As anticipated, the political masters of Pakistan have finally directed its national cricket team to lift the boycott and play India on 15 February, 2026, as scheduled in Colombo . The Masters must've thought the money at stake is too lucrative to continue indulging in such kind of grumpy politics. Of course, they had imposed some pre-conditions that included making the 'handshake' a mandatory protocol, but the ICC looked the other way. So, the PCB takes it as protecting the 'spirit of cricket'. The Indian cricket board , the sponsors, the TV channels and millions of fans who do not necessarily mix patriotism with sports, if it's cricket in particular, must be deliriously ecstatic that all the revenues and hype and excitement shall be there for harvest thr oughout the ICC Men's T20 World Cup-2026 , co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka . Most of the Indians fans must also be ecstatic to have their heroes go on vanquishing the enemy neighbor and humiliating t...
Earlier, commercial breaks were not as intrusive as we could anticipate the time and quantity of their coming perfectly thanks to the limited opportunities available. Doordarshan was the only television channel, entertainment-public service-news all combined, for us to confront them. We knew that maximum ad time would be for the Sunday evening Hindi feature film and we used to utilize those commercial breaks to entertain ‘silent’ guests, discuss the movie on air and make tea. The virtual breaks that were intrusive even then were the songs of Hindi or Bollywood movies that caught us unawares as always forcing us to take a break and go out of the theater into the lobby. However, with the advent of cable television and the flood of private entertainment and news channels intruding-annoying-agonizing breaks have become a part and parcel of our existence—you like it or not. There emerged a rich variety of how the commercial breaks began to be presented to us. Maybe at the inne...