May 24th, 2009 
Aman An Indian and a South African firm know for their Public Relations capabilities were working throughout the Indian Premier League tournament. It is learnt that these two agencies were working round the clock on behalf of the Indian Premier League. They have delivered everything right from processing media accreditation to keeping the journalists informed about the happenings there. Though there were few slips as well. There were some Indian Newspapers who have either not entered into this arrangement or have boycotted at later stage because of one or the other reason. This led to the PR companies supplying the in formations across the spectrum. This was for the first time in the history of any sporting event. It also raised the ethical concerns and the question was raised if such a company should be allowed to plant such stories. Also they were always found promoting the IPL commissioner Mr. Lalit Modi. Well one should not be surprised because they were getting paid from this man. I don’t know if it was open or hidden, but in the past weeks when the IPL was on they were seen informing the press to alert the media to cover which ever opportunity was there to cover him.
There were many hidden incidents happened which has changed the course of the tournament. There was a blogger known as the fakeIPLplayer who used to write all the secrets right from the dressing rooms which we will discuss later. It was seen right before the first semi final game that this machinery announced that the two captains of the teams going to play the semi final game would be addressing the press. It was also mentioned specifically that the chairman of the tournament Mr. Lalit Modi will be accompanying the two captains. All this happened just an hour before the game was to start. Now this is where Modi went wrong. The news was on a very short notice and there were not much of the media persons available. To the worst not even a single representative of Indian news agency electronic or print was present there. Looking at it, it was not so difficult to judge and that is what happened. Neither Adam Gilchrist nor Virender Sehwag came to address the media which was not vernacular to Indians. It was obvious because no captain would want to get his mind diverted right before a crucial game like semifinals. This is how the professional crickets focus on the job. No media or chairman should dare to divert them. So you may have a question then who were those player wearing the team jersey with Modi in that press address. Well it was Glen Mcgrath and Scott Styris. None of them were playing in that crucial game. Now what happened was that Modi gave a little chance to answer any of media questions. He himself changed the course of the questions towards the closing ceremony and the Miss Bollywood South Africa. He was right because he was not addressing the cricket reporters by the Page 3 reporters. At least this is what he thought about the media persons who were there in the press conference.
From the stand point of the viewers both live and over the television maximum of which were in India, Mr. Modi had in his team an American event management company which extended its British arm to make the tournament successful. Mr. Modi is known as a very good communicator who has all the fact and figures at his disposal every time which makes him stand apart from other BCCI officials. All he is suggested to do is to talk less and avoid claims of which most are baseless and invites thrashing from media.
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