A few minutes later, interjecting a fine discussion on the merits of Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble, she asked Greig and others: "Can we talk about Tendulkar? He batted so beautifully."

Little wonder, another day, Tony Greig, pointing to Mandira sitting alongside said: "This is getting nowhere... this one on my left."

Similarly, in another discussion to savour the joy of an Indian victory, Mandira Bedi decided to offer her `expert' and `exclusive' comments: "The Zimbabwe spinners came to bowl after our hard-hitters had already batted." This was her way to rationalise the fine showing of Zimbabwe slow bowlers. Again, it never dawned on her that Grant Flower clean-bowled Tendulkar and Murphy bowled well to the middle order, including Ganguly, Dravid, Yuvraj and Kaif.

In Mandira's terms, probably Indian batting starts and ends with Sehwag and Mongia, the first two wickets to fall in the said match.

With so many bloomers to go with her very Bollywood-like dress sense, the best Mandira could say was, "Please don't go away, we will be right back after a break." And smile, her upper lip well and truly dominating and caressing the lower one, a glint in her eye — she is probably as relieved as the viewers.

The best one can say about Mandira Bedi is that she has been a shade better than Ruby Bhatia who covered the mini world cup in Sri Lanka last September and made a major spectacle of herself.

However, irrational, immature comments she might have made, the fault is not Mandira's alone.

She might be the glorified extra in `Extraaa Innings' but actually the Set Max guys have reduced the World Cup to a gimmick. They have brought in astrologers, Tarot card readers and what have you to the studios.

Yes, we all want to know what the likes of Barry Richards or Sanjay Manjrekar have to say about the chances of the teams competing that day. But who wants to know what a sundry Tarot card reader feels about the prospects of South Africa or the West Indies.

In the fitness of things, barely a few hours after Maa Prem Rithambara had told the viewers that "there is no stopping South Africa today... they have the spirit, the drive and... .", the Calypso cricketers proved her wrong with a fine, if unexpected victory!

Just this Sunday, it was the turn of Nasser Hussain to prove her wrong. Minutes before the crucial match with Australia which England contrived to lose, Rithambara said: "There are chances of an upset today. The captain is likely to lead from the front. England will win not because Ponting and his boys will play badly but because England will play better." Well, England lost and we all know Hussain's dismissal off the third ball he faced and his blunder in bringing on rookie Anderson to bowl the penultimate over when experienced Caddick had another over to go. Captain leading from the front?

Even their battery of experts has many people who know almost everything there is to know about cricket but nothing about communication.

Many of them are not at ease with English, others quite conscious of speaking to millions of people. We have had Vinod Kambli saying, "My spinners is my two hands" and Sohail adding "Sachin have to play as an opener".

Not to forget Prasad who fumbles as often with his speech as he used to with the ball in the outfield.

Enough of this lightening up? What next? Isha Koppikar giving us exclusive bytes on the Union Budget? Or Lisa Ray moderating on the Iraq crisis?




Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Entertainment


Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Quest | Folio |