A little like Ken Barlow from Coronation Street or Nigel Roberts on election night, the Channel Nine cricket commentators just seem to have always been there. From the heady beige days to now we have been treated to Richie, Bill, Ian, Tony and their various friends. A wealth of cricketing experience mixed with lashings of extreme patriotism and buckets of hyperbole, they have marked the modern era of cricket. They even spawned their own genre of comedy.
So much has happened on their watch. Coloured clothing, the 30m circle, hot spot/snicko, the near death and extraordinary resuscitation of test cricket, the arrival of 20:20. As Bill Lawry would say, “its all happening”, and it has been for 30 years.
My favourite times were usually when Bill just lost the plot entirely. ” Share Warne’s a legend. He’s a Victorian, I’m a Victorian.” Or when Tony Greig just did not know who to support if England, South Africa or Australia were playing, and instead resorted to not so subtle put downs regarding the other team.
But is it nearly all over? The ugly demise of Australia as a cricketing powerhouse has nearly reached its apex. The fifth test in Sydney will be Ricky Ponting’s last, and the link to the Australia powerhouse team of the 90s and 00s will be over. They will be just like the rest of us. Only still better than us.
So, what of the commentary team? While various attempts have been made to spruce the team up with the arrival of the extra-aggravating Mark Nicholas, Irritating Ian Healy and Tubs Taylor, the core of the team have stuck through. Richie Benaud, showing the good grace and judgement he has always had, has at least announced a retirement. Surely the time has now come for Chappelli, Greigy, Bill and his pigeons to shuffle off.
Apart from anything else their vacuous boosterism of the Australian team has got little basis to cling to any more. I am sure they are told by Channel Nine to do it, to try to keep the audience when all hope is gone. But the wall to wall coverage of cricket in Australia won’t survive a dramatic form slump like this. It will take time to re-build Australian cricket, and in the modern broadcasting era time is as rare a commodity as Bill and Tony agreeing.
So, if this Ashes series is the end for the Channel Nine team as we know it, I have to say I will miss you guys. Richie told it like it was during the underarm incident, and for that he is a hero. The rest of you annoy me so much some times I turn you off, but to be honest you taught me more about cricket than I ever knew. Cheers fellas.
As an Englishman, one that has suffered at the hands of the Aussies cricketers for what seems like a generation, I can’t help but take some satisfaction from the current poor state of OZ cricket, and of course huge delight that England’s Ashes successes will have played in their downfall.
I’ve always found Channel nine’s commentary team far too ‘Australian’ to be palatable, instead preferring the calmer, less one eyed soundbites of the BBC’s test match special internet broadcasts.
I would shed no tears for Tony, Greg, Richie et al if they also went in a changing of the guard ceremony, but they can’t for one minute compare with Mark Richardson’s attempts at punditry/commentating for banal, irritating nonsense.
Grant-I found yesterdays TV review of Ponting very amusing. As the reason that it “could” be out but due to the vast size of the M that the hot spot camera was too far away to register a faint feather of a touch. Yet the sound monitor is the same distance to the bat be it at the M or Eden park, and yet no sound registered???
The commentating team had been briefed the previous night and the spin in favour of Rickys actions were put into place. Even though technology supported the umpires There wa s a case for the Aussie capts actions to be justified. It is great seeing a lost cause being blindly supported
The irritating trend to former players jumping instantly into commentary boxes was able to perpetuate if only because of the enduring quality of someone like Richie Benaud. The thing is he was an outstanding player, a great captain, an intelligent man. Very few of today’s commentators in any sports can lay claim to the later 2 qualities. It’s not about whether I like people or not, it’s about value added to my experience of cricket watching. Craig McMillan is the latest in a line of rugby and cricket commentators who do no more than tell me what I can see. Peter Sterling and Ray Warren get my hat tip every-time, the thinking womans sports commentators. Justin Marshall actually anticipates things, talks tactics, advises what a team should try or should be doing, what they are doing and why it isnt working.
PLEASE more of that, I hope in vain/vein
I dont drink beer but I will raise a cider to Richie Benaud, at 81 I shudder to think of his retirement.
