Bored Members - Guests | Media | White Bored | Interview | Bored Anthem - Songs | Boredwaani | Cartoons | Facebook | Twitter | Login

Tishani Doshi Continues to Entertain...

by Q

In another post about Cricinfo's Page 2, I briefly mentioned how lacklustre Tishani Doshi is.

She has been exposed by some other bloggers as well, which I will come to later; first I want to talk about how she goes beyond lacklustre in her latest post.

First she rambles on about how she has been in love with Wasim Akram, Viv Richards, and Steve Waugh, and how she thinks that "Dhoni is delicious"; which all fine. If we can oodle over the Prietys, Shettys, and Kaifs then no reason why she can't over the cricketers.

The problem begins when Doshi starts describing modes of dismissals.

"I'm not talking about styles of delivery, because that's venturing into a jargon-filled land of spin and pace that's out of reach for me".

Out of reach? Describing different types of spin and fast bowling deliveries is out of reach? How can someone who doesn't know the types of bowling deliveries be a cricket blogger? That too for Cricinfo!

She talks about the catch and different ways that can be taken and then asks, "Why don't they have a Man of the Catch award?"

Man of the Catch? Err.. should it not be "Catch of the Match?" - I seriously do not think that she was trying to be funny.

The following one about the stumping takes the cake though.

"Then there's the stumping, which always sends a thrill of pure pleasure down your spine, even if the man walking back to the dugout is from your team. It's a clean, sharp dismissal, and when the stump flies into the air, the batsman can only glance back with an air of disbelief,"

Firstly, I don't understand why a stumping sends thrills down ones spine. Well ok maybe for her it does, but a stump flying in the air? In 2o years of watching cricket, I have never seen a stump fly into the air after a stumping. Forget about fly into the air, I have never even seen a stump fall on to the ground after a stumping. Keepers usually only break the bails.

I wonder what cricket Doshi has been watching.

Then she claims that she doesn't understand the LBW.

"There's the lbw, which is too subtle for me. I can never tell if someone is out, unless I watch it on Hawk-Eye. If I were to watch a cricket match live without the aid of a commentator and replays, there's no way I'd be able to catch the lbw."

Well maybe she's not the only one who can't tell, but she's bloody blogging on Cricinfo!

Ok ok even some umpires can't tell about the LBW, but this lady, Tishani Doshi, continues to entertain - in a very unfunny way.

The other Exposes of Ms Doshi:

Plagiarizing about Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, by Kridaya

Plagiarizing about Chekhov, by Kridaya

Missing the whole point of the Tipping Point, by Ducking Beamers

Maybe she should stick to Dancing.

9 comments:

Leela said...

Q/BCC!,

I never read Ms. Doshi (never got around to it) .. however I found myself intrigued by this link on Amy's post and I ventured over.

What irritaed me the most was that she said that it was "hard work ... to come up with a new idea to write about every single day. Especially difficult, because I'm not in the place where all the action is, so I can't speak to any of the players or fans or anything."

I think if you are a cricket fan and matches are being played, you always find something to write about.
That statement of hers exposed the fact that she is not a cricket fanatic, and if she is not I wonder why Cricinfo hired her!

Maithreyi said...

I think you're being a little too harsh on Ms Doshi.

While I cannot deign to comment on her supposed plagiarism and misinterpretation of Gladwell/Chekov, I have actually enjoyed her posts. I think you'd really have a case here if she was writing for the main cricinfo site, but this is for the "page 2" stuff, which has never professed to be an overly serious look on the game.

Surely for a page that also features a regular blog by an American cheerleader talking about shopping and African safaris, it is not something you can really single out and complain about!

You single out her descriptions of cricketing dismissals and peel apart her every word - why? Is it a crime to be a slightly more casual cricket fan and still deign to write about it? If that's the case, I'd better delete my blog right now. There's a lot of pace/spin jargon I cannot work my head around because I've rarely ever *played* the game, lbws are tough without the replays/hawkeye, and surely you can give her a little literary liberty while describing a stumping!

Sorry if I've come across as antagonistic, but I've grown a little tired of all the Tishani-baiting.

Leela said...

Maithreyi,

Like you, I too am a casual cricket fan, and an armchair "expert" (with the emphasis on "armchair" and a grin as I type "expert"). Though I do understand lbw(Yay!).

And no, both of us shouldn't be deleting our blogs.
:-)

Now Cricinfo have every right to hire a non-cricket person to write about cricket on "page 2" if they intend to give us a casual fan's cricket-watching experience.

However, the writing better be good if a reader's intrest has to be sustained because frankly most people who vist CI are cricket fans.

And here is where Ms. Doshi fails. Like I said I read one post and the the extracts mentioned in this blog. The statement about flying bails was a tad silly imho.

I agree she is being tested more strictly than the average female blogger, but then she has the biggest platform (CI); she may not know the technical intricacies, but whatever she claims to know, she better do a good job of it is what people are saying. I guess.
:-)

straight point said...

there is big audience who rather than getting lost in cricket jagrons and experts comprehensive insights wants to read cricket in light way....

so the idea seems to expose and explore cricket to even those who are not that expert with game...

in that way i don't mind mandiras and doshis...

remember not everybody can be sharda...right leela... ;-))

Q said...

Maithreyi: I understand that CI Page 2 is a light look at things, but even then CI is the largest cricket platform to write on and it would make sense if they hired someone who understood the game to some extent.

I am a keen follower of your blog as well as Leela's and even though u claim that u may not have that much technical know-how abt the game, u don't attempt to show that u do.

Unlike Tishani Doshi.

Moreover, being an armchair expert as Leela calls it does not allow you to plagiarize. If you follow the links to Kirdaya's blog, u will see how Tishani has lifted words to describe Gladwell and Chekhov from elsewhere.

Its straight forward word lifting.. no matter how casual a writer u are, that is not on.

Q said...

Leela: I saw that and it irritated me too. Also another comment she made abt not following the IPL last year and doing so this year cos she got the dig at CI..

I also wonder why CI hired her.

Q said...

SP: the Mandiras or the Mayantis are there to look good on screen.. they don't try and show that they are technically sound abt cricket. They prance around, interview cricketers, thats abt it. Have u ever heard them give their "expert opinion".. nope..

Tishani is trying to and failing..

Krish said...

It is actually a little weird how she got her column. In one of her articles, she writes, "This whole column has been an interesting experiment for me, and like most decisions in my life, I fell into it not because I sought it out, but because it was offered to me and I didn't say no. "

This raises the question of why Cricinfo wanted her to write. I suppose one reason is that she had something to do with Muralitharan's biography.

I enjoy some of her articles, but she frequently writes crazy stuff like suggesting that Warne-Tendulkar rivalry went on forever, when we all know how it was settled back in 1998.

There is a clear pattern of errors and misunderstandings. If Cricinfo had turned on the comments feature on the Hit or Miss section, they would have seen this clearly.

Q said...

Krish: i know wat ur saying.. in the same post u mention, she says that she has got a lot of positive feedback abt the blog.. from who and where? and that came a day after ducking beamer's post.

I still can't believe she worked on
Murali's book.