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)