All news channels have their pet interests. Times Now and Republic spent months on Sushant Singh Rajput and Rhea Chakraborty. TV9 Bharatvarsh offered wall to wall coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. And News Nation has quietly devoted itself to aliens.

Ghosts, ghouls and witches are often wielded to gain viewers – remember how the media accused Rhea of “black magic”? – and News Nation wields aliens in the same way. They’re a regular feature on the channel’s show Rashtramev Jayate. This week, with India’s incredible win against Pakistan at a cricket match in Melbourne, they were offered up as part of News Nation’s coverage in the morning bulletin.

News Nation declared that aliens had “reached out from across seven oceans” to watch the match. “Scoreboard par thi ‘alien’” shouted the ticker – alien’s eyes were on the scoreboard – while another said aliens came to “help India win the match”. 

Amazingly, an alien was apparently at Melbourne itself, the channel declared: “The alien had his eyes on every moment of the India-Pakistan match...Alien was celebrating every wicket that fell during the match.”

In case you were hoping for some Marvel-style drama, you’d be sorely disappointed. The twist in News Nation’s tale was that the alien was none other than Virat Kohli, who scored 82 runs off 53 balls. “Actually, Pakistan’s cricketers have compared chasemaster Kohli to an alien,” a voiceover said. “During the India-Pakistan match, Virat Kohli seemed to have alien powers based on which he blew away the Pakistani players.”

In short, just another day for News Nation. But if you really want to read about Kohli’s performance at the match on Sunday, and how he’s now more than just an icon in India, read this piece by Anand Vardhan.