2) Sri Lanka ‘chickened’ out - So says the DDCA VP. A dangerous pitch. Ball shooting off the pitch from a good length, which is almost impossible to play. Enough said. God help the Commonwealth Games scheduled in the same town, come June ’10. How does ‘Usain Bolt chickens out of Commonwealth’ sound to you? Not very good? I thought so. 

 3) Tharoor does it again, on Twitter - Politicians are being slammed for stating their opinions directly to the people. Immense fun ensues. As I said on Facebook, we have a very good benchmark for our politicians. We are ok with corruption, but not with sex. We are fine with rowdiness and flinging mikes but not comfortable with frank opinions. We are indeed a land of diversity. 

4) Haha, immense schadenfraude. Don’t mess with an intern.

 5) Trust the Nytimes to come up with a date which means something, again!

Some of the great moments in the game have been wonderfully captured by equally good, if not great commentary of those times. I still recall vividly how Bill Lawry and Mike Procter fell off the chair describing South Africa’s elimination in the ’99 World Cup semifinal. Or Tony Greig going hysterical over Sachin’s centuries at Sharjah in the ‘Desert Storm’ series. Or indeed, Ian Chappell’s incisive, but insightful commentary during the Ashes series. Those pieces of commentary, among many others were fantastic.

It’s sad how things have turned out in the commentary box – especially when it comes down to a small bunch of people. It’s gone from bad to worse in the India-Australia series happening currently. I did try to watch a couple of matches with commentary turned off. In fact, I tried this experiment multiple times at different intervals, but each time I had to turn the volume back on – not only to hear the crowd roaring for a 4/6, but also to hear some of the most idiotic commentary on the planet. It’s too much fun to miss. As one of Sidhuism goes “An apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without squeeze!” or some such, so is commentary to cricket.

What you hear today is the razz-ma-tazz of the T20 effect – commentary filled with clichés. The less said about Arun Lal, the better. Ravi Shastri and L Sivaramakrishnan are two cases in point of this blog.

Ravi Shastri, in my opinion, can churn out a book of cricket clichés in an hour. Actually, an hour is a stretch. More like 30 minutes. With his….

“This match, one gets a feeling, will go down to the wire” (who gets a feeling Ravi? And what wire?)

“The batting team is in the driver’s seat” (On a statistical basis, a wicket has fallen 99% of the time immediately after the utterance of this statement, I think)

“Next two to three overs are very important” (Referring to India in the 46^th over…seriously Ravi? How very insightful! Who would have thought?)

And in general,

“Terrific crowd, great atmosphere” (He used this even during CL20 tournament, when half of the stadium was empty!)

“Under lights, the ball will move and zip around” (and why not, ‘The sun will set too’?)

L Sivaramakrishnan is of a different beast altogether. Atleast Ravi Shastri knows that he is full of clichés and doesn’t try to hide it. L Siva actually believes the crap he speaks. I mean, he really believes he is a good commentator despite all evidence to the contrary. A few examples…

“Presscenting the foolll phase of the bat!” (Referring to Sachin’s straight drive…I felt like scraping walls with my fingernails hearing this line after such a masterly shot!)

“It’s all happening here!” (I think he picked this up from Ravi Shastri. And this was during the 6^th India-Aus match, when Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja were trying their best to play a one-day like a test match)

“India are in with a fighting chance….Australia were too good for India today” (Dude, watch your words – what do they even mean? Is that even commentary?)

“Hussey dives…and saves 1 run…very important in a low scoring match” (Are you kidding me? Any run is important whether it’s a low scoring or a high scoring match. Who gave you this job dude?)

Good commentators immortalize a passage of play, however boring. On the other hand, some jokers bumble on even the most interesting of situations. I’d take the incisiveness of Chappell, insightfulness of Sunny, intelligence of Harsha and the excitement of Tony/Bill Lawry over some of these jokers like Arun Lal, L Siva, Ranjith Fernando among others. They are an insult to the commentating community. We, the paying public deserve someone much better, someone who can explain us the nuances and subtleties of the game and not put us to sleep by their inane commentary and basket full of clichés. As one of the shrewdest commentators, Richie Benaud once said “Unless you can add to the picture that the average man already sees on the TV screen, you should just shut up”. So true. That ‘is’ priceless commentary.

