is genuine optimism and feeling that this time, Arsenal will use the money they have in the bank not as a contingency but to even challenge for the title. And the main reason for that is three things:

a) The first significant development took place last November with shirt partners Emirates:

Emirates are to extend their shirt partnership until the end of the 2018/2019 season, while also continuing with naming rights on the Gunners’ 60,000-seater stadium at Ashburton Grove until 2028. The £30m-a-year contract represents a significant increase in additional revenue.

Why is this significant? The previous deal with Emirates short-changed Wenger’s and Arsenal’s spending powers for a long time. The last deal was done in haste mainly to help fund the move to the new stadium. This current deal has more to do with investing the incoming money to bolster the squad.

b) The next significant development took place earlier in May following a John Cross exclusive about Arsenal’s new kit deal with Puma:

They have struck an agreement worth in excess of £30m-a-year which could see the five year contract worth £170m in total. The deal, which will not be announced officially for some time, will give Arsenal major additional financial clout on top of the new deal with Emirates.

Why is this significant? Nike had a long-standing agreement with Arsenal, an association which went back a couple of decades. But Nike’s deal with Arsenal was worth far less at about 55 mn pounds over seven years. This means there is going to be a bigger cash injection into the club. But the deal won’t kick in till the start of the 2014-15 season.

c) The biggest TV deal yet:

The new TV deals securing the right to broadcast Premier League matches around the world will be worth around 5 billion pounds from 2013-14 to 2015-16. According to Owen Gibson of the Guardian, this means an automatic increase of a mnimum of 14 million pounds to all the Premier Clubs over the next three season starting from next season (for top drawer clubs like Arsenal the rise could be about 25-30 million pounds)

Why is this significant? This in itself isn’t as significant as the TV deal applies to all 20 clubs of the league but this gives Arsenal the advantage of actually not having to sell their most important players any more to make up 15 million pounds through player sales like Wenger alluded to before.

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If Arsenal hadn’t qualified for the Champions League, the above three factors would have weakened Arsenal’s hand at the poker table. But now that they have qualified in what seems to be a new era of greater financial joy, they actually hold the aces and might be able to go all in with the odds firmly stacked in their favour.

External Reading:

John Cross’s Puma piece - http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-agree-puma-kit-deal-1874661

Nick Harris’s new TV deal - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2237955/Nick-Harris–5-5bn-TV-pays-screen-Premier-League.html

PA’s Arsenal and Emirates deal - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2237351/Arsenal-Emirates-sign-new-commercial-deal-worth-150million.html

When Sylvain Wiltord toe-poked the ball past Fabien Barthez who had only managed to parry Freddie Ljungberg’s effort, Arsenal had won the title at Old Trafford. Wenger wrested back the bragging rights and, according to many who had reported on the game, became the first manager to win a psychological battle with Ferguson.

(Fast forward 11 years since that night – yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the Wiltord’s goal – and all those soothsayers have conveniently gone into hiding. Ferguson came back and won the league in 2003 before Wenger went one up to win the league unbeaten the next year; 2004. Since then, the likes of Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafael Benitez, Roberto Mancini and Arsenal’s inability to challenge for the title have somewhat diluted what was once the Premier League’s supreme rivalry. But make no mistake, this was box office which might well have been featured on a PPV).

While their rivalries can be described in rudimentary terms – two of the best managers managing two of the best sides in a two-horse race –  the plot lines went well beyond the realms of 90 minutes and the contours of ‘just another title race’.

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Ferguson’s United were the top dogs in England. And with an emerging ‘Golden Generation’ of David Beckham, the Nevilles Gary and Phil, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes, they were expected to remain topdogs for the foreseeable future.

The formative years

Wenger came in and tore that script right out the window by leading Arsenal to an incredible double in his first full season at the club. United were leading by 11 points in the beginning of March but Arsenal, who did have games on hand, went on an incredible run to win the league by a single point. Wenger also completed the double over Ferguson. This was Arsenal’s first league title since the 1990-1991 season. This was the first time United did not win the FA Cup or the title since 1994-95.

One of Wenger’s greatest regrets might not actually be the failure to win the Champions League. Their profile in Europe was never chequered before Wenger and apart from two near misses (Galatasaray, Barcelona), Arsenal never looked like a team primed to conquer Europe. It might be not winning back-to-back League titles. That should also be a testament to Ferguson and his remarkable work ethic and a single-mindedness at winning or rectifying things to win the things they lost immediately. An unprecedented treble came United way’s in the 1998-99 season.

The bitter battles 

They may be friends now but back when Arsenal were competing and beating Manchester United, Ferguson din’t really like Wenger, who made no bones about his dislike for Ferguson. And that rivalry transpired, quite obviously, to the pitch.

The hatred was visceral. Keane would rather kick Vieira than a football. Vieira would rather take chunks of Keane than try to stay on the pitch for 90 minutes. In the 2003-4 season, the fixture computer matched Manchester United vs Arsenal rather early in the piece.

The hatred had been simmering for years and both teams wanted to gain a psychological edge so early in the season. Vieira was dismissed for a second yellow for an apparent foul on Nistelrooy (After the game, both Wenger and Vieira claimed that Nistelrooy dived. Both Nistelrooy and Ferguson refuted the allegations). The game itself descended into a red mist late on. United had a penalty which Nistelrooy promptly missed. Arsenal players, who had already felt aggrieved because of the Vieira red card, tore into Nistelrooy. Keown being especially severe. Both the managers din’t seem to be overly bothered by what they had seen or what their players had indulged in.

The Guardian’s Richard Williams had this to say about the game:

As the harvest of furious emails and telephone calls made plain, there were two ways of looking at the Battle of Old Trafford. Those who stirred themselves to respond to the views I expressed in Monday’s paper – and they probably stood for many others – believed that the scenes of mayhem at the end of Sunday’s match were not only disgraceful but almost wholly attributable to the actions of the Arsenal team.

To them this was a recrudescence of the old all-for-one policy of the Arsenal squad, developed during George Graham’s stewardship. Arsène Wenger’s selective blindness only makes it worse since the Frenchman poses as a protagonist of football’s age of enlightenment.

A lot of Arsenal players got fined in the aftermath. The rematch at Highbury promised to be spicy but it turned out to be a damp-squib. Henry lashed in from about 25 yards but Louis Saha equallised with minutes with go. But the game itself provided no bust-ups.

The first fixture between these two sides in the 2004-05 season lived up to expectation. Both on and off the pitch. Jose Antonio Reyes came in for some special treatment from United who couldn’t live with the Spaniard’s quick feet and pace. Arsenal were about 15 minutes from going 50 matches unbeaten in the league. Then, it all unravelled. Wayne Rooney dived. Sol Campbell couldn’t believe when Mike Riley pointed to the spot. Van Nistelrooy converted the spot kick. Rooney himself sealed the deal late on. Arsenal’s halo had vanished in 20 minutes of madness. But the drama off-the-field was just about to begin.

