IPL has been underway for almost a week now. And going by the opinions of the fellow bloggers, it has been fairly successful. I can imagine Lalit Modi and Sharad Pawar smiling in glee with their mouthlines extending from one ear to another and dancing on their toes when in private, even though they present a sober figure when they are under a public gaze!
Lalit Modi had been hell bent on not providing the rights to the media for publishing the images shot during the matches. Only the print media were allowed and even they had to pay hefty sums and also need to provide a copy of the images to the BCCI. Check out how pissed the media were - http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/10/stories/2008041055681000.htm . There are a lot more such opinions of the pissed-off variety and threats of total media pull out from the event.
However, one just needs to search the youtube for the amount of IPL videos available on it. Media boycott or not, one can watch all the highlights on youtube. Three cheers to the free world and the open-source and open-market protogonists!. Even the Live coverage is available through the peer-to-peer broadcasting. One just needs to install Sopcast and search for the available channels. And Lo, you have soo many sopcast channels broadcasting the IPL matches from CBN and Set-Max. Sitting here in Korea, i do not miss any action!
Even though i got high quality videos of IPL from sopcast, i am really pissed off about the cricket coverage from Set Max. Reasons are a plenty:
a) 5 ball overs are a norm for Set Max. Either you lose the first ball of the over or the last ball and it is entirely Set Max’s prerogative!
b) Immediately after a ball is bowled, the screen becomes L shaped to accomodate an embedded advertisement. And the worst of all is that the audio of the advertisement is not muted. So, you miss out on the comments of the, supposed to be expert, commentators.
c) Ajay Jadeja. He seems to be more intent on chasing the Cheer Leaders than catching up the action on the actual cricket field.
d) Where the hell is the dumb noodle-straps Bedi? The import of the redskins from Washington may have had her running for covers!
There is an online petition here - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/savecric/ . If you are also a pissed off viewer like me, please sign it. I have already signed it.
Bring me ESPN or Star Sports anyday. Their coverage is so polished and professional. A team of Harsha Bhogle, Ian Chappel, Tony Greig, Geoffrey Boycott and Ravi Shastri is anybody’s dream.
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