What we also like to see...

There were times, when we used to have the camera on one end only. Since the game used to be lot slower, the TV audience also had to be lucky to catch the action of their favorite batsman playing a exquisite cover drive or their beloved bowler delivering a classical out swinger from the front facing view.

Clock moved. We started having camera at both ends. However, the viewers were still irritated when the batsman played a stroke on the onside while the camera searched the ball on the offside. The worst nightmare used to be when the fielder took a superlative catch while the camera completely missed the action. Million thanks to those commentators who gave life to the otherwise lost action.

As years rolled by, came in one of the best innovations of the game. You got it right. Day-Night Match, Colored Clothing,White Balls started occupying the ODI format. This eased the pain of the viewers. Infact it was lot easier for the cameraman to follow the trajectory of the white ball compared to the red ones.

Come this World Cup 2011, we are watching the game in High Definition with 27 different cameras. Today we are talking about terms like Stump Vision, Hawk Eye, Field Map, Hotspot, Snick-O-Meter, Motion Camera and many more to be a basic necessity to any coverage. Big thanks to the growth of technology in the past 3 decades. The audience knowledge of the game has also advanced leaps and bounds in all these years.

As an audience and cricket lover, is there something more that we could see today?

In my opinion, without a doubt, Yes. Today the Field Map is being shown to the audience only when the commentators want to talk about a particular field setup. However, it will be wise if the field map is shown to the audience at the commencement of every over, if not displayed at the corner of the screen at all times. The map should also indicate the field changes the captain make. It will be interesting if the map could be compared to that of other captains for the similar type of bowler or batsman or conditions. This should hone the knowledge of the audience and also educate the budding cricketers of the future.

Bottom Line: What we can also see could be an institution for many.

Dinesh

Cricket Lover