I didn’t get to see India winning the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup live yesterday, but what a manic Monday it has been. Wow! Brings forth some nostalgic memories.

It was on a Saturday afternoon, at a family friend’s place in Bangalore, where I watched India playing, for the first time on television—a fourteen inch monochrome. I was eleven years old and barely knew anything about World Cricket. Bored that there were no other kids around my age, I sat back and watched the game, while elders kept talking about current affairs, work, life, and so on. What I didn’t know—until the host made us realize was—that it was the Prudential World Cup of 1983, that we were watching.

The game was bizarre, low score, and at the end of the first half, everyone was of the opinion that India would lose. It was only when West Indies began batting that things started looking up. Wickets kept falling, which stopped the ongoing conversation around, and people began paying attention to the game. Rest, as they say, is history.

India, the underdogs, surprised everyone by defeating West Indies—the then favorites.

We were on a high again in 1985 watching India win the World Championship of Cricket—in color. The glitch in the telecast in (I think) the last over, Ravi Shastri’s man of the series title, and the team taking a victory lap in Shastri’s Audi were some of the vivid memories of that mini-World Cup tournament for me.

And now this.

Zaheer Khan’s bowling is really unfocused. This kid loses concentration far too quickly. I can see the number of wides he consistently bowls. Is he getting enough net practice? And where’s that damn swing? Ditto with Agarkar. Ditto with Munaf Patel, no pace and no mix. Don’t tell me that plain vanilla bowling is going to get wickets.

Who else? Harbhajan Singh? His bowling is beginning to look like a joke. Nothing is spinning, except our heads, watching his ball crossing the fence, ever so often.

Kumble had his days, but the magic is gone. Sehwag, Tendulkar, Yuvraj — if these guys are taking wickets, it is either by fluke, by luck or by a bit of both. Who’s left (with the exception of Irfan Pathan)? What were the selectors thinking when they sent this team? Are there no former bowlers for selection?

To be fair, they beat India fair and square. And this victory only reinforces the thought that this could turn out to be anybody’s World Cup this year. A little while ago, we were amazed to see Ireland’s thrilling fielding and those near impossible catches they took, while playing against a formidable team like Pakistan.

From a spectator’s point of view, there has been another fun filled way of enjoying Cricket: It was wonderful to catch The Indicast’s live skypecast. They have pledged to provide live commentary and fan chatter along throughout the match.

In short, a bunch of guys, who love Cricket, were not only providing a live commentary of the match — for those who couldn’t or were unable to watch — but also were discussing the never-ending ifs and buts of the game, strategy and everything that the otherwise Cricket fans would love to talk about while watching.

I love the thought of watching a game and sharing opinion over a live chatter. It is as much fun as watching the game itself. Seeing people groan when a catch was dropped or jump-up in joy when the ball went over the fence, et al, was really fun.

I have been a mute listener to the skypecast. It was simply because either we had nothing to say in particular, or we were too paralysed to react to team India’s breathtaking performance. Honestly, we were groaning endlessly.

What it also means is that demand is far greater than the supply, and somebody is not doing something right to get it to the interested people. This phenomenal contest is not easily accessible to people across Europe and Americas. Either it is far too expensive or just unavailable.

Someone in the ICC should take notice of this major problem. The rights they are selling are highly inadequate, inaccessible, and is causing heartburn among cricket fans the world over.

The vast student community in Europe and America cannot afford to shell out that kind of cash, I really feel for them. At this moment of time, it is a curse for all those cricket fans to be living here, being unable to watch.

A lot of these people have good internet access (like for e.g., here in TUDelft, they have a 100MBps+ pipe), but the traditional media is hard to come by. The (illegal) webcasts are painfully inadequate, poor in quality, not to mention, spotting the ball requires a special skill on a 300 pixel screen. By the end of the day, they’ll be seeing color fringes and myopic focus problems trying to.

There is a huge opportunity for the digital media companies to obtain legal rights and broadcast a high-quality webcast on the internet of such contests. These companies can virtually sign-up for any number of advertisements during breaks and which could in turn bring in an amazing amount of revenue. A contest like this makes America’s superbowl look like a play in the backyard.

Google, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, any media co. are you listening?

The idiots at Joost screwed-up. They are still in a private beta, when a great tournament is in full swing and the internet is waiting on its toes to get a hang of it. I had some hopes about Joost. Not any more. A great opportunity to cash in on ads is gone, for good.

It is unbelievable to see in this great internet age, there are no official webcasts or any webcasts worth your eyes. It’s a shame. For the record, we don’t want the Cricket score card, we don’t want the commentary, we don’t want those stupid Twitter updates, we want the video, a good streaming telecast or a webcast. And we are willing to watch the ads, if it helps you.

So come on folks, make it happen, at least the next time.