Like a medium pacer breaking his back bowling on a flat, lifeless wicket under a hot, pre-real winter Indian sun, the scoreboard reading 350 for no loss and the bowler never finding that moment when the batsman looks really troubled — that’s what CNN-IBN’s Devil’s Advocate (DA, for the purposes of brevity, in the rest of this column) anchor reminded me of as I watched him interview Tiger Pataudi. The issue at hand was India’s Champions Trophy early exit. Okay, Tiger Pataudi may well be, as the anchor said, India’s greatest living ex-cricket captain. But he simply wouldn’t give that one quote, that one observation, that one aha moment that DA relentlessly searches, week after week.

Is there a commitment problem in Indian cricket, DA asked. Yes, said Tiger, but not just now, there always has been. Oh dear. Yuvraj broke his finger and didn’t play but Younis broke his finger and did play a match — what does that suggest, DA asked, and you could hear the crackle of expectation. There comes the quote! No! Tiger said it depends on the injury, really. We can’t produce fast bowlers because there is a commitment problem, said DA. Tiger didn’t bite — look at the nature of our wickets, he said reasonably. So then we come to the “fundamental reasons” why Indian cricket is not what it should be. Fundamental reasons or fundamental causes, or fundamental anything is always a good bet for news TV. Interviewees can be expected to slip up while trying to analyse fundamental reasons in less than two minutes.

... contd.