Commentator's Curse

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

The Dean Jones controversy inspires L Suresh to do a commentary on the men behind the microphone.

A little over 5000 years ago, an 18-day war that could have well been a historical prelude to the Ashes was described live by a charioteer to his king. Every gory detail was vivified, every strategy debated and every session discussed in great detail even as the one-man audience progressively sank into acute depression with the news of his side fighting a losing cause. The war ended with the more popular side winning, but more importantly, what began was a new trend that infused the ‘it’s all happening there’ excitement into sport - live commentary.

Cricket certainly benefited from this revolution as the golden voices of Rex Alston, Brian Johnston, John Arlott and Trevor Bailey brought alive the most exciting moments of the game on BBC - the big daddy of radio commentary. Television was soon to follow as Kerry Packer made two of his biggest contributions to cricket followers – World Series Cricket and Richie Benaud in the commentator’s box. Add Bill Lawry, Ian Chappell and Tony Greig to the list and cricket had found its fantastic four.

But commoditization of the game had its impact on commentary as well, with multiple channels, numerous commentary teams and most importantly, various ex-players who were given a new lease of life. Those who didn’t want to toil under the sun as a coach or an umpire, those who didn't do enough to pen their memoirs and those who were not politically savvy enough to become selectors finally had something to do. The trouble began when some of these just-turned commentators began to look at their new job as an extension of all the sledging they indulged in during their playing days. And ever since, commentators have been the scourge of television fans worldwide. Too loud, too brash, too self-conscious, too jingoistic and - in rare cases like that of Richie Benaud – too good to be true.

In an attempt to create unique images for themselves, most commentators ended up taking on spoofy personas – from Henry Blofeld’s earring fetish to Sidhuisms, to Wasim Akram and Ravi Shastri’s ‘maiden’ ventures, to Professor Deano’s dose of fundamentals. The Jekyll and Hyde combination reared its ugly head as the universally-liked Professor Deano transformed into the sinister Professor Moriarty behind a mike that he thought was switched off.

If Dean Jones lost his job because he called Amla a terrorist, Boycott went one step ahead and is reported to have terrorized his former lover, Margaret Moore – an act that cost him his job as a commentator with the BBC. Another commentator who had his own take on the topic of love was Tony Greig - at his racist worst when the microphone caught him making a derogatory remark about a woman of Asian origin just as she was getting married. Meanwhile, closer home, a four-letter word that had nothing to do with ball, bail, spin or pace came from Sidhu during the Bangladesh-South Africa match in Dhaka and the last four-letter word that he heard when he was shown the way out was ‘door’.

The sign of the times was evident when a snort from a commentator during a match was no longer a reaction to the quality of cricket, but a deep inhalation of quality cocaine. Dermott Reeve, a former English player, obviously found the proceedings during the England-New Zealand Lord's Test in 2004 a bit too boring and decided that match-fixing or not, he needed his fix during the match. He eventually admitted to have commentated under the influence of the drug and decided that of the two, doing commentary was the easier habit to kick. Another player-commentator who spiced up life with his performances off the field was Shane Warne, who was finally fired from the Channel Nine commentary team after he managed to hog more headline space than Kerry Packer, obviously for all the wrong reasons.

While the Aussies were left complaining about the falling standards of commentating in their continent, with Ian Chappell’s aggression, Tony Greig’s belligerence, Bill Lawry’s over the hill remarks and the ‘giving lip from the slip’ trio – Shane Warne, Mark Taylor and Mark Waugh being rejected by a majority of discerning viewers, India had to put up with a lot less – in terms of quality. A stream of ex-cricketers from the 80s and the 90s trooped in and out of the commentary box, trying their hand behind the mike and before the camera. Hits and misses, the glaring absence of technique, awkward fends, frequent moments of being caught in two minds – the parody looked like a procession of tailenders going out to bat.

Back in the 70s, India’s fledgling attempts in live cricket coverage saw commentators like Anupam Ghulati, Narottam Puri, Ravi Chaturvedi, M L Jaisimha, Sushil Doshi, Akash Laal and Kishor Bhimani juxtaposing radio commentary to television relay in their attempt to fill in for the lackluster two-camera relay. By the late 90s, ESPN–Star Sports had formed a commentary team with Gavaskar, Shastri, Sidhu, Boycott, Alan Wilkins and Harsha Bhogle, and Indian fans were just beginning to form opinions about good commentary. But programmes like Fourth Umpire, Extraaa Innings and Straight Drive managed a straight dive to the abyss, as former cricketers settled down to do one thing to viewers that they never managed to with the opposition – batter them into submission. But the turning point – the moment of truth when we actually realized how bad our commentators were – came when India got its first taste of the great Indian comedy show, with the World Cup 2003.

