If Narasimhan was the guardian of India’s pride, his co-anchor, Tiwari, was no less. Wearing a permanent scowl as if her panellists had body odour issues, she proceeded to accuse Dhoni of being remorseless and behaving high-handed with the media, while demanding that panellists echo her anger. She hit the heights of her cluelessness though when she demanded that Kohli be dropped from the Indian team to teach him a lesson, exhibiting a level of cricketing acumen that would be embarrassing were it to come from a stick. Some sense of sobriety was brought about after Atul Wasan finally had enough and threatened to leave the show causing the anchors to tone down for the few minutes that were left. Still, Times Now is not one for mercy and as the red ticker at the bottom of the screen informed us, The Newshour was only two hours away. At sharp 9, Arnab was back on television to remind us why Narasimhan and Tiwari are mere understudies. With his intro itself Arnab told us that his best-case description of the match today was a walloping. In true Arnab melodrama, the problem wasn’t that India lost, oh no, it was that India had surrendered. And, of course, if you disagreed with Arnab’s point of view, you were in denial. Arnab was here to question the Indian team for losing. Using his exalted position as editor-in-chief of a national news channel, Arnab demanded to know why R Ashwin wasn’t introduced until the 18th over. Whenever a panellist trashed the Indian team, Arnab would regurgitate the panellist’s last two words as if in agreement. Sensible viewpoints weren’t in short supply but they were out shouted and dismissed out of hand. Even as sanity was treated like the plague, Arnab questioned everything from Dhoni’s decision-making to Dhoni’s body language and stopping just short of criticising his hair style and taste in women. Never mind that prior to the World Cup, we had lost to Australia repeatedly in both a test as well as a limited-over’s series. Never mind that based on that series we weren’t expecting to get this far in the World Cup. Never mind that Australia was playing at home. No, none of that matters, because Arnab needs his outrage and outrage he shall have. The pointlessness of his outrage though was best summed up by him, when he said, “It wasn’t that we lost, it was that we allowed ourselves to lose.” This is also true of Times Now — it isn’t that we watch it, it’s that we allow ourselves to watch it, and as long as we do the circus will go on.