BCCI announces cricket commenting course

Mumbai - Board of Control of Cricket (BCCI) today at a press conference announced new free online crash course in cricket commenting for the benefit of millions of cricket fans. BCCI Spokesman Rajiv Shukla, speaking to press reporters observed that BCCI felt the need to introduce this special free course in order to control the quality of cricket commenting in India, which has unfortunately not kept pace with the quality of cricket being played by our cricketers.

"We have observed that with the increasing use of internet, millions of cricket fans now regularly pass comments on various aspects of the game on thousands of online forums, blogs and sports websites" said Mr. Shukla. "But sadly, the quality of the comments posted on these forums and sites leaves a lot to be desired. Cricketers have become favorite punching bags of vast majority of Indians who vent out frustrations in their personal lives by hitting out at cricketers unfairly and without judiciously using their judgement faculties. Too often, rude remarks, abuses, slander and smear is passed off as commenting on the game"

"At a time when we are demanding a total ban on sledging on the field, this sad state of affairs off the field and on our computer screens is unacceptable. As controllers of cricket, it has become imperative for us to also control commenting on cricket by amateur & untrained commentators and raise the standard of commenting to professional levels" added Mr. Shukla.

Explaining the curriculum of the proposed course, Mr Shukla said the one of the primary module of the course would consist of improving the long-term memory of the trainees doing the course. "Indians tend to have notorious short memory which severely impairs their ability to make rational comments. For example, when Dhoni and his young team did well and won the T20 world cup, majority of Indian cricket fans strongly opined that it was now time for the senior cricketers to hang up their boots and allow the younger players to takeover. But due to short memories, this view changed dramatically when the junior players failed in Australia resulting in protests against dropping of senior players from the one-dayers."

"The curriculum of the course will also include topics that will teach the trainees how to distinguish between 'temporary loss of form' and 'poor cricketing abilities' which in due course of time would result in players being protected from being abused due to temporary loss of form and also protect selectors from being repeatedly described as 'bunch of jokers' for including non-performing players in the team."

"Included in the curriculum would be a module that would provide training in controlling emotions. The specially designed course module will make use of NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) techniques to teach trainees to temper their emotions. Since there is a danger of fans loosing interest in the game (and consequent loss of revenue) out of detachment arising from controlling their emotions, the course material will be designed to control only 'negative emotions' like anger and disappointment, while positive emotions of joy, merriment and cricket addiction, that arise from the team winning will be encouraged and boosted."

Those completing the course successfully will be awarded the status of "Certified Cricket Commentors" (as opposed to 'commentators' to distinguish them from professional media commentators, observed Mr. Shukla

Also present at the press conference was BCCI Secretary, Niranjan Shah who later further explained the modalities of the course. Mr Shah said that a certificate for successful completion of the course would be provided in the form of 3D holographic image file with the name of the commentor embedded in it, which can be used as signature-attachment by commentors on various forums and sites to demonstrate their competence in making rational comments. This will make it easier for moderators of forums and webmaster in deleting abusive and irrational comments.

Mr Shah hoped that millions of Indians will avail of this opportunity and enroll for this course in earnest. "Considering all the hard work and sweat that goes into making of an international cricketer, the least we can do for our cricketers is to become 'intelligent commentors' of the game and support them during their times of crisis.