Twitterati at pain as Star Sports focuses on India-England warm-up game ahead of Ireland-Netherlands T20 World Cup encounter
Cricket fans reacted in great disappointment and anger as the host broadcaster of the T20 World Cup 2021, Star Sports, over-ran a pre-match show on the India-England warm-up game after the toss was held for the important preliminary round fixture between Netherlands and Ireland.
Star left the fans in disgust as they showed no build-up or analysis to the Group A encounter from the initial stage but went ahead extensively discussing on-air about the warm-up game featuring the Indian team.
That, despite the warm-up game being scheduled from 7:30 IST time, a full four overs after the Dutch versus Irish clash was to begin in Abu Dhabi.
Star Sports’ pre-match show on India’s warm-up game overshadowed the Netherlands-Ireland T20 World Cup match.
Star Sports’ pre-match show does no justice to Netherlands-Ireland T20 World Cup game
Given that the Indian team led by captain Virat Kohli is the most popular side entering the T20 World Cup, unexpectedly there is a lot of excitement ahead of their warm-up games amongst the fans. But beyond a point, any cricket fan would want that the associate countries and an important game of theirs to be given its due attention as well.
However, not for the first time and certainly not the last, Star Sports went where the money is, and televised a lengthy pre-game discussion among their experts on the India-England warm-up game while showing no concern or care about the tournament proper fixture between the Netherlands and Ireland.
Since this happened immediately after the toss had taken place, fans had to even find alternate ways to learn of the respective playing XIs of the two teams, which only fuelled their anger towards Star.
Here is how a lot of them reacted:
Hey @StarSportsIndia, whoever is manning your feed doesn't seem to have gotten the message yet. Please stop this nonsense. #IREvNED #T20WorldCup
— Chirag Narasimiah (@chigga93) October 18, 2021
Thought I'd watch the Star Sports pre-show for once and there's not been a peep about Ireland-Netherlands, happening now.
All the focus is on India's *warm-up* match which is 4 hours from now.— Rahul (@exceedingxpuns) October 18, 2021
Terrible from Star Sports. There are commentators a ground doing a preview of the Ireland v Netherlands match right?
— Krishna Kumar (@KrishnaKRM) October 18, 2021
Ireland vs Netherlands match of T20 World Cup going to start soon. But in Star Sports pre match show ,they are discussing about India's chances in T20 World Cup rather than Ireland vs Netherlands match
— Manu E (@Manu733149) October 18, 2021
Why is the pre-show for an ACTUAL #T20WorldCup game between Ned-IRL… all about the WARM UP game between India and England??
Shame on you @StarSportsIndia #INDvsENG #Netherlands #Ireland
— CuriousLankan1 (@CuriousLankan1) October 18, 2021
This, as stated above, is not the first instance of Star excessively prioritising the build-up to an India game when Kohli’s team is not even due to play immediately. Throughout the 2019 World Cup in UK, even for non-India games, Star had extensive debates and discussions on things related to the Indian side while the scheduled fixture was left forgotten in the backdrop in pre-match shows.