A lot of edible items was supposed to have been thrown inside that Old Trafford tunnel. Some at Ferguson himself. It emerged that Fabregas, a then 17-year-old teenager, had actually thrown a pizza at Ferguson’s face. Keown confirmed that it was indeed Fabregas who threw the Pizza in 2011. Kevin McCarra, tells about what was a game that should have been lawfully Arsenal’s….

This was a fixture that was inflamed even before it began. Upon taking the field, the Arsenal players embraced one another with the fervour of men about to pour out of the trenches. As it happened, they could easily have enjoyed superior numbers in the conflict.

Van Nistelrooy was lucky that Riley saw no offence when his studs ate into Cole’s knee. Given that the referee was eager to avoid red cards, he might in any case have felt that a booking would have sufficed, but it is beyond dispute that Rio Ferdinand should have been dismissed.

The influential Edu put Freddie Ljungberg clear in the 19th minute and the United centre-half barged into his back some 30 yards from the target to bowl him over when there were no other defenders left to intervene. Neither Riley nor his linesman reacted and Ferdinand, reprieved, went on to be the leading performer in this fixture.

The return fixture was even more dramatic. And arguably one of the all time classics of the Premier League. Vieira had set things up nicely in the tunnel when Keane interjected with ‘I ll see you out there‘ with Vieira replying with a ‘Come on then.’

Ronaldo, who would go on to become a thorn for future Arsenal defences, opened his account against Arsenal in this match with two goals. Keane and a collector’s edition chip from just inside the box from O’ Shea completed a 2-4 defeat. Arsenal had twice led in the game. First from Vieira and then from Bergkamp following an equaliser from Giggs. This of course ended Arsenal’s long unbeaten record at Highbury. Their last loss at Highbury was against Mark Viduka’s Leeds United in the fag end of the 2002-03 season.

There have been other games which have been as dramatic as the above but it was more out of novelty than anything else. An Henry goal deep into injury time in 2007 gave Arsenal a 2-1 victory and its last double against United.

In the 2007-08 season, the last time an Arsenal vs Manchester United directly affected a title race involving these two, an Owen Hargreaves freekick completed a comeback victory after Ronaldo had cancelled out an Adebayor goal.

The Similarities 

It is remarkable yet unsurprising that both Wenger and Ferguson, two of the longest serving managers in the Premier League, share a few ideologies when it comes to creating teams. They both try to build teams by giving chances to young players (two of the players who benefited from that have gone onto become club legends; one of them has gone on to win the World Cup while the other has notched 200 goals for Real Madrid in less than four seasons).

They have always maintained that they try to possession-based football as it’s the *right* way to play the game. But recent history suggests that both have been malleable enough to adapt their teams to different settings. Arsenal under Wenger especially in the 21st century have not been known for their resilience but they set a rather curious record which will stand a long time. They went 10 games without conceding a goal in Europe during their run in 2005-06 edition of the Champions League. Ferguson adapted a very pragmatic formation to try and best the carousel midfield of Barcelona. The 180 minutes may not have been very pretty but the output was the one that United seeked: a 1-0 aggregate victory over two legs. To just give you a magnitude of the achievement; that was last time that any team shut out Barcelona before Bayern Munich achieved that feat over two legs two weeks ago – 4 and a half years and 14 matches between two shut-outs. Remarkable.

Both of them have been through lean phases and unprecedented highs. Their highs also brought about one of the best periods for the respective club’s ever. But their relative lows has takes an identical path. The three years 2003-4, 04-5 and 05-6 yielded one FA cup winners medal, one losers medal and one League cup. Ferguson claimed it was a period of transition but many journalists and even fans openly questioned whether Ferguson’s magic had run out. Little did the world know that in one year’s time, United would have a fully matured Ronaldo who would take them to their first league title since 2002-3. Attempting to win (or even be competitive in) the league with young players Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney with triers like Wes Brown and John O’ Shea wasn’t cutting any ice with the Old-Trafford faithful. Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Ruud Van-Nistelrooy, Roy Keane and Gary Neville, part of the club’s vanguard were looking out of sorts for differing reasons. Nistelrooy would keep banging in the goals but United resembled a club on the way down.

David Beckham and Nistelrooy were sold to Madrid while Keane was asked to pack his bags. The supporters were spoiled and wanted to see the back of Ferguson. The League cup victory over Wigan should have represented something significant but it was dressed down to suit a wider notion of ‘Ta Ra Fergie’.

While Ferguson, with the financial muscle of the club, ensured that fought back after Chelsea’s dalliance in the transfer market, Wenger and Arsenal, had a new stadium which brought with it, new implications and self-imposed (and rightly so) financial sanctions that would prevent the club from lunching with the elite. Patrick Vieira, Arsenal’s own Keane, was sold to Juventus. The club was embracing a new dawn and a new player; Fabregas. A Champions League victory could have been achieved and that would have been a grand way to enter the new stadium but it did not transpire. Hamstrings and heartbreaks followed as Thierry Henry left Arsenal for Barcelona a year after signing what everybody thought would be his final contract. Emmanuel Adebayor and Samir Nasri fitted the new spending profile of the club while Fabregas, like Ronaldo and Rooney, was entrusted to take the club back to the top. But unlike those two, Fabregas didn’t get much help from teammates or from the transfer market.

One disappointment followed another. The barbs that Ferguson and Wenger used to exchange pre-match ceased. Some even suggested about a possible friendship. A pummelling was handed to Arsenal by United in a CL semifinal. The yawning gap was just about confirmed.

But then Arsenal did have a chance at United’s 2005-06 League Cup moment. Win a cup to get the monkey off the back. Arsenal failed in that endeavour. Manchester City rolled into town and took away Nasri, Adebayor, Kolo Toure and Gael Clichy. Fabregas went back to Barcelona. Wenger’s youth project was shattered in a matter of two years and one oligarch.

The Denouement 

The writing had been on the wall for quite sometime. While Aaron Ramsey famously snubbed Gary Neville and Manchester United for Wenger and Arsenal, United held the wood over its former adversaries. The rivalry seemed like a thing of the past. That Champions League semifinal was to be the final nail in the coffin. But given the benefit of hindsight, the 4-1 aggregate defeat proved to be the beginning of the end and not the end in itself.

