Have you noticed the hype-factor being raised to dangerously high decibel levels in the world of cricket whenever the World Cup is round the corner?
Remember all that hoopla over India's 'chances' in the 1999 World Cup, even when every cricket expert knew very well that they were next to nothing. Hundreds of crores spent raising expectations of Indian fans to ridiculous levels, only for the whole campaign come crashing down.
If India struggled in 1999 when the World Cup was staged in England-where after all, we had won in 1983 (which every four years is looking more and more like a freak case)-let's face it, we don't stand a chance on the wickets of South Africa where we have been outclassed on each of the three tours undertaken there.
But will that stop the hype-masters in the media, particularly on TV? Not a chance! Do you notice the trend in TV commercials that are have become dangerously jingoistic in nature? Now religion is not being spared either. Repulsive really especially when you consider the performance of the Indian team has never lived up to the hype.
And God save genuine cricket fans from the garbage being dished out by the channel that has the telecast rights to the next two ICC Champions Trophy and World Cup events, right till 2007, heaven forbid.
Ruby Bhatia should have been asked to retire from the world of entertainment a long time. That screeching voice, that hysterical persona all hiding a middle-aged bimbo -enough is enough. And parading her as a cricket expert is an insult to the intelligence of the viewers who can surely see through every live on-air stumble of hers.
If Ruby is the big sister of bimbo-land, we have a whole stable of younger fillies parading their brainlessness thanks to this TV channel which apparently feels that cricket is not sport, but entertainment.
So we have some dumb unknown asking Farrokh Engineer (the former Indian wicket-keeper) how many coats he wore while playing cricket in freezing cold England! Coats?! Even Engineer could not keep his cool. He twice called the woman "you stupid woman" and no wonder.
To give them that much credit, all those former cricketers being paraded by the channel actually look embarrassed while surrounded by the bimbo-brigade-except for the anchor himself, that motor-mouth Charu Sharma who is like a runaway train while on air.
And what about the juvenile contests that are being churned out at the drop of a mike? In the latest you have to make a prediction for the next day's match. Believe it or not, two of the questions were-how many players will wear long-sleeved shirts the next day and how many of the Dutch players will have blonde hair? Has cricket on TV really been dumbed down to such abysmal depths?
And while on hype, all this brouhaha on contracts and ambush-marketing has brought out two of the dumbest quotes ever heard.
The ICC head honcho Michael Speed grandly tells the players they must choose between cash and country.
Question 1, Mr Speed: Do you work without a salary?
Question 2: Who makes the game, the players or the officious officials?
Question 3: Which century are you living in, Mr Speed.
And then this one emanating from the former sponsors of the Indian team, Sahara. "We sponsored the team for patriotic reasons and not for commercial purposes."
Oh yeah? Then how come the players were being paraded in those ridiculous commercials on TV, showing them parachuting off cliffs and sundry other heroic deeds?
Any answers to these questions?


Gulu Ezekiel is the author of Sachin: The Story Of The World's Greatest Batsman

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