Gautam Gambhir is right to wonder why the Indian media did not cover Ankit’s death as it did Hughes’

It’s easy to compare the incident with the one in which Phil Hughes, the Australian Test cricketer, died five months ago in Sydney after he was hit by the ball while batting.
That’s exactly what Gautam Gambhir, the Kolkata Knight Riders’ skipper, did in his column in a newspaper. The feisty left-handed opener pointed out how the Indian media went all out in covering the Sydney incident, and how lukewarm, in comparison, the coverage has been of the Kolkata tragedy.
Gambhir is, to a large extent, right in his observation. Hughes did get a lot of time and space in the Indian media — from the moment he sustained the fatal injury till the time he was buried, and even beyond. One primary reason why it became such big news and got such a vast international coverage was the way his country reacted.
The entire country came to a standstill; it looked like every family in Australia had lost a son. Ordinary citizens came out of their homes to pay their tributes. Above all, his teammates refused to play immediately after his death to mourn him. Cricket Australia, showing utmost respect and sensitivity, rescheduled the high-profile series with India.
The BCCI too showed magnanimity and readily agreed to rescheduling the series.
Compared to that, the reaction to the tragedy at home wasn’t, let’s say, comparable. Did any of our players, like the Australian players, say they would want a few days off to get over the tragedy? Did the BCCI even think of postponing a single IPL match? Of course not!

Amid allegation of “medical negligence”, a blame game has begun following the tragic death of promising Bengal opening batsman Ankit Keshri who passed away on Monday morning owing to an injury sustained during a cricket match a few days back in Kolkata. Keshri sustained a head injury in an on-field collision while taking a catch in a Cricket Association of Bengal’s Senior one-day knock-out match on April 17 at JU second campus ground in Salt Lake.

Keshri, representing East Bengal in the match against Bhowanipore Club, was taken to the AMRI Hospital in the vicinity. On Sunday night, Keshri was shifted to Nightingale Hospital on Shakespeare Sarani after East Bengal senior official Sadanand Mukherjee signed the risk bond at the AMRI Hospital and the former Bengal U-19 captain died early Monday morning because of cardiac arrest.

A blame game then began as the super specialty hospital in Salt Lake said they were not given a chance to treat further, while East Bengal’s Sadanand Mukherjee claimed otherwise. AMRI CEO Rupak Barua said they were not given a chance to treat Keshri for which further investigations were required, even as Mukherjee claimed that they were given assurances by the hospital that Keshri was stable. “We wanted to conduct more investigations on him like CT angio and other tests but we were not given a chance to treat him because the patient was taken after the club and family authorities signed the risk bond and after which we discharged him,” Baruah said.

Baruah said the doctor attending on Keshri told the patient parties that he was aerodynamically stable but did not advice his discharge. “He was under treatment at the critical care unit. AMRI had conducted CT scan of the brain and 13 dopplers and wanted further investigation,” Baruah said. Mukherjee, however, said: “We went by what doctors told us and for better treatment we took him to Nightingale. It was a decision taken in consultation with the family.”