Despite extra special and high spirited transmissions on Pakistan News and Sports TV Channels in a bid to lift up the morale and confidence of National players for the crunch ICC T20 World Cup Semi Final encounter against Sri Lanka, Pakistan ended up losing the contest, shattering all the hoisted expectations and insistent hopes. In spite of all the untiring efforts by cricket fanatics across the country to boost up the self-esteem of National team, they were left in despair after a disappointing performance by the green shirts on Thursday.
Right from the eve and beginning of the competition day, local media began boundless campaign round the clock and created immense hype regarding Pakistan-Sri Lanka Semi Final clash. They set up big screens, decorated the sets and studios with fascinating green-white art work giving the contrasts of National flag.
We now briefly analyze about how different TV channels showed up on the match day and will give a brief look on their content, quality and relevance to the enthralling match.
Geo News:
Initially, Geo News covered the pre-match stories and celebrations in Karachi studio with its correspondent Altamash Jiva giving live updates from Sri Lanka and taking expert opinion from cricket legend Wasim Akram in a segment “Chal Jeet Ki Chaal – Swing Kay Sultan Kay Sath”. Fatima Saleem and Danish Anees hosted other related transmissions named ‘Chal Do Jeet Ki Chaal’.
Several senior cricket analysts like Sikandar Bakht, Zaheer Abbas and Sarfaraz Nawaz were also invited on line. Later in the evening, they moved to Port Grand where a huge set up was organized for the people to witness the knock out match on big screen. The content quality and presentation style was very much fitting to the severity of the match. The only negative point was the fact that they give extra hype to the match and forgot about all the major issues being going across the country.
Dunya TV:
Dunya TV also carried out special transmissions on T20 World Cup Semi Final with Salman Hassan the host. He proceeded the show in an excellent manner, took expert opinions from specialized analysts. He then went to Private University from channel studio for further coverage and gave exclusive coverage from the spot.
ARY News:
Former captain Pakistan Cricket Team and convicted on spot fixing charges Salman Butt was the expert analyst on ARY and commented during the whole match on ARY News. 11th Hour – Har Lamha Purjoosh hosted by Waseem Badami was the special transmission on ARY for T20 World Cup. Many other show biz celebrities and news casters were also present on the occasion who were seen speaking their heart out about the match.
Samaa TV:
Samaa TV take on former Test cricketer Pakistan Mohsin Hasan Khan for pre and post match analysis. Stylish right handed batsman gave his expert opinion on batting, bowling and fielding performances of the teams playing against each other.
He also pin pointed the negative and positive aspects of team’s strategy during the knock out match of the mega event.
PTV Sports:
Pakistan Television was not behind as well as it telecast the entire tournament and with Sarfaraz Nawaz, Amir Sohail, Younis Khan and few others as the expert guests while Mirza Iqbal Baig hosted the transmission all through the day.
Talking about the match, Shahid Afridi remained in the highlight after the match as he expressed all his anger and rage on his bat and helmet. Fuming Afridi broke his bat and helmet in the dressing room after he was bowled first ball by Rangana Herath.
However, to conclude, I would say Geo News did the preeminent job in telecasting the celebrations before and during the match. Its team was huge as was the investment. Two of its correspondents Abdul Majid Bhatti and Altamash Jiva were in Sri Lanka to cover each and every latest update. The news regarding replacement of Abdul Razzaq with Sohail Tanvir was also broke by Geo News. Hence, efforts and hard work of Geo News paid off with respect to revenue but it could not win the match for Pakistan unfortunately.