A Ramsey goal helped restore some lost pride for Arsenal but United got back to winning ways and in some devastating fashion. A rag-tag Arsenal side landed at Old Trafford. Talk of a ‘respectable 2-0 defeat’ filled the Arsenal forums and chatrooms. The final result was an 8-2 in favour of United and the result did not flatter anybody one bit. That was the proverbial final nail in the coffin. And if that was not enough, Ferguson identified Arsenal’s Robin van Persie as a key player to wrest the title back from Manchester City, who had won the title on goal difference last season. And boy did that gamble pay off?

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I always felt that both Wenger as well as Ferguson liked going at each other. For that reason alone, I feel a bit sad that there hasn’t been a proper final battle between two of the best managers ever seen in Britain.

Accusations of match-fixing, spot-fixing and Srini Mama fixing have not been proven thus far. Over the course of the last two weeks, the IPL has seen two very curious incidents generate a significant amount of press, outrage, inane defences, hair-splitting LULZ reactions and so on.

The first one was the Mumbai crowd booing Virat Kohli. They also chanted ‘cheater, cheater’. I have no idea why people felt they had to either defend Kohli or attack the Mumbai crowd reminding everybody that it has previous when it comes to booing cricketers. Those two are separate incidents and honestly whatever they did (or did not do) in the past has absolutely no bearing on what they did now. They are well within their right to boo and/or chant against their opponents, irrespective of whether he has represented India right from the Under-9 category. I’m saying their previous should have no bearing because booing Sachin Tendulkar against England isn’t the same as booing ‘Bangalore’s Kohli. This is franchise cricket were the stakes are high Not Sunday league. I have no idea whether the Mumbai crowd regrets its booing of Tendulkar but he does remain an incredibly important ticket to have if you hope to bring fans to the stadium. This probably means Mumbai have made their peace with Tendulkar.

Which brings me to Kohli’s defence. Errr, Newsflash Kohli: It doesn’t really matter if you happen to play for India or the Mambalam Mosquitoes (there is a team by that name. Honest). If I support a team (in this case Mumbai Indians) and you don’t happen to play for that team, I will do whatever I want in the hope that I give my team an edge over you. And that includes booing and chanting. It isn’t fucking high tea in a maidan. It’s competitive cricket between two teams who want to win before ultimately losing to CSK in the final  and that’s the way it should be.

 The crowd at the Wankhede is particularly notorious and past indiscretions are not easily forgiven, much less forgotten: booing Sachin Tendulkar in 2006, calling Andrew Symonds a monkey in 2007, or jeering at Rahul Dravid during the Bangalore-Mumbai IPL game in 2008.

So wrote Anjali Doshi in Wisden India. The monkey chants were abusive and uncalled for and there really is no defending that but let’s stop for one moment here. They really aren’t the first ‘sporting’ crowd to do that. They most definitely won’t be the last. Now coming to jeering at Dravid. Erm. Again. Why exactly should the Mumbai crowd respect Dravid for what he has done for the Indian national team when he, at that moment in time, was playing for Bangalore?

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The second incident and the subsequent outrage was, according to me at least, even more comical that the first. A Shane Watson delivery was cautiously defended by Manvinder Bisla. As the ball rolled back to Watson, the Australian pretended to hurl the ball back to Bisla, who then almost challenged Watson to throw it. Then Bisla exchanged a couple of pleasantries with Dravid. Gambhir joined in the fun before Ajinkya Rahane intervened to move Bisla away from all the verbal diarrhoea.

Apparently this has got most people’s knickers in a right old twist. Because a player who has achieved next to nothing in cricket has the gall to abuse (?)/sledge (?) a player who has done so much for cricket. Granted Dravid is huge and all that but sledging/abusing/talking back to a player is not exactly dependent of the player’s status. Gambhir and Bisla are paid by Kolkata to win them games. They are not there to revere Dravid.

I had a really long conversation with a Dravidtard regarding this and the vibe I got from him suggested that he was outraging because a player he loves has been sledged. I have to say I’m fairly uncomfortable with that stance. You either have a problem with sledging or you have no problems about it. Sledging isn’t done on the basis of the status of player. You just don’t go up to a player and then suddenly realise, ‘Holy hell. That’s Dravid. Nah. Can’t sledge him. He’s this mythical god of Indian cricket.’

Links: 

Anjali Doshi – ‘Seven Random Thoughts and Wankhede Observation’ http://www.wisdenindia.com/cricket-article/random-thoughts-wankhede-observations/60571

Gambhir, Bisla, Dravid handbags - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wj3XisGb5s

Caveat: I’m one of the who firmly belong to the ABIPL brigade but for different reasons.

It was interesting to note the reactions of Bacary Sagna’s back pass which sent Robin van Persie through. It was even more telling that Sagna raced back trying to atone for his error. Watch the build up to the play and no player (especially Theo Walcott) made themselves available for a pass. I’m not defending Sagna here. He is clearly culpable but serenading Sagna for one costly miss isn’t going to achieve anything. The replacements aren’t really better. Carl Jenkinson is a decent back-up to have but as a first choice is asking for trouble. Sagna absolutely has to stay so that Arsenal can concentrate on other problem areas.

I was listening to Nick Hornby, author of Arsenal bible Fever Pitch, talk about the club’s recent problems and the sort of stasis that seems to have enveloped Emirates. A lot of fans have made it known that a year from the Champions League will do the club more good than harm and it seems that Hornby is also a member of that club. I beg to differ. The self-sustaining model that Arsenal have opted for means that the money generated by Champions League income plays a huge role. Even more important than the fame of a League Cup or an FA Cup trophy. While featuring in the Champions League shouldn’t in itself be seen as winning a trophy, it is no less an achievement. Take one look at the likes of Liverpool (one FA Cup, one League Cup) and Sevilla (two Euro Cups) over the last 5-6 years. It is not easy to get back into the league once you drop out irrespective of how many trophies you have won in that period. The point that was won today could go a long way in ensuring that Arsenal maintain the quid pro quo over their rivals Tottenham.

The van Persie transfer has actually given Arsenal a unique advantage and a blueprint for the next few years. Since they were not in a position to buy a 25-goal striker, they have effectively brought 25 goals from three players. Olivier Giroud, Santi Cazorla and Theo Walcott have not set the league alight with their goal scoring prowess but what they have done quietly is to become the first PL trio to score 10 or more goals this season (penalties not included – this via @Orbinho). If and when Lukas Podolski scores one more PL goal, Arsenal will have four players who would have scored 10 or more goals this season. That’s an effective blueprint to share goals but now the onus will be on them to work on it during the off season and take it to the next level next season (more on the overall goal-scoring stats later).

