Vigorously stirring the tecup

Twisting the utterances of someone to create a scandal is nothing new. In this day and age, when there are so many channels battling for ratings points, any hint of a "scoop" is whipped up into a frenzy.

Gary Kirsten got the full blast of one such storm in the past few days. First up, this is what he actually said:

He (Dhoni) is ready for it (Test captaincy) but there is no need to rush as of now. Anil (Kumble) has done an exceptional job; he is a great leader and he is toiling in many overs for India.

No sooner than he had said it, the headline blared, "Dhoni ready for Test captaincy: Kirsten". Still fair enough. But TV channels picked up on the first sentence of that piece and ran with it! Soon, all the channels were debating whether Kirsten was right in suggesting that Kumble should be removed and Dhoni made the captain.

The BCCI, in its peculiarly inept way, fanned the flames by then " admonishing" and "slamming" the coach for speaking out on the topic. By the now the flames had well and truly spread and the talking heads had another thesis ready for delivery to the public, namely, that Kumble still had a lot left to offer Indian cricket and Dhoni, that upstart, should wait his turn. Sadly, writers with a fairly large following such as Suresh Menon (link here) and R. Mohan (link here) succumbed to this tactic.

About the only person with a rational analysis of the whole episode appears to be Prem Panicker. Read what he had to say about it on his blog. As he so succinctly states:

All the signs of a needless controversy over what seem to be innocent comments warped by our own innate prickliness.