Nonsense and Non-sensibility: The tale of the commentator

I read this brilliant piece today. It was a column written by Avirook Sen in Saturday's edition of DNA on the Indian commentator and their attempt at being funny. It's quite a torture for the viewer when they're on the receiving end of Sidhus, Shastris and Gavaskar giving their expert opinion of a game. Some times, I cringe in embarassment and wonder if my dream of becoming a cricket writer would mean interacting with people like these. But then I remember that everything has a good and bad, so I look at the brighter side, which is the game, and keep dreaming.

Navjot Singh Sidhu, Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar are slightly refined versions of Arun Lal, Charu Sharma and Kishore Bhimani. Now that doesn't do justice to anyone. I remember watching India's 1997 tour of South Africa. The series was covered on Star Sports with everyone of the above people except Sidhu (who was playing international cricket at that time) as part of the commentary team. Star Sports and ESPN were two different entities at that time and Harsha Bhogle was part of ESPN. The match was the second test at Durban where Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin had that great partnership. There was one ball I remember which was bowled by Allan Donald. Sachin was on strike and Charu Sharma was in the commentary box. The ball was short and Sachin pulled it for four. Charu says, "He's pulled. Ah! He connected well! Four runs to midwicket. Great stroke." Now Charu might have thought that what he said made perfect sense, but I still laugh because it sounded daft then when I was in Class 9. It sounds funnier even now.

In his article, Mr. Sen speaks about how unfunny the Indian commentator is. He has made jabs at Sunil Gavaskar and Navjot Singh Sidhu, but I feel Mr. Sen has left Shastri out. The trio of Sidhu, Shastri and Sunil are full of Shit and unfortunately, we're on the receiving end of it. The channels may argue that it's good for the show. The advertiser may say, "But you remember what they said so it works." I'm sure that it does and there are people laughing, but like Mr. Sen said, these experts, especially Sidhu has this habit of inturrupting someone when they're talking sense. For the true cricket lover, that's the piss off.

Sidhu, Shastri and Gavaskar aren't the only problems in the commentary box. I have some serious issues with the likes of Tony Greig and Danny Morrison, who again have their own style of bad humour. In the 1998 Sharjah Series, popularly known as Sachin's Desert Storm, Sachin had hit Tom Moody back over his head for six. Tony Greig in the commentary box says, "The little man has hit the big man for a six. He's half is size." Now, if that isn't a Sidhu, I don't know what is.

Danny Morrison also tries really hard to be funny. He repeatedly says "Gee, Whiz!" like an 80s hero and tries to be the standup comic in the commentary box. Rarely it's funny. Most times it's not.

From the funny commentators, we have really boring commentators. The Pommie Mbwangas, the Saurav Gangulys, the Russel Arnolds fall into this category. In Ganguly's defence, however, he's a much better panel expert because he knows the game and makes a lot of sense while talking, if only Sidhu didn't interrupt him ever time he opened his mouth.

Then you have the really good commentators. Benaud, Holding, Chappell, Lawry and more recently David Lloyd, Mark Taylor, Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain. They talk sense and only talk when they need to. The good thing is that they're still a large number, even if the crap is significantly larger.

Richie Benaud is still the best commentator today

But with the good, you also have the really bad. The class of commentators I mentioned at the beginning are in the elite company of Wasim Akram, Ramiz Raja, Athar Ali Khan and Sanjay Manjrekar. It's a pity about Manjrekar, though. He started off really well and now he just talks rubbish. It's the Shastri effect, I guess.

As for Harsha Bhogle, he's more of a cricket presenter than a commentator. Someone at work sent me something someone she knows wrote about him. This is what it said:

HB is a self styled PR man of SRT and has built his career around eulogising him . while this article is justified , there have been many cases during his career where he has chosen to ignore all the failings of the man , he sees only one side of the SRT

These days i take HBs view with a bagful of salt . That said he was a fabulous commentrator on Radio when he made his debut in australia 90-91 series ( incidently SRTs first Aussie tour and that where he displayed glimses of his impending greatness ) . He was outstanding there and a couple of other times he was on radio . once the TV bug bit him , it has been a huge letdown . These days just cant stand him on TV

All IMO please . no offence meant to anybody.

I still like Harsha. In my view, he's been a Sachin loyalist, yes, but there's no denying that he's still very passionate about the game. If his commentary has gone down, it's probably because of his colleagues who are crap.

Worst case scenario, if we're in need for commentary, we can always watch a match through Twitter or tune into a podcast like TestMatchSofa. Hopefully someday, we cricket lovers will be part of the sofa rahter than inside a studio listening to Sidhu opening his mouth.

A cricket ramble

The India-NZ series has begun.
I had wanted to write a number of things between India-Australia getting over and this one beginning, but unfortunately time wasn't on my side.
New Zealand looks crap at the moment. They lost to Bangladesh, which is like getting a bamboo shoved up your posterior without any lubricant applied to it.
And on day one of the first test match at Ahmedabad, which has one of the shittiest pitches that I've see, they get raped by Sehwag and Dravid.
I love Dravid, but he's been playing rubbish off late, so getting a century was good for him and I'm happy that he did.
However, I was happier when he got that 70-odd against Australia.
Let's face it. We may all hate the Australians under Ponting and Clarke, but you have to accept the fact that they play tough cricket, whether they win or lose.
They're currently getting screwed by Sri Lanka at home, which probably makes England excited about their chances to regain the Ashes.
But KP, surprisingly KP, made what is perhaps the most intelligent sentence he's ever said about the Australian side
But the beauty of the whole thing is that test cricket is alive and well and the Ashes should be fun to watch, as well India-SA.