The problem presented by the loss of form of Thomas Vermaelen is an interesting one but I think Arsene Wenger is right to drop the Belgian in favour of Laurent Koscielny. What Wenger does with Vermaelen will be interesting irrespective of whether he decides to buy a new CB. Right now Arsenal are two bruises away from fielding Sebastien Squillaci. Ideally you would want Arsenal to have four high quality centre backs (with at least one of the four having the necessary skill set to fill at full back as an emergency). If Arsenal decides to persist with Vermaelen on top of buying a new centre half that would mean four quality centre backs. That will be very handy because Vermaelen is still a quality player. While he may not accept this (next year being a pre World-Cup year and with Belgium being adequately blessed with full and centre backs), one hopes that Vermaelen works his way back into the first team. If we do sell him, we will essentially be back to square one (two bruises away from Ignasi Miquel or Johan Djourou) unless we decide to buy a right back, who plays centre half or vice versa.

There was a point earlier in the season when both Wenger and Aaron Ramsey were receiving incredible stick because the former was playing the latter wide right. Ramsey has had an incredibly hard to two years having to not only come back with a double break but he has cope with the loss of Gary Speed, who made him captain of Wales (he has since been stripped from that post). While Wenger was not doing Ramsey any short term favours by playing the Welshman out of position, he has made him aware of how use a football in the middle of the park. Wenger does talk a lot about the importance of midfielders being played on the wings to understand the use of space and angles (as one side is completely cut) and it seems Ramsey has come out with flying colours. What many people don’t remember is that Cesc Fabregas played wide right for sometime in the 2004-05 season and look how he came out.

Walcott’s goal was the 19th of the season in all competitions and while that is handy, that was only the third time he has scored when none of the other three (Podolski, Giroud, Cazorla) haven’t chipped in with a goal of their own. This has been Arsenal’s biggest problem till date. The four biggest goal-scorers have been sharing goals but they have been sharing goals in a few games. Ideally that should be a bit more scatter gun. Walcott’s other goals when scored alone have resulted in a grand total of a point (1-1 vs Everton). A few stats have been attached to the bottom of the piece to further illustrate the worry of Arsenal’s goal-scoring.

There is going to be some significant money inflows this off-season. If Arsenal are willing to spend a few greens on quality players, the promised land of 2014 could well turn out to be that.

Arsenal’s goal-scorers : a detailed look (post Everton) 

Lukas Podolski’s goal scoring statistics

Theo Walcott’s goal scoring statistics

Olivier Giroud’s goal-scoring statistics

Santi Cazorla’s goal-scoring statistics

* – Please note that all the above statistics are only for matches upto Everton.

As somebody who has lots of previous, Liverpool’s Luis Suarez divides opinion. The talent he has is obvious. He’s a genius with the ball at his feat. It’s a delight to watch him nutmeg his way, sashay past defenders like they were non-existent and score goals that mere mortals can only dream of after overdosing on amphetamines.

F365′s John Nicholson sums up the Suarez debate effortlessly in a single sentence

No-one died, no blood was drawn, no need for a rabies injection. Move on, nothing to see here, no need for hours of debate.

While I agree that that’s a rudimentary way of looking at what happened yesterday, more so because of Suarez’s past, was it really the worst act committed on a football pitch? Was it worse than Eric Cantona’s ludicrous Kung-Fu kick on a Crystal Palace fan? Was it harder to absorb than Roy Keane’s deliberate and, it has to be said, malicious stamp on Charlton Athletic’s Alfe-Inge Haaland? Or was it worse than this sickening elbow that Chris Morgan planted on the top of Iain Hume? The answer is quite clearly No. While it has to be said that the biting incident is vile and horrendous, the reams of column space that it has generated (while understandable), has lacked genuine perspective.

Cantona went on to become one of Man United’s greatest imports. Roy Keane is still revered in Salford. Nobody suggested that Alex Ferguson should move them on quickly to save the club’s ‘integrity’ – which in itself is a sickening word to be associated with football. People cheat and lie all the time. Players who claim throw-ins and corners in spite of knowing they did have the last touch are as bad as the ones who dive. They are both essentially cheating to try and give the team they represent an unfair advantage which shouldn’t have existed in the first place.

*****

It is hilarious to see that many people are suggesting that Suarez should now be sold. If he is indeed sold, wouldn’t Liverpool, in a subtle manner, accept that his baggage far outweighs his outrageous talent. Football has this crazy ability to take on board all kinds of weird geniuses and Suarez is just another weird/troubled genius. He has played the game in England for over two years and in that time he has found himself in the dock for being a racist, and now, for being a biter. (I am not going to include ‘failure to handshake an opponent before a football match as an offence because, quite honestly, handshakes have no business of existing on a football pitch).

It was even more hilarious to listen to Press Pass and other podcasts today. They were wondering whether Suarez would find takers after what he did. Jose Mourinho gouged an eye of then Barcelona assistant Tito Vilanova a couple of seasons back. Will Mourinho be short of takers when his Real Madrid gig comes to an end? Most definitely not. Football has enough ‘characters’ but they always find enough employment options. As long as they are talented enough to prove their wares at the highest level.

Yes, it was bad to watch. He did bite or at the very least take Branislav Ivanovic’s arm with the full intention of trying to get that part of Ivanovic’s anatomy acquainted with his teeth. Just let the FA take action, give him a fine and a ban and be done with it. There is really no need to paint Suarez as a devil.

*****

While former Liverpool players all accused Suarez, it was rather interesting to hear former Red Graeme Souness’s comments. While his analogy was spot on

‘That’s what children do when they are in the pram, they bite things if they are not happy

One will have to remember what sort of a bloke Souness was. You see the guy running to plant the Galatasaray flag in the centre circle of Fenerbahce pitch? That bloke was Souness when he was managing Galatasaray.

There were lots of gags and puns from the whole incident and lots of people had a field day when Mike Tyson started following Suarez on Twitter. Now there should be a clear distinction between what happened yesterday night and what happened when Tyson feasted on Evander Holyfield’s ear. Video evidence from last night at the best suggested a possible coming together of teeth and skin where as Tyson actually ripped out a part of Holyfield’s anatomy in the ring all those years ago.

*****

Liverpool isn’t a Boston Red Sox CSR experiment by John Henry. It is a genuine business plan aimed at taking Liverpool forward and they are well within their rights to keep whoever they want irrespective of the player’s track record as long as the player is worth the trouble. Suarez has proved that he his.

As Ian Herbert says in his Monday column for sporting intelligence,

We are looking at a player who is being justifiably pilloried but who has not committed the worst act in the history of football……  Just another part of the pantomime plot, with Suarez playing the evil villain.

