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!)