Cricket in India has never been distinct from showbiz. While their Western counterparts have largely been content to bed members of the general public, Indian cricketers have usually displayed a marked preference for starlets. And really, it's not that hard to see why. Both professions impose an itinerant lifestyle, both involve adulation and a distinct lack of privacy, and both see the transaction of huge sums of cash that are out of the reach of the common man.
Before cricket and Bollywood became big business, they were easy pickings for the dons of Dubai. The general explosion in interest, revenue, advertising and all-pervasive media coverage had yet to reach the fever-pitch of the 2000s. Money and fame were present and accounted for, but the cricketer and the actress had yet to see themselves put up for consumption on a news channel's BREAKING NEWS ticker. The OB (outside broadcast) vans were yet to break land speed records in order to reach a tinsel town wedding. The television anchors were yet to scream themselves into apoplexy.
And so, fixing and blackmail emanated from the Emirates, the fear of one fatal bullet manifesting itself in either BOLLYWOOD STAR NITES or the promise of easy cash to cricketers who had still not broken the bank at Abu Dhabi. Come 2000, and the lid on the obscenity of match-fixing was wrenched open with a scream that resonated across the world.
The ICC created an Anti-Corruption Unit. The BCCI and PCB banned players for life. Former captains cried on national television and men in leather jackets looked about them nervously. Effigies began to burn. TRPs began to rise. And India obeyed Bond villain Elliot Carver's prescient command of only three years before: "Let the mayhem begin."
The era of media saturation had begun, and soon Mayawati and the Narmada Dam were to find themselves edged out by Aishwarya's wedding and Dhoni's broken heart. As the lines between entertainment and reporting blurred, virtual sets began to dominate, headlines were replaced by couplets, and hardened journalists gave way to performing clowns in business attire.
The ticker became the harbinger of hope and doom as "India have won the toss and are batting" became the nation's rallying call. Underwear ads jostled for airtime with spots for chewing tobacco while any cricketer or actor imprudent enough to leave his or her house found the shadows of a thousand video cameras blotting out the sun.
Money began to flow, ushering in a new era summed up, appropriately enough, by a Bollywood number:
Cash To Da Left Of Me
Cash To Da Right Of Me
Cash To Da The Front Of Me
Cash To The Back Of Me
Cash Is The Day For Me
Cash Is The Nite For Me
Cash On My Mind Making Money All Da Time
The fun had begun.
But there was more to come.
Wow, that even rhymed. These news channels must be getting to me.
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