If there was one thing more painful than watching India being trounced mercilessly by Australia two times out of two, it was watching the commentary team make a spectacle of itself, with several innovations that left world audiences speechless. The glamour quotient infused by Mandira Bedi and her noodle-straps (that failed to provide adequate cover to her lack of knowledge of the game), the entertainment sections (as if cricket wasn’t entertaining by itself), interviews with movie stars who reminisced their gully cricket experiences, Sandhya Mridul, Maria Goretti and co who made it fashionable to be ignorant about the game – obviously some genius had decided that the only way to popularize cricket in India would be to bring together the three Cs – cricket, cinema and celebrities. And of course, to decipher what exactly SET Max had in store for the hapless viewer, a tarot card reader - Maa Prem Ritambhara.

While the women in the studio were just as successful as the supersub rule and the graphite bat, the men who were handpicked for the job weren’t too far behind. With Charu Sharma at the helm, the big bosses rounded up a motley crew of ex-cricketers - Kapil Dev, Arun Lal, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, L Sivaramakrishnan, Robin Singh, Sanjay Manjrekar, Anshuman Gaekwad, Mohinder Amaranth and Atul Wassan - who were dusted and aired in a hurry to bombard millions of households with their fumbles, mumbles and exhaustive list of clichés. From a compulsive urge to fill up screen time with non-stop drivel (which included reading out the most puerile posters verbatim) to tongue-tied minutes of deafening silence when the match would be at its intense best, India’s rookie commentators stuttered and muttered as the matter was left to the likes of Dean Jones and Tony Greig to salvage a dismal show, thereby reinforcing the maxim that in the Indian subcontinent, if all else fails, try an accent.

The Asian fraternity, unfortunately, has constantly had to put up with sporadic brilliance on the field and consistent mediocrity in the box. While Waqar Younis, Aamir Sohail, Rameez Raja and Wasim Akram do a remarkable impersonation of fence sitters who have barbed wire cutting into their backsides, their Lankan counterparts Ranjit Fernando, Roshan Mahanama, Ranil Abeynaike, Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva are normally as bright and cheerful as the weather in the recently aborted tri-series. In South Africa, the white man was still a superior being to some, as was evident from the comments of Tony Greig, Pat Symcox and Alan Wilkins (probably the result of a bad reaction as English blood mixed with South African experience).

In the midst of such destruction and devastation, four pros stand tall with the command they exert over the medium. Richie Benaud, aptly nicknamed ‘Bradman of the box’, Michael Holding, who has managed to extend his Rolls Royce epithet to his commentary as well, Harsha Bhogle whose stint in ABC Radio saw him being placed on par with the best down under and Donna Symonds – a delightful aberration to the bimbette norm that is currently gripping the commentary box.

Of course, if you’re the kind that enjoys commentators who never shy away from from a juicy scrap, you may not have to wait long. Shane Warne, Lara, McGrath and a whole lot of ‘35 and ready to say bye’ cricketers are waiting in the wings. And as for the rest of the mumbling lot that is unfortunately here to stay, let us just console ourselves in the knowledge that while the old king had to listen to 18 days of live commentary, we are blessed with a mute button in our remote.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 27 August, 2006)

Who dares spins

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh wonders if there ever will be a twist in the tale when Sri Lanka plays at home.

The ‘don’t even think about it’ list is getting longer by the day in cricket as teams are getting reconciled to the fact that that there are some things that are never destined to be. There will never be another Jim Laker’s 19 for 90 performance. Nor is Bradman’s 99.94 in any danger of being broken. Australia will never be beaten in the finals of a tri-series. And as India has been finding out in recent times, winning a one day tournament in Sri Lanka seems just as impossible. And until someone seeks inspiration from Australia’s ice vests and invents warm shoes as a possible remedy for cold feet, India will find it difficult to break the routine of reaching the finals and running out of steam.

While India has lost count of the number of tournament finals it has played and lost, Sri Lanka has no such problems – such instances have been few and far between, at least at home. The last time Sri Lanka lost a tri-series at home was in 1998 when India rode on the back of a 252-run opening partnership between Sachin and Sourav and took away the Singer Akai Nidahas Cup. In recent years, since the two rain-affected, no-result finals of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2002, India has played Sri Lanka six times - in the Asia Cup and the Indian Oil Cup - out of which five matches went in Sri Lanka's favour. And this time, looking at Sri Lanka's ominous form, it looks like there will be no deviation from the script.

