Quote:These days, the greed-first mantra is beyond blatant. It’s beyond unapologetic. It’s pretty much written across N Srinivasan’s naked chest in peanut butter as he urinates in your letterbox at 3am while screaming at your kids’ bedroom windows.
The big earner for all cricket boards is selling broadcast rights. The BCCI jack these up as high as they possibly can. This isn’t such a problem with TV stations – by all means get the best price they’re willing to lay down.
But it’s not like there are other radio broadcasters queuing to devote 20 days of coverage to an event best described as niche in its appeal. Australia’s summer of cricket is a big deal, but those like me who want ball-by-ball coverage of every away tour would be markedly fewer. Getting radio to resume coverage will be much harder than having it continue.
Add to that the fact that most Australian households still don’t have cable, and radio has always been the best way to connect them with Indian tours. Exposure is key. If no-one knows your product exists, it’s doesn’t help its value.
But the BCCI doesn’t seem to know or care. Their dismissive treatment of the ABC is part of a broader campaign to dominate all media around their matches.
They also banned photo agency Getty Images, in an attempt to make Australian outlets buy and use BCCI-supplied photographs. Those outlets have instead chosen a boycott, and will not include any images in their coverage.
“The industry recognises the BCCI media policy is an attack on the news supply network and there is potential other governing bodies would follow suit unless publishers demonstrate their discontent,” said Tony Hale, chief executive of the newspaper industry’s peak body.
I owe my love for cricket to India, to radio, and to the likes of Jim Maxwell. The series that converted me from occasional watcher to adherent was the tour by Steve Waugh’s Invincibles.
It was 2001. I had just started university. Through evening tutorials, I kept one earbud of an honest-to-god radio Walkman surreptitiously plugged in, listening in astonishment as VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid batted and batted and batted throughout that entire fourth day.
The next evening I was at home, unable to help cheering India because of the impossible nature of the comeback.
Staring at the green light of my AM/FM stereo, I sat on the couch transfixed, as Harbhajan Singh and the unlikely Sachin Tendulkar worked their way down the order, were held up by Glenn McGrath for nine equally unlikely overs, then claimed the wicket with Australia in touching distance of safety.
After eight unremarkable Tests that had led to 18 months in exile, the young Harbhajan was recalled for that series when Anil Kumble went down injured. He proceeded to tear the Australians apart, with 32 wickets in his five innings.
The third and deciding Test was as gripping as the second. I listened to every ball, India just got home, and I was hooked for life.
In brushing off ABC radio, Srinivasan’s men are losing the chance to capture the imaginations of a new generation of devotees. However exceptional the play this series, it will be lost on most of the Australian viewing public.
We’ll be stuck with the same uncomfortable options, whether that be forking out for cable, living in the pub for four weeks, or hunching over some graphics-crammed illegal web-stream of a shonky Indian broadcast that squeezes three Bollywood-dancing shampoo ads in between every drop-out.
What’s good for cricket inevitably comes a distant last behind what’s good for the BCCI’s coffers. What they don’t seem to realise is that their earnings are only built on the game that they now neglect.
Of all the things that could happen this series, I had been looking forward to the chance of hearing about Parvez Rasool. The off-spinning all-rounder ripped out 7/45 against Australia for the Chairman’s XI only last week.
He has been a revelation in this season’s Ranji Trophy, never more so than against Assam, when he top-scored with 67, took 7/41 to gain a substantial lead, scored 120 not out to extend it, then added 2/70 in helping wrap up the win.
It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Rasool will get a run during this series, which would make him the first player from struggling Jammu and Kashmir state to play for India.
The last time that an Indian bolter came from nowhere to shock an Australian touring side, his name was Harbhajan Singh, and every ripping off-break was brought to us in verbal pictures from Eden Gardens and the Chidambaram Stadium.
It’s a damn shame that if a new generation’s talent gets his chance to do the same, Jim Maxwell won’t be there to carry the story home.
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