Political propaganda, and cricket's 'hot bods'

Until the end of the Indian tour of Pakistan, we will be running a daily Paper Round of what newspapers in India and Pakistan, and from around the world, are saying about this series. This is what the media had to report today:

We've seen plenty of politics in cricket, and now it's time for some cricket in politics. The Times of India reports that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the biggest political party in India's ruling coalition, has made a new television commercial using the recent victory in Pakistan to underscore its "feel-good" theme. It consists of a montage which intersperses images of the Indians playing cricket with those of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India's prime minister.

The report says: "The film is a collage of footage of Wednesday's match [the final one-dayer at Lahore], juxtaposed with Vajpayee's image and a few words of inspiration. 'Hamare cricket team ko badhai. Hamare gyaraan bharatiyon ne match bhi jeeta, dil bhi.' ['Congratulations to our cricket team. Our 11 players won not just the match, but also our hearts.']"

The punchline is: "Gyaraan bharatiyon ne croron ka dil jeeta. Sau karor mil jayen tho hamein kaun hara sakta hai?" ["Eleven Indians won millions of hearts. If a billion Indians get together, who can defeat us?"]

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The Bombay Times, the Mumbai supplement of theTimes of India, covers parties as well, but not the political kind. So their front-page headline, "Oh bod, they're hot!", is hardly surprising. They have carried out a nationwide poll to see which cricketer from the just-concluded series is considered the sexiest by Indian women, and is, as they term it, "Mr Indo-Pak".

Rahul Dravid, needless to say, comes first. The report says: "It was Dravid because he was 'sublimely sexy', 'cute', 'cool', 'choclatey', 'Mr Nice Guy', 'rock solid', 'dear dependable' [and] 'intriguingly innocent'."

The only Indian city where Dravid did not win was Lucknow, where he was beaten by Yuvraj Singh and Shoaib Akhtar. The overall second position went to "wild, untamed, sweaty, flighty Shoaib Akhtar, who makes you wish you were cave woman. And he? Cave man!"

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How did Pakistan's players cope with their defeat? The Times of India reported that Inzamam-ul-Haq said his prayers and went home to be with his family, insisting that nobody turn on the television. The report said that "Inzamam's father, who is also known as 'peer saab' for delivering religious discourses, spoke to his son on life's cause-and-effect theory."

Shoaib, the report said, "left past midnight in a black long-sleeved T-shirt and sand-busted jeans. Obviously he wasn't in the best of moods, and didn't eat too much. As one team-mate said, 'more than the loss, he was stunned by the six that [Lakshmipathy] Balaji hit off him'."

Yasir Hameed and Shabbir Ahmed, meanwhile, argued about tactics, watched the Indian hit Kal Ho Na Ho, and "moved on to a game of darts".

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Vadodara [formerly Baroda], where Irfan Pathan lives, was throbbing with festivity as Pathan bowled India to victory. The Times of India reported: "As soon as India's victory was announced, people started flocking Mandvi and the Jumma Masjid, where [Pathan's] family stays, shouting 'Bolo Irfan ki jai, Bolo Bharat Mata ki jai'. ['Glory be to Irfan, glory be to Mother India.'] At one point, there were so many people in the narrow bylane that the three policemen stationed outside his house were not enough to keep the crowd at bay." The picture accompanying the piece showed Pathan's father, Mehboobkhan, waving the Indian flag on the roof of his house, as crowds below cheered him on.

There were similar scenes outside Mohammad Kaif's house in Allahabad. The Times of India reported: "Outside Kaif's Cooper Road house, in Civil Lines, there was a riot of colours and crackers. Several fans had come out wearing Team India's blue. Some of them had painted their faces in tricolours. [A] few sang the famous Lagaan song, 'baar baar haan, bolo yaar haan', while jiving gleefully."

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Pakistan's newspapers, Dawn and the Daily Nation among them, carried reports that some former Pakistan Test players were unhappy with Rameez Raja, the chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board, for sending them low-priced tickets for the fifth one-day international at Lahore. Imtiaz Ahmed, Saeed Ahmed, Mohammad Ilyas and Ijaz Butt were given tickets to one of the cheaper stands, worth Rs500, and they refused them. Even these tickets came only an outcry in Pakistan's media after the players were not invited at all for the fourth one-dayer, which had also been in Lahore.

Imtiaz said that he was a life member of MCC, which sent him tickets for every international or county match played at Lord's. He was upset that their own board was treating them so shabbily.

During the match, Wisden Cricinfo had reported that Fazal Mahmood, a Pakistan legend, was upset at being given a ticket to one of the cheaper stands - especially when one of the plushest stands in the stadium is actually named after him.

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The Indian Express carried a feature on Nadeem Ghauri, the Pakistani umpire who officiated in the just-concluded one-day series. Ghauri, when asked what was his most memorable moment during the final, replied, "Giving a great batsman like Sachin Tendulkar out. The nick can easily get lost in our countries when you have 20-25,000 people shouting. This is quite unlike England or Australia, so it becomes difficult to give batsmen out."

According to Ghauri, the key, in such noisy situations, is to look at the batsman, to see "if he looks back at the wicketkeeper or down at the crease. But I picked it up when I saw the ball passing Tendulkar's bat, and the moment I saw Tendulkar's head looking downwards, I made up my mind. He walked even as I made the decision. That is the greatness of the man."