Courtesy of Getty Images in ESPNcricinfo.org
Category Archives: television commentary
The Four Horsemen introduce the ICC World Cup, 2015
Aleem Dar—Three Howlers and OUT he should be
Aleem Dar—Three Howlers and OUT he should be
Michael Roberts
There is a striking moment in Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger when the criminal mastermind tells James Bond that once is coincidence, twice is happenchance and thrice is war ending in the dungeon. Well! On this comparison umpire Aleem Dar should be consigned to the umpiring dungeons or refuse bin. He has the distinction of committing the same type of horrendous umpiring error not once, not twice, but THRICE!
When a batsman nicks or plays a ball to one of the slips most human beings can perceive the splice of the process so to speak. But not Dar… Not once, not twice, but THRICE. I have a vivid mental image of all three moments. Continue reading
Russel Arnold Q and A on Lanka’s Chances in Champion Trophy
Saj Sadiq in conversation with Russel Arnold in The Island, 5 June 2013
Sadiq: During the ICC Champions Trophy warm-up game between Sri Lanka and India, we’ve seen both the possible strengths and weaknesses of the Sri Lankan team. What are your thoughts on the Sri Lankan squad and how do you think the team will perform at the Champions Trophy, in England and Wales?
Russel Arnold (RA): I think it’s a well-balanced squad and the selectors have covered all their bases. If you look at the mix of experience and youth and levels of skill, they’ve got things covered. They’ve got the best team out there when you look at the squad on paper. Looking at the warm-up match (Sri Lanka vs India at Edgbaston, on June 1), it’s been a perfect warm-up, I would say. That means all the batsmen getting a hit – it’s all about feeling good about themselves, getting the game-plan in order and trying to define roles for players. They haven’t played together since the Australian tour in January. Since then, they’ve played Bangladesh, and no disrespect to them, but it’s not the same as playing one of the top teams. Continue reading
A RESOUNDING SILENCE: The DRS in the India-Australia Test Series
Michael Roberts
In watching this televised series on and off Iwas struck by the care with which the TV commentators avoided any refrence to that dreaded term DRS. There was at least one horrible decision when Iwas watching –Pujara in the Third Test; and another understandable but yet poor decision in the Fourth Test (Wade). But what did we receive from the venerable analysts behind the media presentation: RESOUNDING SILENCE on this issue. Obviously a decison from up above one can surmise.
But does it not indicate complicity in the obstinate idiocy on this point in India and the position of imperial domination they have establsihed in the cricket world? A RESOUNDING YES in my opinion. To be expected that answer — my question was rhetorical! Continue reading
“Male, Pale, Stale” is Channel Nine’s Cricket Commentary Team
Gideon Haigh, in The Weekend Australian, 25-26 January 2013
KERRY Packer famously said that there was nothing after death. He had been there; he knew. Yet in the last few years he has enjoyed a vibrant video afterlife, brought to the screen in the television series Paper Giants and Howzat, and to be seen later this year in Magazine Wars. His shade hovered over the Sydney Test in the obsequies for Tony Greig, while his image will be front and centre in the World Series Cricket exhibition opening in a couple of weeks at the Bradman Museum. Packer was always larger than life. Posthumously, he seems to be getting even bigger.But might there be more to it? This summer, of course, is the last covered by Cricket Australia’s existing television arrangements with the Nine Network, Packer’s former fiefdom. His heir having sold Nine into a leveraged buy-out that then collapsed last year, the network is a shadow of its former self. Yet its bluster has been vintage Packer, culminating in a breathtakingly arrogant attack on an Australian cricket captain by a Nine officer that was almost as extraordinary as the fact that Cricket Australia remained publicly mute throughout. Continue reading
Cricket Lively Cricket: HOW the DRS promotes results
Christopher Martin-Jenkins, writing after the England-Pakistan Test series in 2012 for the Times … and reproduced once again here as a Requiem for a MAN the cricket world will miss
Have you tuned in these last two weeks to the strangest sporting spectacle of the winter? Were we watching proper Test cricket in the entrepot and melting pot of Dubai, that fantastical oil-fired architects’ playground in the desert? Do three matches, decided in eleven days, more often than not before sparse crowds on neutral territory and producing a record 42 leg before wicket decisions constitute a genuine Test series? Continue reading
Lone fighter Kumar Sangakkara gives fans 10,000 reasons to applaud
James Faulkner, in The Australian, 27 December 2012
IN A season of sterling catches it was fitting that yet another screamer was the only way to end Kumar Sangakkara’s Boxing Day masterclass. When, horror of horrors, Sangakkara mis-hit a Mitchell Johnson bumper, Matthew Wade ran at least 30m almost to the foot of the sightscreen to clutch a remarkable catch on an extraordinary day. Wade’s catch rivalled those taken this summer by Alviro Petersen, Nathan Lyon and Johnson himself, with the viewers no doubt delivering the final verdict later in the television season.