That’s perhaps the reason why the Sri Lankans are unable to hide their grins. They’re playing at home, it’s a tri-series and the icing on the cake is that the Indians are coming. There are rumours that like his fellow southpaws - Hayden and Andy Flower - Jayasuriya has begun going to bed with his pads on, that Attapattu has rushed through the convalescing process, desperate to make it to the team even if it as the 11th player and that Murali walks around with his hands in his pockets to stop twirling that imaginary ball.

Things sure have changed since the times when India whipped the Lankans 6-1 at home. While the majestic lions roared and completed what would perhaps be the first whitewash of England in their backyard by an Asian team (dubbed as England’s worst series in 13 years and Sri Lanka’s best since they began playing at the international level), the Indian tigers whimpered and sniveled as they found themselves snared in a deep hole that progressively got deeper each time they attempted to crawl out of it.

Every time the Indian team departs for Sri Lanka, one can’t help but make odious comparisons to the English team of the 90s that used to be led to the sacrificial altar for that macabre ritual called the Ashes when they would be pounded test after test at home and would then have more of it as they toured Down Under. Like B-grade horror flicks that have mindless sequels churned out, India-Sri Lanka encounters in the emerald isle have become tired rehashes of one another. Each match is annoyingly played to the same script – the audacity of Murali and Jayasuriya bowling the 49th and 50th overs, the horror of the ball taking so long to reach the batsmen that the umpires are tempted to warn it for time-wasting tactics, a posse of spinners and part-timers weaving a treacherous web around the Indian stroke makers who manage to find the fielders with irritating regularity and the explosive hitters suddenly finding themselves out of gunpowder (Dhoni averages 9.66 in Sri Lanka and Sehwag has just one 50 in 12 matches).

Not to be left behind, a slow middle order dawdles even further after a quick top-order collapse. 64.45, 52.72, 51.35 and 47.30 are figures that one would ideally attribute to the averages of the batting stars in a team. During the 2005 Indian Oil Cup, these were the strike rates of Dravid, Laxman, Venugopala Rao and Sourav. Interestingly the tail had a different story to say of the pitch – L Balaji (100), Harbhajan (92.30), Zaheer Khan (166.66), Ashish Nehra (122.22) and Pathan (90.62) had strike rates that showed a tail wagging in a lost cause. Typically success has come in the form of a painful 50 off 100-odd balls – the kind that neither wins a match nor salvages pride for us. The story however picks up pace after intermission as Jayasuriya - with or without his hand strapped in bandages - and his bunch of merry pinch-hitters plunder and pillage and put us out of contention before the first Powerplay is up. It is only to be expected that such predictable fare runs to packed stadiums in Colombo!

While India and Sri Lanka focus on the big names in their batting line-up, South Africa seems to have its own gameplan. Inexperienced batsmen, an array of fast bowlers and an army of bits and pieces players – the team looks more set to play a series in New Zealand than in Sri Lanka. Though the test series has made the lot wiser, one wonders if the thought of spinners crawling from every crack in the pitch and slithering all over them match after match is any more comforting than it was a month ago. Besides, the men for the moment – Smith and Kallis – are missing in action and since it looks unlikely that any of the pitches will let Gibbs repeat his incredible Wanderers’ act of 175, it is left to seniors Boucher and Pollock to steer their team home.

But back home, it will take us a while to look at the other two teams – there’s too much happening here for us to be thinking of others. Sachin is back and surprise, so is Dinesh Mongia. And so are the regular questions that do the rounds – if Mongia is in, what about Venugopala Rao? If county experience counts for getting into the team, what about Zaheer Khan? If a 29-year old can be selected despite this manic focus on youth, what about Kumble? And then there are the secret getaways, the innovative training stints, the army experience… whether these will help the Indian team do what has never been done in recent times – win a tri-series in Sri Lanka – remains to be seen, but credit has to be given to the fact that there’s been no stone left unturned in priming this team up for better times ahead.

Of course, rain would be another crucial factor that India will have to taken into account as their aversion for Twenty20 clearly shows how their chances slide downhill as the game gets shorter. To find out what rain can do to a team, one doesn’t have to go past the 1998 Singer Akai Nidahas Cup tri-series when the Kiwis found the skies in perfect colour coordination with their uniforms and moods, as they spent more time in their dressing rooms than in the middle. Eleven little Johnnies desperately wished for the rains to go away so that they could get out there and play. The series ended with all three matches between India and New Zealand being abandoned. In all, four of their six preliminary matches were washed out, of which two matches were cancelled without a ball being bowled.

