Mumbai. In a surprising and quick review meeting conducted by Board of Cricket for Cricket in India (BCCI) at a five-star hotel in the city, BCCI unanimously decided (after collecting inputs from its Bangladesh counterpart) to shift the ongoing ODI series timings to mid-night.
“Instead of 12.30 PM, matches will now start from 12.30 AM,” said an obligatory senior BCCI official in an exclusive interview given to Faking News.
“After learning that millions of sports enthusiasts in India are awake during night, we proactively took measures to increase the viewership of ongoing India’s tour of Bangladesh on Television,” he elaborated further.
It’s a known news that BCCI firmly wanted to test young Indian cricket players against one of the toughest oppositions in the world i.e., Bangladesh, on sub-continent pitches ahead of the upcoming world cup which will be held on green and bouncy turfs of Australia and New Zealand during the early part of 2015.
Contrary to what the richest cricket board thought, the series is receiving lukewarm response both in Bangladesh and India. Stadiums are almost empty, and TV viewership has fallen to its newest low, thanks mainly to never-seen-before interest among the youth towards FIFA World Cup matches in India.
Going for night practice session.
Earlier, Bangladesh’s Gazi TV, which owns the broadcasting rights was left with no other options than to sell the broadcasting rights to Star Sports for peanuts in India as there were not enough bids from other channels.
When our Faking News journalists asked for explanation, the BCCI official said, “We strongly condemn the rumor that people’s interest has shifted towards FIFA World Cup, which is seen as the main reason for millions being seen awake during night; there are all absolutely baseless reports.”
“We conducted a survey in the most remote and rural areas where Football popularity is high and in the urban sections where Soccer interest is either minimal or almost negligible to gauge the impact. Our reports clearly suggested that students and youth in particular are showing interest to stay awake during night just to watch football due to peer pressure or to watch other random TV shows like teleshopping selling wonderbra. They will immediately switch to cricket if given an option,” he claimed.
“However, to cash in on the growing trend of increasing midnight viewership, we decided to change the scheduled timing of the matches after series of consultations with Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB),” he commented.
BCCI decision has been welcomed by each and every Indian sports lover, BCCI sources confirm. Surprisingly, Faking News too could find some happy sports fans.
Some youngsters, who were seen celebrating Germany’s win over toothless Portugal defense, expressed their happiness over BCCI’s decision to suit their FIFA schedule. They complain that they were desperate to kill time during Half Time breaks. With India-Bangladesh matches new timings, they now jubilantly say that they have got an invaluable time-filler in between the football matches.
They also thanked the officials of BCCI for listening to their concerns and are hopeful that BCCI would do the same timing adjustments for all Cricket matches during English Premier Leagues as well.
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