P.S: Apart from the topic of the blog, wanted to share a couple of funny commentary snapshots I remember over the years….

- Once I was listening to commentary on radio.. and Arun Lal says.. “aur ye gend ek tippa khate hue boundary line ke bahar 6 run ke liye“(and there goes the ball taking one bounce over the boundary for a 6) – I went, what? Totally foxed by his brilliant commentary.

- Tony Grieg asked Raza on a World Cup 1999 Final Preview show on ESPN:

Q. How does Pakistan get so many youngsters in the team?

Reply: The youngsters are very young. (and Raza is now an ‘eminent’ Pakistani commentator…take that!)

The most awaited movie of the year – Tashan got released. The metaphor in itself is probably the biggest awaited joke of the year. With the movie poster of Tashan looking eerily similar to Covenant, Yash Raj films indicated that this movie was not original even with the initial advertising. However, with the sole aim of watching Kareena Kapoor making a fool of herself, I watched the movie much to my bemusement and embarrassment. Terming the movie as a joke is an insult to the word ‘joke’. Attempting a Kill Bill+Ursula Andress in a bikini show, Kareena failed miserably and so did all the other co-stars (although some credit needs to go to Akshay Kumar). A shaven-bare-chested Anil Kapoor was probably the most shocking surprise of the movie – but his acting prowess (if I might call it that) has sunk from bad to worse with movies like ‘Race’ and ‘Tashan’. Spinning a yarn convincingly requires talent – and although I would accept that movies are no theorem-proof and are a mode of pure escapist entertainment, Tashan is exactly the sort of entertainment you want to escape from oh-so-desperately! A done-to-death childhood-friends-meeting-later concept and the seemingly meaningless run-around made ‘Race’ look much better in terms of quality and delivery. The prosperity of Yash Raj Films was due to their originality and dare – not cheap imitation, mimicry and mediocrity. Statutory Warning: Watching Tashan is injurious to health.

It was also a week where Sreesanth competed for ‘Award for the Biggest Sissie Drama of the Year’ and won it convincingly. A well-known dramatist-cum-patchy bowler to say the least (no, he still can’t compete with Ajit Agarkar for the Worst Bowler Award!! Ajit is miles ahead of him!) had a tete-a-tete with a bowler whose brains had been lent-on-lease indefinitely, with the result of a sweet punch on the jaw which resulted in Sreesanth bawling like…(no, let’s not insult kids like this!). With the way Indian cricket is played, don’t be surprised if you suddenly watch a soap called ‘Kyunki Sreesanth bhi kabhi Cricketer tha’! Sreesanth is the new gamma-male (alpha and beta are taken presumably!) representing India, a male who can cry on screen effortlessly and for no reason at all. He has probably opened up a whole new market for male actors who would also like to cry on screen. Soaps would be abound with the entire 138 members in a family which stays in one bungalow, dressed up in heavy bindis and kurtas sobbing and howling for 3 years straight. Sreesanth – you are just awesome; there will definitely be a role for you in each of these soaps where you can weep to your heart’s content and get paid for it.

And to round the two weeks off, this piece of news ticked me real bad. The summary of the article is that Singh has called for cut in corporate pay packets to eradicate poverty. Is this the same Singh that our economic textbooks extol of being the spearhead for liberalization in 1993? Is this the same Singh that called for extensive all inclusive-growth to eradicate poverty a while back? His call for “self-imposed ceiling on salaries and expenditure as a means to drive down demand and so ease pressure on supplies” is pure gibberish. Article after article in Markets/Economics/Finance demand that there be ‘incentives’ to growth, and here is our Prime Minister calling for a cut in incentives, thereby stunting growth inevitably. With rising prices of commodities every day across the world, a cut in incentives should have been least on Dr. Singh’s radar. Probably the functioning of Congress has got into the head of Dr. Singh – sadly, for a man I respected utmost, he has disappointed me terribly. Wretched is the situation for a man who was held in high-esteem for his forward-looking policies and global attitude to go on a pseudo-communist path – ah! It is such a shame!