Football versus Cricket

Be very afraid, cricket!

It was inevitable. After the dud series in Zimbabwe, India showed up in Sri Lanka to play the Asia Cup. That there are only three other countries worth playing against surely doesn’t bode too well for Cricket. But that’s a discussion for another time.

India’s Asia Cup campaign coincided with the FIFA World Cup. And once you saw the sheer scale, impact and enthusiasm of it, the Asia Cup felt more like the ICL in its wane when the IPL hammered it out into the dark ages. Messrs Ronaldo, Kaka, Messi, Tevez, Vittek, hell even Landon Donovan against Mahela, Sanga, Dhoni, Raina, Shoaib, Afridi… ! The FIFA World Cup felt like a carnival. The Asia Cup was a funeral.

Sure cricket has its superstars and they act like superstars too. But the look like superstars on a world stage. It’s not even worth discussing that the FTP format for cricket is a failure. Test matches, bilateral ODI series, tri-series and whatnot is being played without much consequence. It’s all well and good to hang on to tradition, but soon, it starts to seem pointless.

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What’s up with Tata Sky?

When the whole DTH thing got underway, one thought things were supposed to get easier. The power of choice for the consumer was the biggest bonus for consumers. Alas and alak, that seems like a smokescreen. I know that I, for one, was keen on moving on to the Tata-Sky platform asap and did fight a fair bit for it too! But now, I am having second thoughts.

Initially, it was all clear. I chose a package I wanted and all was well. Regular subscription was paid and I didn’t have to face my cable operator and fight about missing channels every month. But now, Tata-Sky has suddenly decided that I would be better off subscribing to sports channel as a separate package. Er… ok, if you say so.

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