Apparently because Ponting didnt swear a paltry 40% of his match fee is punishment enough. “Tub” doesnt want the review of a potential no ball because of the time it will waste, but no such deriding of Ponting’s tiem wasting antics which resulted in a wicket shortly after resumption. Reminds me of Warnie poking his tongue out, grunting, pulling faces when he couldnt get a wicket (now there’s a man whose wicket tally would have dropped in austrlia with a review system).
I will say that at least Warne talks tactically, says what he thinks could be tried to get a wicket etc…
A scourge of the modern media world, Tracey – It’s just like watching the news, these days.
If tv wanted to save money, rather than cut back on tvnz6 or bombard us with adverts every 7 minutes (it’s every 15 in the UK, and a 120 minute film doesn’t take 3 hours to watch), they could saves huge salaries by getting the news anchor to read all of the story instead of passing over live to someone else for no other reason than it’s someone else.
Thank god for the internet where we can still find skericks of what we once took for granted, investigative journalism… as opposed to newsreaders reading the Press Release from a particular selected organisation
Whether you cannot tolerate their punditry or not..face it, you would miss them for their ’summerness’. They are the background sounds to our summer lives – love them or loathe them.
What I do admire is their ability to make some sense of an utterly strange game which is more about the human condition than ’sport’ for want of a word.
I find that the cricket commentary on the guardian website is quite good if you can’t watch it – amsuing, to the point, but still knowledgeable.
Sorry to see Richie go, he’s a master at what he does.
As for the others (and Richie for that matter) why not hire Kevin bloody Wilson to do them all. At least we would get an occasional laugh.
Well, you can’t have known much to start with.
In case you’ve forgotten (Silly me, you weren’t yet born.)Australia’s most famous and best commentator, Alan McGilvray, was a past captain of NSW. His diction and grammar always were impeccable and his knowledge of the game encyclopaedic. So good was he that most Australians watched TV coverage on mute while listening to McGilvray on ABC radio. Hence the slogan ‘watch McGilvray on ABC Radio.’
Taylor and Chappell are far and away the best commentators in today’s Channel Nine team. Warne could be a good commentator one day if he would only get himself a voice transplant.
New Zealand commentators? Who cares? You need players who can win first.
I will miss Richie Benaud – he was one of the best TV commentators around the traps – very even handed. I wish Bill Lawry would also do the decent thing and retire!
ABC radio commentators have it all over the Channel 9 guys who go on and on about bowlers pitching the ball up (with accompanying pitch map graphic) and the angle of the bat (true but every junior cricketer in the country gets told that by their under 11 coach) for about 100 times every test.
Skull (even with his banal laugh), Flemo, Glen Mitchell and Peter Roebuck have a much more interesting view of life- was very impressed when Roebuck started discussing why 42 was the answer to the unknown question in ‘Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy’- have spent years trying to sort that one out with my kids- he never real had an answer though.
Australian commentators, love ‘em or hate ‘em …
this lot have come mostly straight from the pitch rather than via journalism – as a result of the rebel Packers World Series in 1977. Commentators need to be wordsmiths – people like Coney – articulate with some knowledge of cricket history. Television commentary should be incidental, not telling you what you can see. Benaud learned his craft working with the BBC with the likes of Laker and Arlott.
You would never have heard Johnson, McGilvray, Arlott, Laker, talking about batsmen “running well between the wickets” – where else do they run FFS? And they would tell you the “New Ball” could be taken after the first 80 overs. The “Second New Ball” is due after 160 overs or 400 runs.
As for our commentators, they just ape the Aussies.
And no doubt we can look forward to Trist in the box and he will tell us in detail what we have seen for ourselves – except it will be after every flaming delivery. It should have been mandatory for our lot to have spent at least four years, at the back of the box, with people like Iain Gallaway before they were allowed near a microphone.
If not for the strangely increased delay between tv and radio, I would have muted TV. The aussie radio guys rock. Aggers is great too.
Too much of the “jock sniffing” syndrome in NZ