Links

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2013/04/22/tell-me-why-genuine-horror-and-pantomime-plot-are-so-blurred-in-suarez-bite-case-220401/ - ‘Tell me why genuine horror and pantomime plot are so blurred in the Suarez case’

http://www.football365.com/john-nicholson/8665173/Johnny-Nic - ‘No one died, no blood was drawn’

Sean Ingle, doing the Guardian’s MBM for that game, wrote this on the Diaby chance:

82 min: What a chance from Diaby! He cleverly springs the offside trap and is played by Ljungberg, but then takes an age – almost like he thinks he’s been flagged by the linesman – and Casillas makes a good save.

In that free words, Ingle beautifully captures the playing style of Diaby. “But then takes an age – almost like he thinks be’s been flagged by the linesman…”

******

Insulated from the vast opinions that used to circulate at the time (partly because twitter hadn’t been conceived yet while Orkut never really transcended from ‘he said, she said’ fights) the belief that Diaby was going to be a replacement for Patrick Vieira was sown into my head by my own dad.

Tall, gangly, running strides that would bring the thumbs up from godzilla and representing France, I could see from were my dad was coming from. And I’m assuming those were the sort of attributes that made people think that Diaby was going to be natural successor to Vieira. But looking back, it’s just a shame that Diaby has never really lived upto the moniker that was bestowed on him.

******

Following his latest setback through injury, a torn anterior cruciate ligament which is going to keep him out of the game for close to a year, it is becoming increasingly evident that Diaby would have to seriously reconsider his career. His latest injury, I’m reliably informed is his 35th separate injury since joining the club in the winter of 2005-06 season.

While his trouble with injuries started even before that tackle by Smith, it was that tackle that put Diaby at unease during a crucial phase of his development. He was 19, looking forward to pre-season and a first-full year at Arsenal when he suffered that horrible leg break which put him out of the game for close to 8 months. He had to undergo three operations and the doctors described his condition as career-ending.

Just to give you an indication of how much the injury destroyed his career, Diaby has gone on to make just 177 appearances for Arsenal. And this is his 8th season at the club.

******

While I have focussed a lot on the Smith tackle, Diaby’s handling, both by the club’s medical staff as well as Wenger, has left much to be desired. Wenger’s record with injury prone players is well documented. And he does like to bring back players immediately after an injury. Tomas Rosicky, Thierry Henry, Robin van Persie, Cesc Fabregas and Diaby himself are just a few names that I can remember at this stage. And he appears to be going down the same route with Jack Wilshere.

I had this debate with a few Arsenal fans at the start of the season when it became apparent that the replacement for Alex Song would come from within. I was kind of bemused that Wenger had decided to gamble on Diaby. While he did play well early in the season, hanging the hopes of a club like Arsenal on Diaby is a bit like a poker player who hangs his hopes on a river card.

*******

Whenever a player is accused of deserting a club, issues of loyalty get thrown at him. But whenever a player breaks his leg and needs a year reconstructing his bones, fans want the club to move the player on. They seldom realise that loyalty is a two-way street. But that accusation cannot be thrown at Arsenal. They have given every chance for Diaby to shine here. They have waited patiently for him to come back from disappointment after disappointment. But I’m inclined to believe that is indeed when the straw has broken the camel’s back.

Given the nature of his injury, I can see him at Arsenal at least till the end of next season. But as far as his playing days goes, I don’t see him making a huge impact here. Good luck, Abou. You deserve some, lad.

*******

Modern sport seems to have developed this ugly inclination to put down the ones who are playing at the expense of the ones who are absent through injury. ‘Ah, if only Diaby had played for 2 consecutive seasons, Arsenal would have been champions’ is the regular lament of all Arsenal fans. Does any industry celebrate non-performing (or injured) assets as much as this industry is a topic for another day but Diaby would no doubt be an example for whatever side of the fence you sit on.

India have played some excellent cricket but have found themselves in iffy situations over the course of both the matches. Australia have played lots of iffy cricket with a few individual efforts standing out in both the games. But a sense of ‘Erm, you know what.. while India have been really good, you can also say Australia haven’t as much pressed the self-destruct button as much as stamping on it, jamming it and throwing the world’s only known ‘how to solve a jammed self-destruct button manual’ out of the window before coming into this series.

• Because Phil Hughes in these conditions is a walking wicket.
• You don’t need a great spinner to take wickets in Indian wickets. Just someone who will bowl without any sort of trepidation or prestige/dignity after being hit for a six the previous ball (remember Jason Krezja)
• Michael Clarke shouldn’t be batting at five. Probably should have been sandwiched between anybody other than Hughes at 3 and Shane Watson at 5.
• Contrary to popular belief it’s ok to play with three seamers in these conditions. But only ok if they are named Morne Morkel, Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander.

Michael Clarke and Australia, unlike M.S. Dhoni and India, haven’t hid. They have come out and made the right noises in press conferences. They din’t send rookies to the press conferences. Brownie points should be given for that but some of that famous siege mentality has been missing on this tour. In some of the earlier tours, they used to play the media very cleverly. That hasn’t really taken off this time.

This is India’s best chance to do a 4-0. Not just to even the embarrassment that was given by the same opposition some 14 months back. But to prove two points. 1) They are capable of not only beating somebody who is down but also 2) capable of behaving like a big team.

Virender Sehwag’s sacking gives me hope and I hope the selectors completely twist the knife by taking this opportunity to play the likes of Ajinkya Rahane in the remaining Tests (in place of Sachin Tendulkar for extra points). Not because I’m a Tendulkar hater (far from it) but to see what exactly Rahane is made off. In every industry, a non-performing (or stationery) asset would be consistently devalued. But in sport, quite strangely, the opposite is true. And the likes of Rahane fit this strange phenomenon. Time to see whether Rahane can hold his fort. Or not.

I really like Michael Clarke as a captain and as a cricketer. And I loved the declaration in the first innings of the 2nd Test. It served the two pronged purpose of sending out a strong message of ‘Feck it you worthless sods…. Am gonna declare now,’ and ‘No issues, we can wrest some sort of initiative if we can take a couple of wickets before stumps.’ The problem while judging a declaration like that is retrospection. What seemed fair enough at that time appears to be stupid right now.

What seems an at best dodgy move to sack 25% of the touring squad now could blow up spectacularly in his face. It appears to be a lose-lose situation at best. While I believe that James Pattinson will still play in Mohali this (sacking) is not really a message. Micky Arthur talked about it being a line in the sand moment but I think it’s more a head inside the sand moment from him and the top management. This should have been solved internally and without raising any alarm bells.

Ten-15 years back, John Buchanan was dropping slides to players’s mail accounts. These days, it looks like the trend has been reversed. Co-incidence that even the fortunes have? Maybe… Maybe not…

This is a wonderful opportunity for India to drop Harbhajan Singh and bring in Pragyan Ojha for the 3rd Test. Harbhajan is over. A has been way past his sell-by date (apart from the IPL).

