Of unpredictabililty and sponsorship banners

The matches in the tri-series have been unpredictable so far, and that element of the unexpected has spilled over to routine press conferences as well. On Sunday, the print press boycotted MS Dhoni’s media briefing after the Indian captain turned up more than 90 minutes after the big defeat to Sri Lanka.

Around 11 in the morning on Tuesday, the press started to assemble in the small second-floor hall behind the VIP enclosure for the captains’ regular pre-match interviews. Not many noticed what was amiss, but the usually affable media manager, Brian Thomas, lost his cool and started making frantic phone calls.

The trouble was that Sri Lanka’s representative to next month’s Champions League tournament, Wayamba, were to have a press meet later in the evening and Wayamba’s sponsor wall was in position behind the area where MS Dhoni and Ross Taylor were to address the media shortly. How could Dhoni and Taylor speak in front of corporate logos not associated with the tri-series? The tournament’s sponsors would be furious at their companies’ symbols missing out on a couple of minutes of precious airtime. And the official broadcasters wouldn’t be thrilled either.

A few minutes of frenzied work put the tri-series’ sponsor wall in place ahead of Wayamba’s. Still not good enough. Wayamba’s logos were jutting out from both sides. Perhaps they will be visible to the television cameras. A search party found black paper to cover the errant logos and Thomas finally relaxed as a marketing disaster was averted.