Squeezed by cricket

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Indian cricket coach Greg Chappell's resignation, Anil Kumble's retirement from one-day cricket, Sachin Tendulkar's anti-Chappell outburst to an English daily, Subhash Chandra's launch of an Indian cricket league...it would have been mighty difficult this past week for newspapers to find space for anything save cricket, yet the regional media did manage to squeeze in other news as well.

In the Hindi press, only Dainik Bhaskar and Punjab Kesari reported the repo rate and CRR hikes on their front pages. Bhaskar headlined its piece, "Interest rate hiked again to control inflation" and went on to explain the adverse effect of the hike on customers wishing to take a house/car loan. The report was accompanied by an illustration in which an ordinary Indian was shown negotiating his way over two curves, titled 'Interest rate' and 'Inflation'. Punjab Kesari relegated the news to the bottom of the front page of its March 31 edition, giving details of the hike and the phases over which it would be implemented.

However, the Hindi press was unanimous in endlessly analysing India's World Cup disaster. Bhaskar, in its April 2 edition, led with (former) coach Greg Chappell and manager Sanjay Jagdale's pending report on Team India's performance. Citing an unnamed source, the paper claimed that the report would "shake Indian cricket". Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar were set to draw flak for their "inappropriate behaviour". Muhammad Kaif's exclusion from the team was also likely to be a point of contention.

Punjab Kesari led its April 5 edition with the headline: "Tendulkar 'blasts' coach" and went on to locate all possible links between the Master Blaster's adverse comments and Greg Chapel's sudden resignation.

Rajasthan Patrika continued to track the investigation into Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer's murder. The lead story in its April 2 edition was a report attributed to an British daily which blamed the death on poisoning by aconite, a virulent drug that can induce death within half-an-hour.

Karnataka's three main dailies "" Kannada Prabha, Praja Vani and Vijaya Karnataka "" gave the RBI credit squeeze due importance. Without getting into the technicalities, the papers discussed how people will now have to shell out more when borrowing from banks. The papers discussed in detail the home loans scenario. The stock market impact was also dealt with in depth in the dailies' business pages.

Along with this, the mud-slinging going on in the Indian cricket team was given due display on the front pages, with Kannada Prabha taking a lead in this.

The Kannada papers also speculated on the whereabouts of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy after he went to a far-away village near Mangalore without the usual official machinery. The apparent reason for the visit was to pay obeisance to a local deity. This visit drew umprecedented attention because the CM was away during the ongoing legislative session.

Greg Chappell's resignation was the lead story on the front pages of leading Telugu dailies on Thursday. With headlines that read 'Chappell Hit Wicket' and 'Chappell Out', Eenadu, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothi also carried news on BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah coming out heavily against Sachin Tendulkar for speaking with the media, and analytical articles on what would be the cricket control board's next step.

Apart from carrying two-column photographs of Chappell in Indian ethnic wear, the newspapers splashed the full text of Chappell's e-mail to the BCCI on their sports pages. Eenadu also carried a story on Chappell's likely disclosure that the Indian team's composition was done solely at the behest of certain corporates. "In spite of generating numerous controversies and being at the centre of several of them during his 22-month stint with the Indian cricket team, Chappell would be happy to take home many sweet and bitter memories along, which would help him bring out a sensational book that he intends to pen," Eenadu said in an editorial.

The RBI credit squeeze and the stock market stories, however, did not get much attention from the Telugu newspapers, courtesy the cricketing controversy, and ended up as single columns on their business pages.