The series can still be theoretically salvaged. But I fully expect India to complete the job in the third Test. Australia have lost many a series in India. For them, the real challenge is the back-to-back Ashes campaigns against England; the first of which starts in Blighty in a few months. It is well worth remembering that Australia have won only 2 of the last 10 Tests they have played in England. Clarke should try to stamp his authority there and he should use the time from here till then as a period to prepare. Not spend time dismissing people who have failed to turn in a homework.

God forbid if the selection committee (led by Sandip Patil) plan to take Murali Vijay as the side’s lead opener to South Africa. In ideal circumstances he wouldn’t be on the plane but given the way things are panning out, he looks to be on course. But he should be firmly kept in a box marked ‘Do not open: Contingency plan’.

Which can happen only if both Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag make the tour. The issue of Sehwag’s position, if he’s going to be travelling to South Africa, was doing the rounds on Twitter last week. Some people were bought into the idea of him coming at the fall of the 4th week to handle the 2nd new ball. I have two issues there 1) South Africa might have dismissed the whole team before the second new ball and 2) If Sehwag can blast/handle the 2nd new ball surely he can blast/handle the first new ball. You know they are new. And shiny. And seamy. And will most probably be in the hands of Steyn. Unlikely to make a difference.

When the news of the axing first broke out, I was laughing. For not making a presentation? Imagine if Shane Warne was still in this team (although if he was in this team, it is debatable whether Australia would be sat glumly staring at a 3-0 deficit). He would have been serving his 10th death sentence. I don’t still believe that this was the *real* reason. Whatever happened to good ol’ fake granny deaths, 24-month old niggle injuries and personal issues to make a player or two sit out.

Every other day and another Tendulkar tribute. Nobody is quite sure about what his plans are. Is he planning to continue after this series? If yes, what’s the timeframe he is looking at? He has shown glimpses of his form (more importantly has shown that he can contribute with the bat). But Tendulkar should be making intentions clear. Sooner rather than later.

Algebra started way too early in my life. I was never good at mugging. The first equations I learnt – or rather never learnt – were (a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b2 and  (a − b)2 = a2 − 2ab + b2. I had such problems remembering this that I wrote:-

“Yay plus Bee whole square equals Yay square plus two YayBee plus bee square and Yay minus bee whole square equals Yay square plus bee square minus two YayBee” some 10 times to drive home the point. I did forget the formulae next morning though. 

I never took to it. While I have been known to have my exam gaffes….. (Once in class II, when I was asked to describe my body, I wrote, “My legs are working properly. My eyes are not functioning properly”. I continued with the ludicriousness with “I have long nails but my hands are short…..” The teacher was visibly harrassed. My mom thought I had turned retarded while my dad was enquiring about the possibility of me visiting a counsellor.) 

 ……. The gaffness was almost to the point of embarrassing for my parents. Once in class III I was asked to solve “greater than or lesser than” problems. The most simple brand of mathematics one can wish to encounter. And I had studied for this. The first sub-question was something like 5,300 or 4,000. Funnily enough, or shocking enough, I did not know the answer. Because the question was framed not as, “Solve – Greater than or lesser than” but as “Solve – < or > or =. I did not know of the signs back then. I used the “Inky Pinky Ponky….” conundrum to solve but the Donkey had taken me for a ride. My teacher requested a meeting with my parents. My mom left the meeting teary-eyed while my dad, the great man that he is, actually managed to see a non-existent funny side. I was oblivious as usual. 

There was always an uneasy calm whenever I came home after finishing my maths exam. In the fear that my mom would not allow me to play evening cricket, I used to say, “Done it very well, Ma”. She would be satisfied. But she knew that would probably mean hovering between 35 and 45 on 100. When I came home with my math paper, my house would represent a battlefield. I used to inevitably fail. My mom almost always cried. My dad couldn’t be bothered but he usually took up solace behind the Economic Times. My sister would be delighted as she would come home and say, “Got my report card”. And with a swagger, would proceed “class first as usual”. I wanted to tell, “Well, I’m class last. Beat that”. 

Of course my parents did send me to the tuitions. They were so desperate to see me succeed that they sent me to a 70-year-old woman. But that did not pan out the way anybody wanted. 

Group study? Been a part of more group studies than the mind can imagine. But then again one can’t wish to be in a room talking mathematics without actually knowing the basics of “BODMAS”. I did not even know that. 

The only thing that I solved with some modicum of dignity was the Simultaneous Equations. But it’s father, the Linear Equations caused me hell. I thought it was just karma that I get the better of his son because of all the bad deeds played by the father. 

But Simultaneous’ cousin, Quadratric, played with me, mentally, physically and psychologically. Surds was a disaster. Trignometry was the final nail in the coffin. I just couldn’t understand sine theeta plus cos theeta. It was like they were all representing one big Orwellian actor of the State determined to see the back of me. 

Meanwhile…….

Geometry?

If anything, I was even worse at Geometry. More obtuse the angle, more acute my problem. I couldn’t catch a compass properly. I got the stagefright whenever I opened the geometry box. The set-squares trembled in my weak hands. The protractor? Wait… what again is the use of the protractor? Forget it. Ignorance is bliss. 

I still remember what I did in the Xth Board Exam. I left all the geometry practical questions. Everything was well left through to the keeper.. Erm.. Errr.. Only everything curved back to uproot my stumps. 

It was a miracle that I cleared my Boards. Now that you ask, I got 50. That was an improvement of almost 20 from my Second Revision. My teacher wanted me to write a Third and Fourth Revision but she realised it wouldn’t do me any good as I would keep flunking. After looking at that figure 50, I wanted to shout at all my math teachers, “In your face, 50………….” 

Coming back to trignometry, I decided I could not put up with this embarrassment anymore. I could have probably pursued maths in XIth and XIIth as well but my school had the policy of bringing two batch of papers after the exams. The first category, the ones who at least made minimum pass marks, and the second, the ones who did not make the cut. I always featured in the second. 

So I decided to opt for Geography. My school was benevolent enough to offer Geography as an alternative for Maths in XI and XII. (I don’t know whether I’m committing social suicide but yes, I “discontinued” maths after Xth. I just couldn’t continue with it. But since most boys at least have a common base with maths – mine ended with addition and subtraction – I was the only boy who took Geography. I read about tsunamis and volcanoes while my friends read about matrices and indices. I got the more exciting topic right? 

Whenever it was math class, I would traipse along, behind five girls, the ones who had chosen Geography among the girls, to attend Geography class. Most of the boys, who knew this “special” train belonged to the Geography class, mocked me. The girls, who were also in the know, wanted me to paint my nails, plait my hair and wear churidar and dupatta. 