But it’s important that India exorcises the ghosts of the past – pretty much the way England took on Australia during the 2005 Ashes series. The first thing they need to keep in mind is the fact that it will be a bowler’s game, a fact that’s in sharp contrast to all those dream games – six against Sri Lanka, two against South Africa, four against Pakistan and five against England – won in recent times. While these run fests saw Dravid’s solidity, Yuvraj’s consistency and Dhoni’s explosive hitting take India up the one day rankings, this will be a series where team totals will behave pretty much like the pitch and will generally stay low.

If there’s anything that the Indians can look back upon, it would be the ICC Champion’s Trophy played in Sri Lanka in 2002, when the three teams in focus found themselves in spin city. Sri Lanka proved yet again – after their 1996 World Cup win - that while Australia might be the masters of the universe, they were still in control in Asian conditions. The Champion's Trophy, slow tracks and Muralitharan continued to be three bete noirs of the Aussies, as they struggled to make 161. Sri Lanka showed them how to, in just 40 overs. Meanwhile India had a brush with the Proteas who played the most inexplicable 15 overs of the tournament when, from a winning position of 187 for 1 off 35 overs, they found it difficult to score 75 off the last 15 overs with 9 wickets in hand. They were left stranded 10 runs short of the target, with four wickets and a list of if’s that would have made Rudyard Kipling proud. If only Gibbs hadn’t retired hurt. If only Kallis had been faster in scoring his runs. If only Klusener had found his magic of lusty hitting.

On the face of it, all three teams seem to be evenly matched, both in their strengths and weaknesses, with home conditions giving Sri Lanka an obvious edge over the other two. In the end, it would probably be India’s batting versus South Africa’s bowling that will decide who will be the other team in the finals. Sri Lanka will be secretly hoping it would be India. A 5-0 win against England doesn’t quite avenge a 1-6 humiliation. It’s payback time.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 13 August, 2006)

Lord of the jinx

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L Suresh leaks out an e-mail that he accidentally receives, to complete an epic trilogy.

They say that in cricket, anyone who sends a mail is jinxed. (In the words of Confucius, ‘Man who sends e-mail has his career trashed’.) And since the most entertaining things in life come as a trilogy, here’s a look at three e-mails that have shaken the country.

The Fellowship of the Erring
Sourav’s gaffes on the field, Chappell’s blunder of putting his thoughts down in a mail instead of simply beginning a whispering campaign, the media’s mistake of flogging this to death though there were more important things to report – it all started as a series of errors. While the first e-mail began a war of words between two factions, it ended the career of the Dalmiya’s ward. Who leaked it and to what purpose would be explained in the last of the trilogy.

The Two Towels
This was the second mail in the trilogy. As the CAB elections hotted up, it was more than hats that were thrown into the ring. There were two rather wet towels that were also thrown in, by the master and his protégé. While Sourav gave up on his mentor, saying that it was he who had ruined his career, the latter gave up on the IT infrastructure of Kolkata, claiming that the city was full of leaking e-mails.

The Return of the King
Here’s the third and final mail that was sent to Chappell by Dalmiya and is yet to receive its rightful place under the sun.

Dear Mr. Chappell,
By the time you receive this mail, chances are, it must have leaked out. But what I want to bring your attention to is this - if your mail to me about Sourav was leaked out by your critics and if Sourav’s mail about me was leaked out by my detractors, who is leaking out my mail to you about Sourav?

My city of origin demands that I display my literary leanings and compare the three of us to Jerome K Jerome’s ‘Three men on a boat’. But since there are too many leaks in our story, I have a sinking feeling that it might not work out. So I shall safely fall back upon film noir and compare the current scenario with that of the climax from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, where everyone’s guns are trained on everyone else. And having been the Patron Saint until recently, I automatically qualify for ‘The Good’. But with the way things are going, it looks like I will soon be the man with no name, what with everyone ganging up against me.

But Mr. Chappell, I want you to follow Sourav’s county stint closely so that you will see for yourselves as to who the brains behind this whole thing is. When was the team to the tri-series in Sri Lanka announced? On July 20th. And how much did Sourav make in his first match in the county? 2 and 0 – that’s 20. On hearing that Dinesh Mongia was selected, who missed the ball from Shahid Nazir completely and got KOed on his chin? Sourav of course! And after copping it on his chin, who had the cheek to dash off an irresponsible mail about me? I don’t have to answer that, do I?

So you see Mr. Chappell, the kingdom rightfully belongs to the king and you shall see his return. As a famous man once said, “I’ll be back!”

True to his word, Dalmiya got into the driver’s seat of CAB and got ready for a new series – the roadrunner show.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 06 August, 2006)