England in India

[valvolux]

Well at least your getting a telecast - fox sports didn't pick this one up in aus. Looks like a pretty good start from england - what's the verdict on the pitch? What score do you think they need? Is it turning? Is it swinging?

 

[harishankar]

I'm not watching the match while this crap Hindi commentary is going on... Anyway it's a flat pitch, will turn on the third day and looks like being a spinners' wicket.

 

[valvolux]

If england had finished the day at 4 down i'd have said it was their day. Jones needs a senior man at the other end to bring out the best in his batting...which collingwood is not....good batsmen yes, but a calming influence like Freddie he is not. Jones's brain seems to implode when too much responsibility is put on his batting which is a real shame because technically he's not too bad. Anything over 300 will be decent - but by the looks of the consistent partnerships that are being put together it must be a pretty good batting wicket, so perhaps anything under 500 will be too little. Dam i need this on tv.

 

[m_vaughan]

It's all upto the bowlers now. I dont think England will get too many runs tomorrow, so the real work will then be to prevent India from getting a big lead. And without Simon Jones it'll take some doing.

 

[varunvgiri]

It makes me MAD. We pay for the top sports channel like ESPN, Star Sports and Ten Sports who have a reputed history of production and make professional telecasts of major sports events. Yet this money-grubbing politicians in the BCCI decide to sell the production rights to Nimbus (whose quality is quite substandard IMHO) and then they sell the TV rights to an absolutely crap, rubbish entertainment channel like Sahara who decide that their channel suddenly needs to become a pay channel.

I have a set top box precisely to view quality channels and yet major sports channels are denied the rights to telecast an important series like this.

Drown in your own ?**!@#*, BCCI!!! :

Hey... they sell the rights to the one with the highest bid. And Nimbus outbid by some margin. Well I agree the production work isnt upto global standards but i'm sure that after making such a huge investment nimbus will improve the quality.


Regarding Sahara.. , well everyone has to start somewhere. Who can blame them for trying to make some money


Also the atmosphere wasn't the usual one with not much of a crowd turout. I guess that'll change tomorrow with India batting.

 

[m_vaughan]

I think the BCCI should ensure that the coverage of international matches only to those channels who have the experience of broadcasting cricket in the past and has a good reputation. New channels should first be given rights to domestic/other cricket matches before being considered for the "bigger" deal.

Its a shame, because the coverage today was really poor. After watching Sky cover the Australian tour of England this past summer (here in the UAE we get the Sky feed via Fox), this really seems like outdated stuff.

 

[harishankar]

I know they outbid. THat isn't the point.

THe point is that BCCI already makes an insane amount of cash. Regarding TV rights, they could have afforded to pick and choose...

As a viewer who pays cash to watch the top sports channels, I demand to know why Sahara was given the rights. I know Nimbus did this, but then, there should be some control as to who airs the telecast.

I pay to watch Sports on Sports channels. Not on some third rate, crappy entertainment channel (which 99% of the people will not watch before and after this series) that suddenly and cynically decided to go pay just for the sake of this series. I'm not too sure, but this could be deemed illegal if somebody took them to court. They have been free to air until now and just now I called my cable operator and he said that it was now a pay channel.

 

[m_vaughan]

I know they outbid. THat isn't the point.

THe point is that BCCI already makes an insane amount of cash. Regarding TV rights, they could have afforded to pick and choose...

As a viewer who pays cash to watch the top sports channels, I demand to know why Sahara was given the rights. I know Nimbus did this, but then, there should be some control as to who airs the telecast.

I pay to watch Sports on Sports channels. Not on some third rate, crappy entertainment channel (which 99% of the people will not watch before and after this series) that suddenly and cynically decided to go pay just for the sake of this series. I'm not too sure, but this could be deemed illegal if somebody took them to court. They have been free to air until now and just now I called my cable operator and he said that it was now a pay channel.

Maybe with time they'll improve. Nimbus have been broadcasting cricket for quite some time now, but for Sahara its a first. Maybe in a few years time Sahara will become on of those top channels.

 

[Sureshot]

If england had finished the day at 4 down i'd have said it was their day. Jones needs a senior man at the other end to bring out the best in his batting...which collingwood is not....good batsmen yes, but a calming influence like Freddie he is not. Jones's brain seems to implode when too much responsibility is put on his batting which is a real shame because technically he's not too bad. Anything over 300 will be decent - but by the looks of the consistent partnerships that are being put together it must be a pretty good batting wicket, so perhaps anything under 500 will be too little. Dam i need this on tv.

If Jones was 'techincally' any good he wouldn't have place his pads accross the stumps to a swinging bowler, and he'd be able to score on the legside.

Collingwood is a very solid batsman, as solid as Flintoff. 3 consecutive 50s for Colly.

How about this thought, Colly is a great fielder, so how about Colly for Wicketkeeper?

 

[harishankar]

Well Sahara should not be airing this series. Sahara One is currently *not* a sports channel...

Maybe they should gain some credibility first by airing other sporting events within the country before hooking on to the big deal like International Cricket. This current deal smacks of opportunism and nothing else. At least now, it appears that Sahara just wants to milk the cash cow without putting in the hard yards first.