Such memories. Awful, unpleasant but yet full of romance. All awoken inside me as I chanced upon a mathematics tuition advertisement in my street.

Maths, I will always hate you but never forget you. You taught me an aspect of life and I will forever be grateful because of that…….

 P.S. This is an old note that I had posted a few years back in Facebook. 

IV – Data Analysis

IV.I – Introduction

You can have a million theories espousing who said what and what lead to what and its consequences but there has to be a set of numbers that has to go with the matching theories. It is these numbers that help to round of a particular story and give a meaningful twist to it.

IV.II – BREAKDOWN OF TOTAL ADVERTISING SPEND IN INDIA

 Source: The Business Marketing Whitebook, 2007: 37; KPMG-FICCI, The Indian Entertainment Sector, p. 32)

Finding: The above table is indicative of what happened to advertising in India after the economy was liberalised in 1991. The data shows that ‘while the break up of spending within media genres shifted’ (Mehta, 2008: p.157), the advertising industry’s capitalized billings grew at an astonishing 12 times from 1990 to 2003: Rs. 9.309 billion Rs. 110 billion. (Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, 2004). It is not a stretch to say that some of the advertising expenditure could directly be traced back to monies spent by producers sponsoring cricket based programming or cricket matches held in India.

Given the satellite television structure in India, Majumdar (2009: p.127) makes the point that ‘Cricket is like4 the Pied Piper’s magic flute having an everlasting charm on advertisers.’  Mehta (2008) says that ‘the Indian television has consciously ridden on cricket’s shoulders that by 2006, all cricket programming accounted for the greatest expenditure in news gathering.

IV.III A sample of Dedicated Cricket Programming on News Channels

Source: Based on survey of cricket programming and interviews with various channel producers by Mehta (2008: p.209, 210)

 Finding

News channels, even in the late 1990s, had not found a way to tap into the burgeoning cricket market. But all this changed with ‘Aaj Tak’, (Till Today) which established its base primarily with cricket programming (Mehta, 2008). While ‘NDTV 24/7 began the first proper cricket programming with ‘Turning Point’ as early as 1999, the show was ‘largely borrowed on global formats.’ (ibid)

Cricket related stories were the norm rather than the exception (Thussu, 2009) and soon enough it got good play on all the major news networks. These days, cricket programming are more or less the fall back option and also a quick fix for all news channels to get a niche audience. While the television costs are high, the return on investment is higher and this is one major reason why news producers stick to cricket. (Mehta, 2008; Majumdar, 2009).

One can’t just talk about the television media’s obsession with cricket without talking about the advertisers as this is as much to do about economics and profit as much as cricket the game itself. For example, a television channel’s producer, in an interview with Mehta (2008), said that his channel received more money from advertising for the T20 World Cup in 2007 than the entire advertising it received for covering the Union Budget. This is staggering because the channel wasn’t even one of the media partners of the event.

The chief operating officer of Star India told Mehta (2008, p.214) that his channel almost always opens the news bulletin with cricket and it would take a national, natural disaster to relegate cricket to the third headline. This, in a nutshell, explained what cricket meant to the people of India: more importantly to the people who decide what news goes where in the running order in the news studios of channels.

 IV.IV Star TV’s exploits in India

Source: Star TV, 2007, cited in Thussu (2009 p.101)

Finding

The important Cs that make up the Indian television scene according to Thussu (2009:104) were Crime, Cinema and Cricket. Murdoch understood this perfectly even before cricket became the phenomenon that it is today and invested in cricket in India through ESPN and Star Sports, two sports channels, that primarily focused on bringing cricket to the millions of homes in the Indian subcontinent.

ESPN and Star Sports entered India as separate channels in 1993 and within a matter of months acquired rights to broadcast matches played in India (Majumdar, 2004). But like the table suggests, Thussu’s earlier point is clearly endorsed by Murdoch. Crime, Cricket and Cinema were all present in his channels, sometimes they are even interspersed.

‘Murdoch had worked out that buying exclusive rights to live football coverage was the only way to get an audience loyal enough to pay for a Sky subscription’. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n16/david-conn/follow-the-money

He simply brought in the same model to India and struck gold as soon as telecast rights were sold by the BCCI in the early 1990s.

(India also saw ESPN, ‘the worldwide leader in sports’ and Murdoch’s Star Sports coming together in a joint venture to form ‘ESPN-STAR Sports’, a historic alliance between two sports channels who have craved to be the best sports channel. (Hutton, 2009: p.144).

IV.V – Advertising Volumes In Cricket vs Non-Cricket Sports

Source: TAM Sports, a division of TAM Media Research, cited in Balasubramanian and Santhanam (2011; 4)

Findings

To further re-emphasise the point, cricket in India has not yet reached the saturation point. In fact, more cricket inevitably means more advertising spend like this table illustrates. The total annual sports marketing figure in India is estimated to be about Rs. 11,700 cr: Cricket commands about Rs. 7,800 cr of the total amount. (Balasubramanium and Santhanam, 2011: 4).

In the year 2000, the first year of comparison between cricket and non-cricket sports, cricket commanded more than 1.5 times the advertisement volume that non-cricket sports commanded on television. In 2006-2007, there was a marked difference which perfectly illustrates the effect cricket has in the minds of advertisers: India saw the launch of two cricket-dedicated channels, ‘Star Cricket’ and ‘Neo Cricket’ which explains why the figures became skewed in the last few years. These two ‘new’ channels were 24/7 cricket-only channels and they were primarily launched to broadcast live cricket from around the globe. A third cricket-only channel, Ten Cricket, a channel owned by Taj Entertainment Network, was launched in 2010. Cricket’s command over other sports when it comes to the total advertising pie almost beggars belief: in 2004, cricket commanded 92% of television total advertising pie. (Chowdhary, 2006)

When taking advertisement from all forms and through all means for the year 2004, cricket’s ratio to non-cricket sports is 1.17:1. But when one takes only television into consideration, it is 92% of all advertisement expenditure.

IV.VI – A Sampling Of News Channels And Exclusive Contracts With Present And Former Cricketers

Source: List accurate of 31^st august, 2006. Based on surveys of cricket programming and interviews with various television producers by Mehta (2008; 212)

Findings

Star’s India CEO Uday Shankar says that the ‘genre of cricket programming draws a deep connection between cricket and national identity. Cricket is perhaps the most nationalistic activity that Indians indulge in’. (Mehta, 2008:218) The above table shows that news channels felt it would be better if they associated themselves with current cricketers, they get more ratings rather than if they sign former cricketers.

