All a game

There is voyeur’s delight stuff on Sony every night. It’s called Big Boss. I happen to belong to the set who doesn’t watch this one. Set might be an ambitious term considering that everyone around seems to watch. Lunch time conversations in office are around who got knocked off, who cried, who’s dating whom and so on. I managed to see parts of it last Friday at a friend’s place. Based on his description of the plot and my observations of the sham, I figured out that the whole idea sounds a bit like what happens to Indian cricket all the time.
Like
In both, everyone’s in perpetual fear of getting knocked off/ dropped. (Especially when we go on tours to places like SA)
There is a lot of popular sentiment around who should get knocked off and why. There is hardly consensus.
There is gamesmanship in both. Cricketers are forever nominating who in their team deserves to be dropped.
The one who gets dropped always gets to know who wanted him dropped (leaked email landing on national daily’s desk). That’s how you create bonhomie.
There are some old written off fogies who suddenly seem to have found limelight. Maybe Laxman and Rahul Roy should compare notes.
There are some brash new comers on the show who seem to be hogging all the limelight for no great achievement. Same with our team.
Everyone is always wary of the Big Boss. In cricket it varies from Chappell to Pawar to Dalmiya depending on who’s captain or journalistic spin.
Participants on big boss are given arbitrary tasks. That description can be used for the experiments that we do with our batting line up. Openers turning sloggers, Kaif playing one drop, Pathan turning into batsman who can roll his arm over too.




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Comments

Chandru said…
Truly funny Ajith...Also, just like the TV show, "Big Bosses" (Pawar & Colonel Saab) of Indian cricket, every now & then throw wild cards into the team- like Mr. Wasim Jaffer who is suddenly this new find as an opener for ODIs and Ajit Agarkar - that bugger is a perennial wild card in everything that he does in life!
December 15, 2006 12:01 pm
Chandru said…
Truly funny Ajith...also, just like the TV show, the "Big Bosses" of Indian cricket (Pawar & Colonel sahab) keep throwing wildcards into the team even when there is hardly a need, like Wasim Jaffer who is suddenly the solution for the top order for ODIs on the very same bouncy pitches where we made it to the world cup final without a defensive opener & Ajit Agarkar- That bugger is a wildcard in eveything that he does in life!
December 15, 2006 12:07 pm
Driftwood said…
Quite interesting comparison... Who is "rakhi Sawant" in the cricket team? - .. cant find a good answer...

Actually why cant BCCI use SMS get audience views.. might not decide basis that but atleast do a sub-selection of "to-be-picked" or "to-be-dropped"... will be phenomenal revenue model for sure..
see in any case.. we would never glorify the game or gamesmanship.. why not master the commercialisation aspect of it ??
December 15, 2006 3:55 pm
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