It'll be like Sony Entertainment Television. Except for a few days during the year when they get the rights to an ICC event and make the most of it by going pay and pulling in more advertising than they can chew, all they show is crappy Bollywood masala.

 

[varunvgiri]

I know they outbid. THat isn't the point.

THe point is that BCCI already makes an insane amount of cash. Regarding TV rights, they could have afforded to pick and choose...

As a viewer who pays cash to watch the top sports channels, I demand to know why Sahara was given the rights. I know Nimbus did this, but then, there should be some control as to who airs the telecast.

I pay to watch Sports on Sports channels. Not on some third rate, crappy entertainment channel (which 99% of the people will not watch before and after this series) that suddenly and cynically decided to go pay just for the sake of this series. I'm not too sure, but this could be deemed illegal if somebody took them to court. They have been free to air until now and just now I called my cable operator and he said that it was now a pay channel.

ON NIMBUS:

Sports
The Company is India's first and only globally operating sports specialist through its wholly owned subsidiary Nimbus Sport International Pte. Ltd. based in Singapore.
Nimbus Sport is a full service sports marketing and production company providing end to end solutions including rights management, television production, sponsor services, event management, new media content and on air ad sales.
Amongst Nimbus Sport's prominent on going multi year contracts are the management of commercial rights of ICC cricket events (mandated by GCC), the A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motor Sport (mandated by Team India), the Afro Asia Cup cricket (mandated by ACC) and several other regional sports properties.
Nimbus Sport has successfully produced the world feed television coverage for several ICC events (including the ICC Champions Trophy), for the majority of BCCI cricket home tours in the last 3 years and customized television feeds of the 1999 Cricket World Cup (for Doordarshan) and the 2003 Cricket World Cup (for Sony) amongst several other major sporting events.
It has been involved in the largest 3 sponsorship transactions in the history of cricket and the largest 2 television rights transactions.

See, Nimbus is an experienced hand at producing. I am sure we'll see a marked improvement as the series goes on. Atleast by he ODI s some improvement will be there. Let's not judge anyone with just onr days performormance.

Regarding Sahara.., again everyone has to start somewhere. You dont expect it to be ESPN on the first day of its coverage. Again given the competition i think they are bound to and will improve.

ps. Have you watched Sahara's coverage today? I thought it was not available on your SET as it had suddenly gone pay. I wouldn't blame it
for going pay. Afterall they paid a huge amount of money for the satellite
rights. Whats wrong with trying to make some money after making such a huge investment???

 

[Stephen Bailey]

Pietersen just doesn't get the whole, knuckle down and graft thing.

What's most annoying is that he can knuckle down! Take Lord's and the first innings at Trent Bridge for example.

 

[varunvgiri]

The Indian bowlers bowled very well today. I hope they dont waste time getting the tail out tomorrow. I expect Kumble to come out all cylinders firing....

 

[harishankar]

Varunv, that's just promotional crap... I wouldn't base my opinion on that piece you just quoted. I judge them by their quality and quite frankly, it's quite poor at the moment. Whether they improve, time will tell...

As to Sahara, I'm willing to pay for the damn channel, but they have just blacked it out today and my cable operator said it was unavailable. I guess they are having a tiff with the cable operators as they too cannot justify this sudden move to make it pay channel to their consumers.

Whichever way you put it, it smacks of opportunism. As I said before, If Sahara ever decides to launch a dedicated Sports Channel let them go ahead by all means... They have my blessings for that but then let them first earn credibility before telecasting the big events. Otherwise I'll still call them opportunistic and that this telecast is just a flash in the pan.

Money alone should not have been the criterion. When you give an engineer a job, you make sure he's qualified to do it, not just whether he quotes the lowest tender. Same thing here... Sahara haven't put in the hard yards of creating a credible sports telecast like Star Sports/ESPN/Ten Sports/Sky etc. have. They are just a third rate crappy entertainment channel looking to piggyback on somebody else's work and to boost their flagging viewership and making lots of money through advertising.

 

[varunvgiri]

Varunv, that's just promotional crap... I wouldn't base my opinion on that piece you just quoted. I judge them by their quality and quite frankly, it's quite poor at the moment. Whether they improve, time will tell...

As to Sahara, I'm willing to pay for the damn channel, but they have just blacked it out today and my cable operator said it was unavailable. I guess they are having a tiff with the cable operators as they too cannot justify this sudden move to make it pay channel to their consumers.

Whichever way you put it, it smacks of opportunism. As I said before, If Sahara ever decides to launch a dedicated Sports Channel let them go ahead by all means... They have my blessings for that but then let them first earn credibility before telecasting the big events. Otherwise I'll still call them opportunistic and that this telecast is just a flash in the pan.

I agree with most things you say... I agree that the production isnt upto standards, but not as bad as that.( well, when has the production work been that good in India). It's just I do have hope that they will improve. Afterall they are India's biggest( If i am not mis informed) sports production company. Let's give them some time....