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The most disgraceful commentary I have ever heard

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
No, I'm not talking about a single stuff up based on something simple - I am talking about the whole English innings in the first match of the CB series. The ridiculous bias and preoccupation with bagging the English and praising the Australians from Ian Healy, Bill Lawry and whoever else popped in (except Mark Nicholas who was usually praise-everything self) was horrible and it really made me want to turn the TV down the mute. It has happened before, but never on such a large scale.

Now don't get me wrong, England have been very poor this summer. They have been atrocious in fact - almost as bad as the commentary so far in this match. But the fact that they lost the Ashes 5-0 seems to have given the commentators the idea that they must continually look for faults in the English team and perfections in the Australian team. The English one day batting effort in this match was, IMO, quite good. They won the toss, batted and kept the scoreboard going at between 3 and 4 per over before a blast at the end - they always had intentions of scoring between 240 and 260 and they did so - a target which they should be able to defend if they bowl well. But the middle overs partnership between Collingwood and Pietersen, which really set up the total for England, received much criticism from the "expert" commentary team. The fact that England got towled up in the Ashes 5-0 doesn't give them licence to just bag the team every time they let a maiden over slide by. England did not bat brilliantly but they did the job - they did what they set out to do and the criticism of Collingwood and Bell in particular throughout the innings was highly unjustified.

Other examples of such include the comment "Nixon has to rotate the strike more here" after he had faced just two balls, a masterclass of about 10 replays filled with comments of appraisal at what was the simplest of catches by Matthew Hayden in the slips, repeated complaints about Pietersen not taking enough singles which ironically were followed by complaints about Collingwood not hitting enough boundries, and a failure to mention that the decision to bring on the spinners when Collingwood and Pietersen were still getting set really let them both off the hook. Now as I type this, England are bowling absolute rubbish are will, in all probability, go on to lose this match. But the batting innings, which IMO was a very classical and well-paced one for a side batting first, cannot be blamed.

The batting order received much criticism - the commentators still seem insistant on getting Pietersen (and now Flintoff as well) up the order. But really, the batting order in one day internationals is fine for England. Pietersen may be their best one day batsman but he is not the best option for #3 - powerplays or not. Flintoff may be an explosive hitter, but he is clearly more suited to the slog overs than Paul Collingwood who is a middle-overs-specialist. The suggestion of Pietersen-Bell-Flintoff-Collingwood in the middle order may produce the odd score of 280 but they will be few and far between and scores of about 190 will be frequent. England's current batting lineup looks the best possible one they can muster for mine - and the innings they played today was a very good one which set up the game for their bowlers.

The commentators need to wake up to themselves and realise that while Australia are a very good outfit and that England are struggling at the moment, not everything England do - particularly today - is absolutely rubbish, and that their plan for victory in matches is going to be significantly different to that of Australia's, based on their personnel. The 5-0 Ashes victory seems to have resulted in them looking for the magic answer to why England aren't performing this summer - something that will fix everything like moving Pietersen up to three (where he will be less effective as far as I'm concerned.)
 

Natman20

International Debutant
To be honest what else can you say about the English ODI side :laugh:

Seriously, they shouldn't be biased because the ones that arn't are the ones that are definately the best to listen to. Ones that see the positives from both sides.

Neutral commentators anyone? :)
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
To be honest what else can you say about the English ODI side :laugh:

Seriously, they shouldn't be biased because the ones that arn't are the ones that are definately the best to listen to. Ones that see the positives from both sides.

Neutral commentators anyone? :)
I'm actually not even sure if they are biased - they just don't seem natural commentators and hence they are looking for something to say all the time. They seem to want to bag the poms just because it is the "in" thing to do and they are looking for answers to their problems. But in this particular match, their batting was well-structured and they reached a par total. They have bowled puss but that is beside the point - their batting was unjustifiably criticised by some ridiculous commentary.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
ABC Grandstand > Channel Nine.
Slater, Nicholas and Benaud the only saving grace.
I've considering muting Nine and putting on ABC but Nine have conveniently delayed their footage by about 10 seconds to stop people who want to watch the game from doing such...
 

pasag

RTDAS
I thought it was equally crap as usual tbh, I was forced to listen to it as I had mates over, but they're gone now so I have the earphones back in.
 

