Sad state of sports reporting!

It was a good game of cricket and as usual one team had to lose. The reason I am writing this post is beyond what happened on the field and is more about what happened on Indian news channels soon after. Aussies fought like tigers and produced some fantastic on field cricket to beat India in a close game.

Soon after the match was over I flipped to a news channel and I saw some cricket experts blaming the loss on a poor umpiring decision. Mr. Expert was so vehement in his approach and so unreasonable in his argument that no amount of reasoning from the news reporter could have changed his position. The argument went something like this:

News Anchor: So "expert", do you think a bad umpiring decision cost India the game?
Expert: (screaming) the decision was poor and this is not the first time as this happens all the time to our team. Sachin was so close to taking India to a fantastic win and to get to his landmark 17k but for a disastrous decision by Asoka d'Silva. He has been giving poor decisions against us for a long time now and has to be stopped. ICC needs to make sure such incompetent umpires are not allowed to officiate in big games.
News Anchor: But don't you think it was the failure of our middle order that was responsible?
Expert: Don't underestimate the importance of losing a set batsman who was anchoring the innings and the umpire made a blunder so he should be thrown out of the elite panel.

So I sat there wondering about the state of sports reporting and the incompetence of so called 'experts'. It appears that most channels and their expert commentators are so fraught with the idea of sensationalism that they completely overshadow the basic inspiration of reporting – TRUTH.

The truth part is conspicuous by its absence in every form of news reporting these days and sensation is so prevalent around news and entertainment channels that the real story is actually lost. The story I could not understand from last night’s news was that India lost a closely fought and thoroughly entertaining game of cricket to a superior opposition on the day.