Cricket journalism is dying if not dead and buried already. The new generation of cricket writers are not a patch on Harsha Bhogle and Rohit Brijnath. And they cannot hold a candle to Raju Bharatan and Rajan Bala.
Who amongst the new crop can marry music, anecdotes and cricket as beautifully as Bharatan did?
And who amongst the new crop can intoxicate the senses with words and transport you to a happy place the way Brijnath does?
Heck, they cannot even put a proper sentence together. All this generation does is blog and Twitter.
Condensing a thought to 140 characters or less, can there be anything more preposterous than twittering? No form, no rhythm, no narrative - even the grammar leaves a lot to be desired.
Imagine that!
Whatever happened to mellifluous prose, the gentle narrative of bat hitting ball, of building up the narrative till it reached a crescendo, of art and form?
And when they are not twittering, you can find them preening around like peacocks on Facebook. So much for the legacy of Cardus and James!
Sounds familiar? It is.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
An alternate view
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14 comments:
The best is surely behind us.
Sure sounds familiar.
And who are the "new generation of cricket writers"? Is the Bhogle-Brijnath "generation" behind us? Really?
But I have to say, I'm not a big fan of Twitter either. Takes ignorant self-indulgence to a whole new level.
i hv seen movies with beautiful frames and canvass saying nothing...more than pros etc the point one wants to put across is more important...
Substitute Twitter with T20, blog with ODI, Harsha-Brijnath with Sachin-Rahul and now does the refrain sound familiar?
Cheers,
I was about to point that out, Homer, but you beat me to it!
But more seriously, blogging has rescued cricket journalism!
Samir,
Blogging has provided an alternate to cricket journalism.
Cricket journalism these days is all about garnering more eyeballs.. Wait, that sounds familiar too :)
Cheers,
You nostalgic bitch.
Tashi,
True nostalgia would be when I start extolling the virtue of long hand over word processors and Remington typewriters over computer keyboards.
Then again, those were glory days :).
Thanks for your comments and welcome to the blog.
Cheers,
Oh. Hah.
Considering I've grown up in the blog-and-Twitter generation, I'm not even going there.
These days debating about cricket has become like poking at a nest of vipers (let it never be said that I wasted a chance at melodrama, however slight).
Maithreyi,
Bigger community, more opinions and very little wiggle room by way of finding a middle path.
And all arguments for and against any topic have been exhausted - no one has anything new to say anymore
Cheers :),
I would rather gouge my eyes out than read some of the tripe which appears in Indian dailies. For some reason I am a huge fan of Sharda Ugra.. Pity she doesn't write more often..
Mahendra,
Sharda was at her best writing for India today. These days she blogs and I am not sure the format suits her as much.
Cheers,
Have you guys read the rubbish Waigankar wrote in The Hindu, recently?
Chandan,
I havent.. Can you provide the link?
Cheers,
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