Simply not cricket

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Indians love their cricket, and so it was natural that when the team collapsed like a pack of cards, it would hit the headlines. It was also natural that Coach Greg Chappell got criticised since it is he, rather than captain Rahul Dravid, that appears to be in charge. But if there's one thing people seem to hate more than losing in cricket, it's lecturing from a bunch of MPs. So, with few exceptions, the regional language newspapers who wrote editorials on the MPs ire with Chappell, including the decision to send Dilip Vengsarkar to South Africa to convey the MPs displeasure with the team's performance, criticised the politicians.

Since the news of the Chappell spat coincided with the news of the Bachchan family going to the Sankat Mochan temple to pray with actor Aishwarya Rai (tipped to be Bachchan Junior's bride-to-be), several newspapers in the north decided to give them equal play above the fold on page one. Hindi daily Rajasthan Patrika had a three-column picture of the Bachchans with Rai at the Sankat Mochan temple, and next to that, the day's lead story, was on how Chappell was in trouble. The story had a small picture of Chappell with a box on his statement that politicians had to make statements since they were paid to talk; the story also had another picture of fans burning pictures of the cricketers. The paper's editorial spoke of how the team had done badly under Chappell, but ended up criticising the MPs for wasting precious time on something like this when there were all manner of problems the nation faced.

Cricket was also the flavour of the week as far as Dainik Bhaskar, another Hindi newspaper, was concerned. On one day, it's lead package combined stories (with pictures) of Sourav Ganguly waiting for a comeback call, India's third one-day defeat and Zaheer Khan's amazing bowling. It had the Chappell fight as the lead story on another day with the headline: Chappell ke museebat, Sansadon ke naseehat (Chappell's problem is the MPs' prescription). It had a picture another day, of Sania Mirza with an inset of Dravid with the caption "some make you proud, others make your heads go down in shame". An anchor on another day had a box on Chappell's "record" "" getting rid of Ganguly, spoiling Irfan Pathan's bowling by trying to make him a batsman, and so on.

The prominent Marathi newspapers didn't give much importance to the issue, and Maharashtra Times was the only newspaper to give the news item big front page treatment. It did not, however, make any editorial comment. Loksatta wrote an editorial on the matter, but news on the matter was reported on the sports pages. Sakal published the news of MPs wanting to bring a privilege motion against Chappell on the front page, but had no editorial comment. The Shiv Sena was behind Chappell "" Sena chief and editor of party's mouthpiece Bal Thackeray wrote a signed piece in Samna saying, "how one can blame Chappell who is trying to bring some discipline to our indisciplined and inconsistent team. In fact, there is a need to firmly stand behind him. And we have to remember that a coach is as good or as bad as the team is."

All leading Kannada papers carried the news as the day's second lead. Two papers carried editorials as well. Vijaya Karnataka termed the controversy unnecessary in its editorial, and Praja Van pulled up the MPs for raising an issue that had no significance for the nation's development.