A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

This one really has me stumped. We have seen the media in England and Australia wage psychological battles against the visiting cricket teams including ones from India. The Indian media on the other hand pays foreign cricketers to write guest columns – ones which criticize our cricket and berate our players. And sometimes it helps these foreign players promote their books as well. I can understand the rationale of guest articles written by knowledgeable former players but cannot fathom the reason for ones written by the current ones.

Is there such an acute shortage of sports content in this country that we have to rely on these visiting players?

Or, are these newspapers still suffering from the ‘white man’ complex – letting these white cricketers preach us on the game?

As for getting the opposition’s side of the story, we don’t need that. That is all we get when we travel abroad. Is there no cricket patriotism amongst the newspaper people?

And if this wasn’t painful enough, now we have guest columns from our great sports administrators as well. Mr Suresh Kalmadi waxed eloquent on how the Delhi half – marathon was the perfect build-up for the Commonwealth Games. On one hand the media conveniently forgot to report the trouble the 2010 games are facing and on the other hand they give the culprits an opportunity for self –praise.

Don't be surprised if an Indian newspaper publishes a guest column by this guy soon

I wonder what could better this – a guest column from Osama Bin Laden perhaps