For most of the Indian cricket fans (including me), a cricket match featuring the Indian team meant the great 11 players on the field along with their play being covered by some of the fantastic Hindi Commentators during their time. Hindi Commentary still exists, but the charm no longer does. The sport in India has always been about the money along with the actual play (since the emergence of Kapil Devs and Ravi Shastris) and advertisements and promotions for the sponsors during the matches have been one of the biggest sources for making money authentic in cricket.
Even a few years back all of these existed but as the secondary content for the commentators and most importantly most of the content was not censored. Since a smartphone along with the internet wasn't an accessibility everybody had 5 years back, the chances of receiving backlash for some of the so-called offensive (uncensored) content was never in the picture, but today things have changed drastically. In just a couple of years, today, everybody has a platform to share their opinion, and sadly in the case of India (and cricket fans to be specific), the opinions are less of opinions and more of abuses and online brawls. The broadcasters and commentators probably have a new problem to deal with. The digital world has seen the emergence of digital marketing which included ads during the breaks between overs for the past 20 years and since the emergence of IPL which was surely less cricket and more a business (the US style of sport which always has been about money), we listen and watch the ads during the game. The 4s, 6s, wickets, and nowadays even catches and run saves, everything has a sponsor name attached.
Until now, the blog seems to be scattered between a number of topics, so let's cover everything properly. It is totally my opinion that watching cricket with Hindi commentary is no more fun (I don't like watching cricket with English commentary when Indian players are featured, the primary reason: foreigners can't pronounce our names properly). The reasons why it is no more fun:
Every small event has a sponsor name attached to them.
Most of the ads between overs make no sense and the same 5 ads are repeated after every over. We all grew up with the kingfisher ads during the IPL that featured cricketers enjoying the moment which is now sadly replaced by a gimmick featuring one of the strangest celebrities in the country. (FUN FACT: The company claims their Fiber as "Jaadu ka Dibba" but their sim cards can't even make calls :P, seems some kind of Jaadu is required to make the network usable)
The commentators can't pronounce things properly, they are not fluent in the language and lack the storytelling skill (Harsha Bhogle is the king when it comes to storytelling but no one else comes close).
The content the commentators share needs to be filtered and censored which any sane person can understand by listening to them speak or else they along with their families will be abused and death threats will be sent.
Like in the last post where I mentioned that social media is ruining the great careers of the players, social media is ruining every aspect of the game.
A legend named Zakir Khan once rightly said and I quote, "Desh me chutiyon ki pehle bhi kami nahi this par ab sab k haath me internet aane see chutiyon ko pata chal gaya hai ki desh me aur bhi chutiye hain". So we need to make these people stay away from every possible place in order to live a good life.
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