Dirge for the scorecard
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Hasanuzzaman Khan
THINGS change with time. Reporting, especially sports reporting, is not the same as it used to be, say ten years ago. So is the editing as well as the presentation of a news item.
As an example I would like to cite the case of reporting a cricket match. In such reporting much emphasis used to be laid on keeping a proper and accurate record of scoring etc. Though how you report a match and what language you use to recreate the atmosphere on the field are very very important -- Neville Cardus is famous for such eloquent reporting -- but reporting a cricket match really centered on the scorecard that kept a record of all the minutest details of the event, runs gathered by each and every batsman, even recording the name of the batsman who scored a duck, how he got out, whether bowled or caught or leg before or stumped, who was the bowler, who was the player, who got the batsman caught out etc.
Some newspapers used to add how many balls each player faced to score his total runs. The scorecard also recorded the feat of each individual bowler, overs bowled, maiden overs, extras and total runs conceded. Other things used to be recorded on the scorecard were the sequence of dismissal, or at what stage of team score each batsman got out etc. It also included who became the Man of the Match, where necessary, and the umpire's names.
The scorecard is a complete record of a match in a nutshell, given in graphic form in figures. A cricket loving reader could gather almost all the relevant information of a match from it. We used to go through the scorecard first, before reading the main report. We could even spot a mistake in the main report from it.
Nowadays the scorecard of a cricket match is never printed. Not even in case of an event of national or international importance. These days when advertisers have become the arbiters in the newspaper world, the scorecard is considered a space-killing nuisance and sacrificed almost entirely, while advertisements are being treated as the duck, laying golden eggs!
In these days of modernity when newspaper production has reached new heights in our country, we the old timers pine for the scorecard which has suffered a premature burial.
THINGS change with time. Reporting, especially sports reporting, is not the same as it used to be, say ten years ago. So is the editing as well as the presentation of a news item.
As an example I would like to cite the case of reporting a cricket match. In such reporting much emphasis used to be laid on keeping a proper and accurate record of scoring etc. Though how you report a match and what language you use to recreate the atmosphere on the field are very very important -- Neville Cardus is famous for such eloquent reporting -- but reporting a cricket match really centered on the scorecard that kept a record of all the minutest details of the event, runs gathered by each and every batsman, even recording the name of the batsman who scored a duck, how he got out, whether bowled or caught or leg before or stumped, who was the bowler, who was the player, who got the batsman caught out etc.
Some newspapers used to add how many balls each player faced to score his total runs. The scorecard also recorded the feat of each individual bowler, overs bowled, maiden overs, extras and total runs conceded. Other things used to be recorded on the scorecard were the sequence of dismissal, or at what stage of team score each batsman got out etc. It also included who became the Man of the Match, where necessary, and the umpire's names.
The scorecard is a complete record of a match in a nutshell, given in graphic form in figures. A cricket loving reader could gather almost all the relevant information of a match from it. We used to go through the scorecard first, before reading the main report. We could even spot a mistake in the main report from it.
Nowadays the scorecard of a cricket match is never printed. Not even in case of an event of national or international importance. These days when advertisers have become the arbiters in the newspaper world, the scorecard is considered a space-killing nuisance and sacrificed almost entirely, while advertisements are being treated as the duck, laying golden eggs!
In these days of modernity when newspaper production has reached new heights in our country, we the old timers pine for the scorecard which has suffered a premature burial.