The Ashes Commentary Thread

[ripper868]

Lol at MacGill on SBS last night, poor host, fumbling his lines every second sentence, was painful.

[Pothas]

Enjoying TMS guiding me through this test, will miss it when I get Sky from the second test onwards. Boycott still irritates after about 5 minuites and old Blowers is more confused than ever but overall it is still of an excellent standard, especially Agnew and Vic Marks who are comfortably my to favourite commentators. Also very much enjoyed Ian Chappell's refusal to comment on the tea time guest, a certain former Australian prime minister.

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by Pothas

Boycott still irritates after about 5 minuites and old Blowers is more confused than ever but overall it is still of an excellent standard, especially Agnew and Vic Marks who are comfortably my to favourite commentators.

I'm with you all the way on all these calls.

Boycott these days rarely if ever gets beyond

"You'd love to be out there batting against this attack"

which means "I would love to be out there batting against this attack"

which means "I would score hundreds every time against this attack and modern Test attacks generally come to think of it, particularly on featherbeds like this"

which means "my batting average of 47.729412 translates into at least 65 in today's money"

which means "me me me me me me me me"

which means his contract should be terminated forthwith.

[Richard]

Relatively self-absorbed though Boycott may be, and irritating though virtually any sort of monotony (from he or anyone else) may be, he's not wrong. Though I think 65 is exaggerating it a little.

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by Richard

Relatively self-absorbed though Boycott may be

A strong contender for understatement of the decade.

[Richard]

Nah, I just think people overstate it with decent regularity.

[Uppercut]

TMS pisses me off with its self-importance. They ran a build-up to the Ashes on BBC Interactive entitled "TMS's classic moments". There was no cricket involved. It was all about wonderful lines by commentators and memorable expressions and smarmy little bits of humour where they all chortled heartily. The runs, wickets, drama, players- the actual cricket is all now secondary to promoting their own status.

[zaremba]

Boycs was on Radio 5 a second ago and gave an absolutely classic demonstration of his modus operandi of self-absorption.

Mark Saggers asked him, apropos of Punter's century, "So, Geoffrey, is Ricky Ponting the greatest batsman since Don Bradman?"

Boycs [emphatically] "No."

Long pause (clearly relished by Boycs for its dramatic effect).

Saggers: "So who is then?"

Boycs: "Greg Chappell. People forget that in Greg Chappell's day there were very fine fast bowlers, and there aren't many of them around now. Where are the likes of Holding, Roberts, Garner, Croft, Lillee and Thomson?" He then went on about how batting averages now are cheap compared with the past.

You might think this was a genuinely objective appraisal of Greg Chappell or at worst, a case of In-My-Dayism. But it went a bit further than that. The reference to Lillee and Thomson, who Greg Chappell obviously never faced in Tests, was particularly telling. Because of course Sir Geoffrey's thinly-veiled point was, as always, that the bowlers that he (not Greg Chappell) had to face were better than the bowlers around now.

Once you tune into what Boycs is trying to do, just about everything he says can be traced back to self-aggrandisement. It's not surprising, given that this was precisely the sort of mindset that enabled him to score vast numbers of runs, and he's now in an After-The-Lord-Mayor's-Show job and is struggling to come to terms with the fact that he's no longer a player, and he senses people forgetting how good he was. But it sure as hell grates for the listener.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Uppercut

TMS pisses me off with its self-importance. They ran a build-up to the Ashes on BBC Interactive entitled "TMS's classic moments". There was no cricket involved. It was all about wonderful lines by commentators and memorable expressions and smarmy little bits of humour where they all chortled heartily. The runs, wickets, drama, players- the actual cricket is all now secondary to promoting their own status.

I surely can't be the only one who doesn't particularly care so long as they continue to offer the outstanding service that builds-up an accurate picture of play.

As demonstrated by the fact that I honestly haven't really noticed what you speak of - not that I'm saying it isn't present.

[fredfertang]

Saggers should have asked Boycs where he was in 74/75 - I bet Bumble would have!

[howardj]

Really tired of BJ laughing and grinning any time the studio commenatators back here in Aus make a comment back to he, Border and Blewett. Any sort of a comment, and he has this fake 'I'm so jovial' chuckle, as he bows his head in laughter. Really irritating.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by zaremba

Boycs was on Radio 5 a second ago and gave an absolutely classic demonstration of his modus operandi of self-absorption.

Mark Saggers asked him, apropos of Punter's century, "So, Geoffrey, is Ricky Ponting the greatest batsman since Don Bradman?"

Boycs [emphatically] "No."

Long pause (clearly relished by Boycs for its dramatic effect).

Saggers: "So who is then?"

Boycs: "Greg Chappell. People forget that in Greg Chappell's day there were very fine fast bowlers, and there aren't many of them around now. Where are the likes of Holding, Roberts, Garner, Croft, Lillee and Thomson?" He then went on about how batting averages now are cheap compared with the past.

You might think this was a genuinely objective appraisal of Greg Chappell or at worst, a case of In-My-Dayism. But it went a bit further than that. The reference to Lillee and Thomson, who Greg Chappell obviously never faced in Tests, was particularly telling. Because of course Sir Geoffrey's thinly-veiled point was, as always, that the bowlers that he (not Greg Chappell) had to face were better than the bowlers around now.

Once you tune into what Boycs is trying to do, just about everything he says can be traced back to self-aggrandisement. It's not surprising, given that this was precisely the sort of mindset that enabled him to score vast numbers of runs, and he's now in an After-The-Lord-Mayor's-Show job and is struggling to come to terms with the fact that he's no longer a player, and he senses people forgetting how good he was. But it sure as hell grates for the listener.

I understand how and why some find this annoying, but I tend to think that the more people who some recognise as know-what-they're-on-abouts, like ol' Sir Geoffrey, push forwards the (what is in my view) basic truth that runs since 2001/02 have been considerably easier to come by than at most points in history, the better.

TBH.

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by Richard

I understand how and why some find this annoying, but I tend to think that the more people who some recognise as know-what-they're-on-abouts, like ol' Sir Geoffrey, push forwards the (what is in my view) basic truth that runs since 2001/02 have been considerably easier to come by than at most points in history, the better.

TBH.

Perhaps so, but it misses the point. Boycs' motivation for saying this isn't to impart any particular truth but to glorify himself. In any event he's been pushing the line that "Test runs were harder to come by in my day" since 4 Jan 1982.

[zaremba]

Originally Posted by howardj

Really tired of BJ laughing and grinning any time the studio commenatators back here in Aus make a comment back to he, Border and Blewett. Any sort of a comment, and he has this fake 'I'm so jovial' chuckle, as he bows his head in laughter. Really irritating.

I'm not able to see this, and I'm not even sure who BJ is, but I love the description. Exactly the sort of thing that gets under my skin in a massive way.

[Burgey]

Brendan Julian.

Surely the Sky commentators blaming the scoreline at stumps yesterday on England's choice of ball will take some topping.