Where everybody relies on cricket to boost their ratings, news channels have to pay above the odds to rope in ‘experts’ or either current or former cricketers to endorse that particular channel. For ex., NDTV signed up Indian ‘keeper M.S. Dhoni for a reported Rs. 15 million and they targeted doing 70 shows with him. (Mehta, 2008: 212). Apart from signing Dhoni, they also signed up former cricketer N.S. Sidhu for a reported worth of about Rs. 15 million for a year. To put the reported salary into some sort of perspective, then Indian cricket’s chief coach, Greg Chappell was earning about Rs. 8 million for a year. In fact, Sidhu’s reported earnings from ‘NDTV’ was also said to be higher than that of yearly match fees of cricketers. (Mehta, 2008: 212, 213; Ugra, ‘Perform or Pay Up’, India Today, 20th November, 2006)

IV.VII – Indian 24/7 News Channels

Source: Data from news channel websites, 2007, cited in Thussu (2008:97)

Findings

The Indian 24/7 news channel scene is only in its infancy having started out as a different genre as late as the 21^st century. While Murdoch’s Star TV was the first big 24/7 players to have made an impact in India, vernacular news channels have sprouted up and down the country with their own unique ideas, carving a niche audience for themselves in the process.

Thussu (2008:96) gives it a moniker, ‘The world’s biggest TV bazaar’, which is not surprising to say the least because in a country as populous as India where there are many languages, communities and religions, one single news channel with one single language cannot possibly be the price maker.

Since deregulation of the Indian television news sector (the Indian government allows 26% foreign investment) (Thussu, 2008: 97), the growth in numbers has been staggering. Private players – both desi as well as international – have clamoured to invest in the Indian market as they see the Indian market as an untapped revenue source. (Thussu, 2008; Mehta, 2008).

While I do not have the figures each of these channels invested into cricket, it’s hard to not make a connect between them and cricket. India and Indians love cricket and there is no denying that fact. More cricket on television would invariably mean more eyeballs which would translate into better ratings and better revenues through advertisements. Mehta (2008: 208) explicitly states that by 2005, all news channels (irrespective of the medium of language) showed at least one cricket based programming per week.

IV.VIII – The Revolution Of The Global Television And Satellite Boom’s Impact In India

Source: Audience Research Unit, Doordarshan, cited in S.R. Joshi, Bela Trivedi, Mass Media and Cross-cultural Communications: A study of television in India, SRG-94-041 (Ahmedabad: ISRO, 1994), p. 16

Two factors played an important role for the number of television sets seeing a substantial increase from a meager 24,838 in 1972 to more than 34 million in 1992. The Union Budget of 1985 included measures relaxing several restrictions on imports, especially electronics. (Kohli, 1989: 312)

As expected, there was a clear link between the growing number of television sets and number of transmitters sanctioned by the government of India. In fact, between July and August 1984, there was a minimum of one transmitter that was commissioned into practice on a daily basis. (Ninan, 1995: 30)

If those figures were prolific, television’s rise, aided and abetted by economic liberalisation amid other technological advancements, has seen India’s television sets to number of people ratio dwindle from 26 in 1992 to about 10 people in 2006. Keeping in mind India’s vast populace, the growth was beyond staggering. (NRS Press Release, 2006:4)

IV.IX – The Number Of Test matches and One-dayers played by four nations from 1990-1999

Source: Derived from ‘Match and Series Archive’ of ESPN-Cricinfo, cited in Balasubramanian and Santhanam (2011: p.35)

A lot of media commentators have said that the Indian cricket board (BCCI) did not really fancy ODI (One-Day International) cricket during the 1970s and the early 1980s. But the Indian team’s triumph in the 50-over World Cup in1983 changed all that. The BCCI chief back then, Raj Singh Dungarpur, had termed ODI cricket as ‘artificial’ and ‘irrelevant’ (Haigh, 2011). To delineate a bit, this is exactly the ideology that the BCCI had of cricket’s shortest form of the game – Twenty20 (T20) cricket – before India won the T20 cricket world cup in 2007. Since then, the board have gone on and formed the ‘lucrative’ Indian Premier League (IPL), a franchise based T20 cricket league. The move has made the board even richer as it raked in record broadcasting deals with media players worth in excess of a billion dollars.

Coming back to the above table, it is not a stretch to speculate that ODIs bring in more money from advertisers and broadcasters (Balasubramanium and Santhanam, 2011:34). Therefore, the BCCI had arranged for the team to play about 30 Test-matches less and about 30-40 ODIs more in the 10 years beginning from 1990.

Haigh (2011) was even more radical in his views of the BCCI and One-day cricket. ODIs in India remain hugely popular reaching about 400 million audiences, ‘with the capacity to expose a corporate name up to 350 times, went forth and multiplied’. Continuing on, summing up the scene that existed in India in the 1990s, ‘Bruce Sprinsteen sang famously of ’57 channels (And Nothing on)’; In India, this was varied to ‘57 channels and Nothing on’ but cricket.’

While a Test match goes on for a maximum of five days, it does not match the Television Rating Points (TRPs) that an ODI match generates. The BCCI understood this very early and once they saw an opportunity to make more money, they did not back down. What happened recently with Star Group’s winning bid is a case in point. They had successfully bid to telecast international cricket played in India from 2012-2018 at an estimated value of about 40 crore per match or about Rs. 3,851 crore for the duration of the contract. The figures themselves paint a picture as to the current popularity of Test cricket amongst advertisers and broadcasters. Willing to shell out 40 crore for all three formats of the game somehow doesn’t make sense; at least from an advertising perspective. Because an advertiser will undoubtedly get more time from airing his product in Tests rather than in ODIs.

IV.X – The Sachin Tendulkar Effect

Source: TAM Sports, a division of TAM Media Research, cited in Balasubramanium and Santhanam, 2011: p.90

Findings:

Every country does have that one sporting icon who not only inspires generations of sports fans to take up the game but also sends TRPs sky rocketing towards new records. In the U.K., it might have been David Beckham. In Brazil, it could easily have been Luis Ronaldo. In India, it is just one figure, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Well into his third decade in International cricket, Tendulkar is a TRP machine by himself.

There have been doubts about his form and fitness for some time with critics calling for Tendulkar to be dropped http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/560265.html but as the table shows, if he is dropped there could be genuine concern from cable operators and broadcasters alike. But saying that, cricket might well survive the Tendulkar test. In 2011, when India played Sri Lanka in the World Cup in Mumbai, there was unprecedented TRP levels (while Tendulkar played that game, it was the Indian captain M.S. Dhoni who was the sensation) of 35.9 (The Economic Times, 7th April, 2011, cited in Balasubramanium and Santhanam, 2011: p.39).

P.S. I had come across other, more fascinating set of numbers but those had to be dropped as my reasearch became more and more streamlined.