Meanwhile, the Rajasthan Royals is screwed. (Sorry, Shoeb)
Kings XI Punjab is fucked.
Kochi looks like it is going before it arrives.
And Lalit Modi could die.
Somewhere in the middle, Sunil Gavaskar runs his mouth about how he has nothing to do with Kochi and Anil Kumble discusses a career in cricket administration.
If that happens, I see hope for the BCCI, unless Kumble succumbs to the dark side of the force and becomes another administrative stooge in the larger scheme of the Indian cricket body.

Oh yeah, before I sign out, I dedicate this piece to Abdul Rassaq, who played a brilliant innings that day and was honest about his and his teammates position in the Pakistani side. "We play every match as if it's our last," he said. He is quite right. Going by the spot fixing and the beauty of the CCTV camera, you never know what to expect from that team

The King offers himself to Team India

Sir Viv has offered to train our players about the art of playing fast bowling.
It's a very generous offer by a guy, who would wallop most bowlers across the world without wearing a helmet.
But like I mentioned earlier, batsmen across the world struggle while playing quality fast bowling.
Our batsmen, barring Raina and Rohit (in that one inning) were woefully out of form in the World Cup.
They played well in the IPL because IPL is shit.
Uncle J-Rod agrees with me here. I asked him on Twitter what he thought of Mohammad Azharuddin's 'expert knowledge' on saying that they played well in the IPL, but not for the team.
(cwbfeed @jcalamur Then I would disregard all comments. Ofcourse their IPL form was better, the cricket is way shitter there.)
If Sir Viv his hired, and however cool it will be to see him in India, I don't know how he'll deal with our boys. 
Personally, our team needs someone like Saurav Ganguly or Ravi Shastri to be special consultant. 
I dislike Ganguly, but he is so full of himself, that he will bring out the best in this Indian side to show that he is a great motivator.
The same can be said about Shastri.
For the sake of Indian cricket, I honestly don't mind that

Indians and fast bowling

I'll agree that India as a team played like shit at the T20 World Cup.
Dhoni's remarks stating that the IPL parties were responsible for the poor performance will raise questions about his sincerity as a player and a captain, and the team's discipline as a whole. The media being the way it is will use this as a tool to try and finish him off, unless he proves them wrong in the next series we play
If that wasn't bad enough, Yuvraj and Nehra have been involved in an altercation at some pub in the West Indies. They will obviously deny the charges made against them.
Ridiculous, I say.
However, this piece isn't about the partying scenario and the fact that Team India lacks discipline and consistency to make winning a habit. This is a piece about India and the players' inability to play fast and short pitched bowling. And here, I'm going to do a test match analysis, because it is in that format where a bowler can take advantage of the fact that he can bowl fast and short and get away with aiming the ball at the batsman's head rather than the stumps.
For the last 50 years, the cricketing world has always criticized Indian batsmen and their inability to play fast bowling. Fred Trueman during his career best of 8/31 in his post match interview said that the Indian batsmen were scared. And yes, at that time there were. Here, you have a guy bowling at over 90 mph and your head and the only thing you think of is your life, as the concept of helmets and protective gear hadn't come out then.
But since then, things have changed.
Today, batsmen around the world, despite the protective gear available to them, suffer against genuinely quick and quality fast bowling. If I'm not convincing enough, let's look at statistics
Shoaib Akhtar, regarded as the world's fastest bowler averages 34.50 against India. He averages 24 against South Africa and 5 against New Zealand. Now it will be unfair to New Zealand because Akhtar has played only two test matches against them. But against South Africa, he has played five test matches and 10 against India.
But then, Shoaib would be considered inconsistent by cricketing pundits.
So let's take an example of Curtly Ambrose. Ambrose averages 20.99 in tests, which is a phenomenal record in itself. But he averages an unenviable 38.26 against India.
By showing these numbers, I'm not saying that Indian players are fantastic players of fast bowling. Alan Donald, in his career, averaged 17.31 against the Indians. Malcolm Marshall was consistent against all the sides he bowled against and Shane Bond has done phenomenally well against the subcontinent, except Sri Lanka.
Now, why does everyone criticize India and its inability to play quick bowling? Aakash Chopra has been tweeting about how we need to produce fast bowling wickets in India. While I don't disagree with him, Sri Lanka need to do the same thing. For the last 10 years, they have produced wickets to give Muralitharan his wickets. No offence to Murali, though. The man has taken wickets all over the world. The wickets in Pakistan are practically dead.
I think there are a couple of reasons why India is always criticized about their inability
1) India has never produced a quality fast bowler. We've had several fast medium guys. Srinath was genuinely quick towards the end of his career, but that's about it. Ishant was labelled as the next big thing, but he's been bowling like a cunt of late
2) Most Indian batsmen, who have done well against quick bowlers have been smug about it. Funnily though, four of India's greatest players against fast bowling - Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Tendulkar and Dravid have never bragged about their ability. The others, however, look so smug and arrogant that it probably pisses a bowler off. Malcolm Marshall in his autobiography stated the reasons why he disliked Dilip Vensarkar and how he would enjoy bowling fast to him because of his pissing-off attitude.
So, if Indian players need to stop getting targeted, then they need to produce good wickets in India and stop acting like a bunch of pompous idiots. While this will not happen overnight, hopefully in time things will change. Otherwise, teams the world over will try and do their best against India