MUMBAI: So India is out of out of the running for a semi-final spot in the ongoing T20 World Cup for all intents and purposes bar the shouting. And social media is awash with vituperative commentary deriding Team India’s less than stellar performance in losing 2 out of their 2 opening games.
“They were up against it after losing two key tosses, but their anchor-heavy, allrounder-light structure made it even harder for them to compete,” ESPNcricinfo’s Sidharth Monga summed up India’s situation perfectly.
Brings back to mind the 2007 ODI World Cup that was hosted in the West Indies. The Rahul Dravid-led Indian cricket team – with Sachin Tendulkar as the star – lost to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the group stages to crash out in the opening round of cricket’s world championship.
That time it was ICC broadcast rights holder Sony that was left to pick up the pieces of the ratings disaster that the tournament ultimately became without its essential ingredient in the mix – Team India.
This time round it is Star-Disney that is scrambling to cover its bases as interest for the tournament as a whole has spiraled downwards among Indian viewers. Viewership data for Monday’s game on Disney+ Hotstar (provided to SportzPower in strict confidence) cannot but have set off alarm bells for the Disney-Star management. For the record, the game saw England beat Sri Lanka to register their fourth win on the trot in the ongoing tournament and all but lock in their place in the semi-finals.
With India being all but locked out of the mega-event’s knock-outs, the bean counters will no doubt already have their calculators out. An immediate back of the envelope calculation offered to SportzPower by an industry insider puts the losses that Star will perforce incur at Rs 100 cr MINIMUM.
Final numbers are of course awaited but there is no getting away from the reality that advertisers will now demand compensation as ratings tumble. And since there are India series back to back immediately after the World T20 is done and dusted. Disney-Star will have no option but to compensate. Or else? The advertisers will play hardball, especially for the West Indies and Sri Lanka tours. And seeing as the reality is that the advertiser pool on big ticket cricket is extremely narrow, the option of the network “standing its ground” pretty much rules itself out.
That is all in the tournament though. In the immediate present, the Star Sports team has three India games remaining from this tournament to leverage. None of which are particularly exciting it needs noting.
India’s remaining group phase fixtures:
India vs Afghanistan, Abu Dhabi – 3 November
India vs Scotland, Dubai – 5 November
India vs Namibia, Dubai – 8 November
FOOTNOTE: One can but hope that this reality check will mean that players (and India’s long suffering cricket followers) will in future be spared high on optics and zero on actual delivery expectations decisions of the sort that saw former captain MS Dhoni being brought on board as a team “mentor” for the tournament.
