Cricket Commentary

I had mentioned in the previous post about the India-Pakistan cricket series in Abu Dhabi. The broadcast was only on DD and Sahara. Needless to say, the quality was pathetic. It was almost like watching glimpses of the match between commercials. The sound of the last ball of the over hitting the bat was immediately followed by some dumb DLF commercial. The commercials would go on and on you would invariably miss the first ball of the next over also. So, you had to be happy watching 4-ball overs.

That reminded me of the days when ESPN and Star Sports had the rights for most of the major cricket tournaments going on all over the globe. World Cup 1999, Champions Trophies, India's tour of Australia etc. They at least used to make sure that people don't miss out on the cricket. Their commentary and analysis team, made the cricket all the more enjoyable. Harsha Bhogle was great with all the numbers and statistics and used to raise really good points during the post match and lunch discussions. He was my personal favourite among the Indian lot. John Dykes and Alan Wilkins were also good at anchoring the analysis sessions. Among the former cricketers commentating for these channels, Boycott was the best, as many would agree. He was ruthless and precise but interesting and funny at the same time. He was entertaining without being ridiculous like Sidhu. Gavaskar was also good, though a little biased towards India. Tony Greig and Ian Chappell were good too. I can still recall Tony Greig shouting himself hoarse during the Sandstorm innings by Tendulkar at Sharjah in 1997. I never liked Ravi Shastri, Rameez Raja and Richie Benaud. Shastri's analysis and commentary had no substance, Rameez Raja was too biased towards Pakistan. He was almost like their agent. Richie Benaud is quite popular and respected as a commentator.I hear he was a star commentator for Channel 9. But I personally think, he is plain boring.

The happy ESPN Star days came to an end with Setmax winning the rights for the 2003 World Cup broadcast in India. Charu Sharma was absolutely dumb. I would've had no problems with Mandira Bedi, had she kept quiet. But thanks to the mute button, Extraa Innings was a bearable show. As if these two were not enough to drive people away from the discussions, they hired lots of former cricketers with no brains for commentary and analysis.

Today, we have Srikkanth, Manjrekar, Arun Lal, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. All of them, bad beyond words. DD dropped lower with people like Atul Wassan and Maninder Singh. Their analysis show was called Fair and Lovely ......... (yuck! Fair & Lovely?!*#$@*), their female host knew nothing about cricket and she was not even worth watching with the TV on mute.

Hindi commentary is the ultimate torture. "Bahut hi powerful shot maraa hai, mid wicket ke upar se, bowler shocked. Behtareen shot tha, fielder ke paas koi chance nahi. Bahut hi unorthodox player hain, bowler ko poori tarah se dominate karte hain, yahi unke game ki speciality hai". If you want Hindi commentary, my advise is to put the TV on mute and switch the radio on. It is true that there are no Hindi equivalents for cricketing terms like mid wicket or gully or slip etc, but they can at least do better than this khichdi.

But with Nimbus having won the bid for TV rights for the coming years, there appears to be no light at the end of this tunnel.