Chubb

International Regular
They were very biased during the tests as well- when Ponting was run out in the last test the first thing the commentator- I think it was Lawry- said was "Oh, that's poor field placing and good running from Ricky Ponting"- He sounded totally surprised when England appealed, and didn't give a word of praise for Anderson's throw when it emerged Ponting had been run out.

Obviously they are an Australian broadcaster, but Sky and C4 were never like that, it was disgusting. You can say the guy made a mistake in the example above but frankly that just proves he is a bad commentator.
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I've considering muting Nine and putting on ABC but Nine have conveniently delayed their footage by about 10 seconds to stop people who want to watch the game from doing such...
Jim Maxwell spoils ABC for me...the others are ok though.
 

Johnners

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Jim Maxwell spoils ABC for me...the others are ok though.
Jim's not a bad old stick... it's Lawson, Alderman & Fleming that ruin it for mine... apart from these 3 gits the others all seem to be as neutral as possible.

I have to agree with EWS though, apart from Slats, Richie & Love em all Nicholas, the Ch 9 commentary has be pathetic in terms of Bias this year. Lawry is worse than ever, and Chappeli is definetly closing in behind him. Greig is bias, but always to the opposing team, and Heals is making a shocking start to his career.
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Jim's not a bad old stick... it's Lawson, Alderman & Fleming that ruin it for mine... apart from these 3 gits the others all seem to be as neutral as possible.

I have to agree with EWS though, apart from Slats, Richie & Love em all Nicholas, the Ch 9 commentary has be pathetic in terms of Bias this year. Lawry is worse than ever, and Chappeli is definetly closing in behind him. Greig is bias, but always to the opposing team, and Heals is making a shocking start to his career.
It's more Jim's cricketing terms that bother me, if he spent less time making words up and more time working out what was happening it'd be a better broadcast, numerous times I've heard him say: "OUT!!!! No, it's gone for four."
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
There's nothing new about it really. To be honest I'm not sure it's bias on Healy's part so much as stupidity. The guy is clearly from the shallower side of the gene pool and struggles at every moment to think of something worthwhile to say. In virtually every commentary stint he'll say something completely ridiculous clearly without thinking about it beforehand and inspire either sharp rebuttal or awkward silence from the other commentators. There were a few moments like that today, but the one that stood out was when he went on a little ramble on his own about the leg-side wide rule in ODIs and how it should be scrapped without any sort of concise argument as to why, and followed it up with "don't you think Richie?", to which Richie replied after a bit of a pause - "nah". The rest of the time he seems to operate on auto pilot and stick to platitudes and cliches to save himself. I really don't understand how anyone could enjoy listening to him, but obviously he is fairly popular given that he gets interview gigs and has been on the team for a few years.

Lawry is certainly biased, and I think he does it on purpose to a degree because it's always been part of his appeal. He's excitable and doesn't make an effort to comment on the game in a neutral manner like someone like Chappell or Benaud does.

Really, I didn't see today as anything especially bad, it was just a usual mixture of incompetence and Australia-centric commentary. More the former than the latter IMO, but certainly there's never been anything unreasonable about accusations of bias against particular members of the team. Incidentally though, I don't think the Nine commentators are as bad in general as the bunch you get for South African home games. They're quite shocking at times, and there's no saving grace in the group like there is for Nine.
 
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Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Robin Jackman is perfectly quantifiable as a saving-grace IMO, though I'm not terribly keen on these new-kids-on-the-block Mbangwa, Donald and Cullinan.

The SA team used to be really good when they had Gerald de Kock and Imraan Munshi.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
ABC Grandstand > Channel Nine.
Slater, Nicholas and Benaud the only saving grace.
That's stock-in-trade - almost invariably, radio commentators are acknowledged as better than TV ones.

Wonder why that might be now...

Radio commentators have an easy ride compared to TV ones. They're supposed to talk all the time, and they have the chance to do a better job.

Yet some people just expect silence or insight (and frankly, only about once an over can you add to what the TV pictures are showing) which is a ridiculous expectation.
 

FaaipDeOiad

Hall of Fame Member
Robin Jackman is perfectly quantifiable as a saving-grace IMO, though I'm not terribly keen on these new-kids-on-the-block Mbangwa, Donald and Cullinan.

The SA team used to be really good when they had Gerald de Kock and Imraan Munshi.
Jackman is close to the worst IMO, though Cullinan and Richards probably edge him out. I never heard a direct South African commentary feed until last year, so I can't comment about anything before that.
 

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