Cricketing blues

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

The World Cup coverage in the regional media during the past week was, not surprisingly, dominated by India's unexpected exit from the contention. This World Cup has already had its fair share of surprises, what with Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer's murder and the exit of past winners India and Pakistan. Dainik Bhaskar caught the nation's mood in an illustration depicting a cricket ball inside a giant cactus, the headline reading, "Murderous first round".

On the day after India's fate was sealed, Bhaskar ran a table of how the frontliners had failed to deliver in the match against Sri Lanka. With Sachin Tendulkar and M S Dhoni out for a duck, the paper's headline read, "And so broke a hundred crore hearts!" The paper also dwelt on the impact that the loss would have on the corporate sector, especially American and South Korean companies such as Pepsi, Coke, Samsung and LG. This, the paper said, was ironical because the US and South Korea aren't even cricket-playing nations.

Rajasthan Patrika reported Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's impassioned appeal to the public to not get swayed by emotion and desist from causing any harm to the properties of Indian cricketers. In a rare display of verbal restraint, Thackeray was reported to have said that victory and loss were part of any sport and should be taken in the right spirit.

This was also the week when Bob Woolmer's death was certified as murder by strangulation. Dainik Bhaskar gave prominent coverage to the news, saying members of the Pakistani team were now suspects. Punjab Kesari reported that Woolmer's corpse would undergo another post-mortem in light of the new developments. Apart from his mobile phone and computer, Woolmer's other belongings would be handed over to his wife, the paper added.

The World Cup continues to hog headlines in the Kannada press. India's shocking exit from the tournament received extensive coverage. For almost a week, the Cup made it to the front page in all major Kannada dailies like Vijaya Karnataka, Praja Vani and Kannada Prabha. India's defeat by Sri Lanka sparked widespread protests and the newspapers conducted an opinion poll on the national team's performance.

Praja Vani commented in an editorial: "The performance has reached disastrous levels. It is a misery that India had to depend on the Bangladesh-Bermuda match outcome to learn about its fate in the World Cup. This team has disappointed everybody. It is high time India gave prominence to other sports that can fetch laurels to the country at the international level."

Among the other issues that grabbed attention was the verdict announced by a Lakhimpur Kheri court against the accused in the murder of IOC sales officer Manjunath Shanmugam, who hails from the Kolar gold fields in Karnataka. Kannada newspapers dedicated almost one page to the issue. There were special reports on the subject as well.

The World Cup also received broad coverage in the Telugu press. All three leading Telugu dailies Eenadu, Vaartha and Andhra Jyothi splashed a curtain-raiser on the India-Sri Lanka match and the Jamaican police confirming Pak coach Bob Woolmer's death as murder on their front pages as the lead and second lead respectively on March 23. They also dedicated two sports pages exclusively to the day-to-day results of World Cup matches and columns by seasoned cricketers like Sanjay Manjrekar, New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming and Lankan spinner Muthaiah Muralidharan.

On March 24, the Indian bowlers taking an early grip on the Lankan batsmen and later bowing out to the Lankans was the lead story in Eenadu. The Telugu dailies also carried news on the Jamaican police collecting DNA and fingerprints of Pakistan cricketers in the wake of Woolmer's murder, and carried a column by Aussie captain Ricky Ponting on their forthcoming match with South Africa. The newspapers splashed stories on Bangladesh's win over Bermuda, which led to India's ouster from the World Cup, and photographs of livid cricket fans taking out a mock funeral and burning effigies of the Indian team members as the lead on their front pages the next day.

On March 25, Andhra Jyothi carried a four-column satirical piece on the Indian team's debacle and carried half-a-dozen SMS jokes ridiculing the Indian cricketers on its front page.