The Indian cricket team captain, Rohit Sharma, walks out to bat in a domestic game and smashes a 62-ball century. In another part of the country, Virat Kohli is crafting a masterclass 131. And where are the millions of fans? Desperately refreshing text commentary because there is no live telecast.
That was the reality on the opening day of the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025-26, and social media was furious.
Amidst the chaos of angry tweets and “BCCI why?” hashtags, Ravichandran Ashwin cricket’s resident professor and voice of reason—has stepped in to explain exactly why this happened. And in typical Ashwin fashion, he didn’t sugarcoat the reality.
The Context: A “Blackout” of Historic Knocks
The outrage stems from a rare alignment of stars. Both Rohit Sharma (Mumbai) and Virat Kohli (Delhi) decided to play the Vijay Hazare Trophy to prepare for the upcoming ODI series against New Zealand.
The result? Absolute carnage.
- Rohit Sharma: 155 runs off 94 balls (18 fours, nine sixes) vs Sikkim.
- Virat Kohli: 131 runs off 101 balls vs Andhra.
But instead of watching these innings in HD, fans were left looking for grainy fan-recorded clips on X (formerly Twitter). The official broadcasters had only scheduled a handful of matches for telecast, and neither of these superstar-studded games was cut.
Ashwin’s “Big Verdict”: It’s Logistics, Not Malice
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Ashwin addressed the elephant in the room. While he sympathized with the fans, he explained that the lack of coverage wasn’t a conspiracy it was a logistical nightmare.
“Everyone wants to see Rohit and Virat in action, sure. But we have to see how early the broadcasters got the information that they would play,” Ashwin explained.
He pointed out that broadcast schedules are locked in months in advance. Cameras, crew, and satellite links are assigned to specific stadiums based on the initial roster.
“When the international calendar is given, the domestic calendar is given at the same time. Once it is given, the BCCI and broadcasters decide which stadiums are easy to cover from… Making that last-minute switch is difficult,” he added.
Essentially, when Rohit and Virat decided to play at the eleventh hour, the broadcast machinery couldn’t just pivot to Jaipur or the KSCA Alur grounds overnight.
The “Elon Musk” Comment
Ashwin, known for his wit, couldn’t resist a quip about the situation. Acknowledging that social media was the only place to see snippets of the action, he joked:
“Fans are asking, ‘what the hell?’… Only Elon Musk can telecast these matches on X.”
It was his way of saying that in the age of rigid broadcast contracts, sometimes only the chaos of social media can keep up with the speed of cricket news.
The Bigger Picture: A Missed Opportunity?
While Ashwin’s explanation makes sense logistically, it highlights a gap in Indian cricket. In an era where digital streaming is king, the inability to stream games featuring the country’s most significant icons feels like a massive dropped catch.
Fans aren’t asking for 4K broadcast quality with 30 cameras. As many pointed out online, a simple single-camera live stream on YouTube or the BCCI app would have sufficed.
For now, we have to live with the fact that two of the most outstanding modern innings in Indian domestic cricket were witnessed by only a lucky few in the stadium and R Ashwin, who likely had his eyes glued to the scorecards just like the rest of us.