SIGHT & SOUND
This tennis and that
Amita Malik

IF nothing could equal the Saurav-Chapell spat as spicy, controversial news, equally, nothing could equal the two simultaneous tennis tournaments and ties in Kolkata and Delhi for pleasurable sports viewing. Or almost pleasurable as far as DD goes because we always anticipate in terror when they are covering sports.

And sure enough, DD started with such a hazy image on the screen when the first tennis singles of the Davis Cup tie started that I had to get the cable operator on his mobile on his way to work to please do something about it. And he did, after half an hour of play had gone.

As for DD, continually making the shameful announcement that its channels must be compulsorily carried by cable operators or else (a terrible way to compel people to watch its unwatchable programmes) it then sits back and does not monitor how its sports events actually come across on the screen. It is not for the viewers to complain but DD itself to set reception or even transmission quality right.

Then it started with a long Hindi commentary in its usual highly Sanskritised Hindi (except for Akhtar Ali) which also discards international terms in tennis for strange local equivalents. Its commentators in English were, as usual, B class. One wonders why they could not rope in Vijay Amritraj, who was present and could have been kept off matches in which his son Prakash was participating. Vijay Amritraj is one of the world’s best, an Indian and very popular in India and, indeed, all over the world. But these are values of least importance to DD, who were possibly more worried about his well-deserved higher fee.

When rain interrupts play, it is up to a channel to keep viewers interested. Most professional channels show recent or past top matches, they have funny sequences about tennis players making faces or horsing around. But not DD, which dug up from its archives long-forgotten and unspeakably dull sequences of water skiing, gymnastics and the like. I switched off in disgust.

So over to Kolkata. I was amazed at the transformation in Charu Sharma. Kolkata is possibly his home turf and he was confident, much more at home in tennis as anchor and commentator than he is in cricket, saddled as he is with chairing noodle-straps and so-called glam girls who are there for the male voyeurs and not to win Indian women to cricket, most of whom know more about the game than noodle straps.

Gaurav Natekar, himself an ex-India player, made a sophisticated and knowledgeable commentator, Charu Sharma did interesting interviews and presentation announcements, and with them together, this is some of the best tennis coverage I have seen in India. Kolkata once used to be the tennis capital of India, and although we missed the classic South Club, the audiences were intelligent, responsive and cheered on the Indian girls with zest. I will, however, fault very strongly Ten Sports for not allowing us to see the finish of a single match which ran into third sets because they had scheduled something else. This is unforgivable, unprofessional and I cannot understand how they had the mindlessness to do this to tennis fans.

The Ganguly-Chappell spat is one of the ugliest ever in cricket or any other game and our channels really went to town on them. Those who fared worst were seniors like Dungarpur, who spoke like a spiteful schoolboy and used language unworthy or an ex-President of the CCI. As they say, those whom the gods wish to destroy first drive them mad and I am with Jagmohan Dalmiya for once when he said:

"Some people are crazy." Cricket politics has become very dirty indeed and TV has carried this to every part of the world, even foreign channels like the BBC chipping in. A great shame.