Before Wade’s moment of brilliance Sangakkara (58 from 98 balls with eight fours) stood tall and lonely as the wickets tumbled all around. His three hours of defiance soaked up more than a third of the balls faced by his side and his runs comprised more than a third of the total. The standing ovation when he posted his 10,000th Test run – the equal fastest in history to reach the milestone – was the most moving act of the day. This Melbourne crowd knows its cricket and loves a champion.
He reached the mark in 195 innings, the same as Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar and one better than Ricky Ponting. Sangakkara’s straight back was a rod for the Australian bowlers who threw all they had at the No 3 only for it to come back, with tax. Continue reading
Is it a crime to love the game? Three cheers for the you tube uploaders … Hip Hip Hurrah!
Jarrod Kimber, courtesy of ESPNcricinfo
In an Edinburgh hotel room I watched Mohammad Amir make 73 batting at No. 10 to almost defeat New Zealand in an ODI. I watched the match on an illegal stream; Giles Clarke’s archenemy. According to Clarke, cricket fans who watch illegal streams are defrauding their own sport by putting existing huge money TV deals into jeopardy. The very money that funds cricket and its administration.
If you choose to watch cricket on an illegal stream instead of subscribing, then in your own way that is what you are doing. Now maybe you have a valid reason, like having no money. Or you find subscription TV is little more than a stream of reality TV shows where Americans abuse each other while buying things from storage lockers. Having watched a fair bit of cricket on illegal internet streams, I’d doubt there are many people out there who can afford paying a subscription and still watch illegally. Watching illegally is really annoying.
When Sachin Tendulkar made his 100th hundred, it wasn’t shown on TV in the UK. So I went looking for an illegal stream as he got close. The first three websites wouldn’t work at all. The fourth would, but because of the sheer numbers of people watching, kept shutting down. An ad came up in front of the action several times. The sound and vision were never once synched. The screen pixelated for almost the entire time I watched … And more than once it just randomly paused so I was miles behind the live action. Watching illegal streams is never straight forward. Continue reading
Tony Greig’s Cowdrey Lecture
Nursery Pavilion, Lord’s Cricket Ground, Tuesday 26th June 2012 ….. Courtesy of ESPN cricinfo
Mr President, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thank you for inviting me to give the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture. I consider it an honour to acknowledge Colin and to have the opportunity to share with you some of my experiences as well as some thoughts on the game we all love. I noticed that both Martin Crowe and Adam Gilchrist paid tribute to their families at the start of their speeches so I trust you will indulge me if I do the same. I should like to thank my wife Vivian for her patience and help in putting this lecture together. I should also like to thank my children, Beau and Tom, who are here with me tonight, and Samantha and Mark, who are embracing the spirit of cricket by listening to this lecture the way we used to listen to the Tests sixty years ago in the early hours of the morning. Without their love, support and understanding of the demands cricket makes on family time, I would not have been able to enjoy all that cricket has given me.
When I received my invitation I immediately wrote down 10 topics I wanted to address. However, after a month’s reflection, I thought I shouldn’t indulge myself and that it was more appropriate to confine my speech to the spirit of cricket. However, since arriving in England, I have been told repeatedly by a wide range of people that before speaking about the spirit of cricket, I must explain my reasons for sacrificing the most coveted role in world cricket, the England captaincy, to become involved with an Australian television tycoon. A quote from the transcript of my meeting with Kerry Packer, five days after the Centenary Test on 22 March 1977, gives the best insight into how I felt at the time: “Kerry, money is not my major concern. I’m nearly 31-years-old. I’m probably two or three Test failures from being dropped from the England team. Ian Botham is going to be a great player and there won’t be room in the England Test side for both of us. England captains such as Tony Lewis, Brian Close, Colin Cowdrey, Ray Illingworth and Mike Denness all lost the captaincy long before they expected. I won’t be any different. I don’t want to finish up in a mundane job when they drop me. I’m not trained to do anything. I went straight from school to playing for Sussex. I am at the stage in my life where my family’s future is more important than anything else. If you guarantee me a job for life working for your organisation I will sign.” Continue reading
Cricket as warfare
Don Hodges, courtesy of SPORT, 25 November 2013, where the title is “Ashes 2013-2014: Sooner or later, arms and ribs will be broken”
The news that Jonathan Trott is returning to England as a result of a “long-stand stress-related” condition puts England’s defeat in the First Test at Brisbane into perspective. Cricket is not, as Alastair Cook said at yesterday’s post-match press conference, “a war”. It’s a game. A highly professional, intensely contested, increasingly well remunerated game. But a game nonetheless.
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