On IPL commentary

Clearly, Richie Benaud’s crisp advice on commentary “Don’t say anything unless you have something to add to the picture” is kicked and thrown out of the door in this IPL. Infact, the opposite of the veteran commentator’s advice is being followed by most of the commentators. I don’t know if you have heard any of those so called “punch” lines, but here’s an excellent one. Situation: AB DeVilliers does a fantastic piece of fielding (as most SA players do) in the Chennai Superkings match and because of the way he stopped the ball, his back has a quick tinge of pain and this is shown on TV. Commentary from Jeremy Cony: “<Some superlative praising this fielding>. May be he’ll get a massage tonight”.

If you have ever heard this Cony fellow speak, he packs suspense, theatre and drama in the most superfluous way possible. Harsha Bhogle was top on his wit when he entered to comment with him, to mock this guy’s fakeness in creating suspense, by a “Hello Mr. Cony” in a very close imitation of the corny voice.  In the same match, Mr. Cony gave immense build up for Albie Morkel, by repeatedly saying that “He’s a player who maximizes mayhem“, even though he did not hit a single clean shot until then. At the end of the match, his statement turned out to be a huge farce as Albie did not maximize anything for the Chennai team. A few other gems by others that I did not have a chance to hear are listed here .

A cricket writer named Gideon Haigh summarized succinctly in one of his articles:  “When 20 off 10 balls exhausts your superlatives, how do you describe a hundred off 50 balls? When a young Indian domestic player getting away a couple of beefy blows is so thrilling, what tone do you adopt for Sachin Tendulkar? As Gilbert and Sullivan put it in The Gondoliers, “When everyone is somebodee / Then no one’s anybody”.  A further complication is Twenty20’s inherent unpredictability, its mixing of the sublime and the ridiculous. When commentators hype a batsman up for consecutive boundaries only to watch him perish to an imbecile smear, or praise a bowler to the skies for four dot-balls, then see him smacked into orbit twice while closing the over out, they subtly erode their own authority – such authority as they had, anyway.”