Tuesday, March 4, 2008

The pain of listening to idiots...

Especially when you don't really have a choice.

When you watch cricket, there are two choices: listen to the Channel 9 Commentary Team of Messrs Benaud, Chappell, Greig, Lawry, Taylor, Healy, Slater and Nicholas, or mute the TV and turn on the radio to listen to ABC Grandstand, which has Jim Maxwell (decent), Kerry O'Keefe and Harsha Bogle (funny buggers).

Simple choice? Well, yeah, except the radio is always 2 seconds after the tv due to the commentators required to also describe every action in the game. I always get a jarring feeling listening to the radio with the tv on, especially when the TV commentators get stats up relevant to the current situation, like Tendulkar's average in the first innings of a ODI. However, O'Keefe's funny, half because he is funny, and partly because he thinks he's funny and laughs with this sort of snort that everyone finds entertaining.

Meanwhile, listening to the Channel 9 commentary makes my skin crawl. Mark Nicholas and Ian Healy spend the whole time saying how grateful Australia should be to have these wonderful men representing the country. Urgh.

Nicholas suddenly appeared on our screens about 3 years ago, and has since taken up the host chair at the beginning and end of a match, innings, review or day's play. Originally, I tried to pass off his comments as taking it that this is what the English thought of the Australian team (i.e. gods), and are amazed at the level that they play at. However, this view receeded quickly. This article details some of the things wrong with him doing this, the most pertinent is that he has little idea about the very highest echelon of the game, verbally crawls and sucks at any interview (in between using a finger to point at the interviewee to make a point, which I find quite rude), and believes that any action on the cricket field quite literally shines out of (a) god's arse.

Healy just needs to stop commentating now, please. He's crap. He's crawling. He's way too chummy with the team to have any credibility.

For me, just put Richie on for the whole game. He's old, but he always makes the best points. Chappelli's conceited, Grieg's a wanker (not just as an insult; it's a valid description of him) and Lawry an idiot (albeit an entertaining idiot, sort of like the class clown). Michael Slater and Mark Taylor could be good - in fact, they're getting better. Finally. It's taken them a few years.

Meanwhile, India have finally worked out that they only need to lift their game 10% to beat Australia in the ODI's this summer due to the lack of form of a couple of the Australian mainstays (Ponting, Gilly, Symonds, and Clarke and Hussey have been sporadic), and are currently cruising and 1/99 in the second final after winning the first.

I think I'll leave my comments on the way the two teams, boards, media and the ICC have acted for another time. Suffice to say, lol.

1 comment:

Chelium said...

MARVELOUS RICHIE MARVELOUS!