Jeff Dujon
Having kept wicket during the the golden era of West Indies cricket, Dujon could be excused for having a slightly warped view of his home nation's current standing in world cricket. That being said Jeff has made a unfortunate habit of stepping over the line on a few too many occasions.
In one disgraceful outburst during a domestic Twenty20 game between Leeward Islands and Guyana in January 2012, Dujon, turned away from the mic but clearly still audible, suggested with no apparent jest that Leeward Islands' wicketkeeper Jahmar Hamilton should be shot if his team went on to lose the game after the young gloveman made a hash of a run out opportunity. You can hear Jeff's encouraging words in the clip below.
Besides advocating the reintroduction of capital punishment, Dujon often spends his time reminiscing about the many beautiful women he's encountered over the years. While commentating alongside Nick Knight at the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, Dujon spotted a local canine running onto the field of play, prompting him to announce to the world that that he himself had been with a few dogs in his time.
Ian Botham
Ian Botham was a fantastic cricketer. An allrounder of immense instinct and flair. But whilst his instinctual prowess on the field was adored by all, his off-the-cuff approach to punditry is far less entertaining.
Never a genuine student of the game, his reluctance to do his homework often means he speaks before he thinks. Take a look at the video below. Skip to a minute in and you'll see what I mean.
Don't get me wrong I admire Beefy's conviction, but it seams to me that all those years in the limelight have made him into a lazy commentator. Coasting along on the back of his largely outdated opinions, Botham's inability to offer any fresh insights on the game mean he is fast becoming the epitome of the comfortable has-been pundit.
Ravi Shastri
If ever there was a prize for the most robotic cricket commentator of all time then Shastri would win hands down.
A popular critic, especially in his native India, Shastri is a likeable personality, and, for those listening to him for the first time, an insightful and engaging companion. However, after having listened to Ravi for a few years a strange pattern begins to emerge in his analysis. Amazingly it seems that the former India all-rounder has built a 15 year career in commentary based on just a handful of stock phrases.
Now, this may do for the Indian public, especially if those stock phrases involve either the words "Sachin" or "Tendulkar", but for me I crave a more multifarious, dare I day human, response to the game I love.
It seems I'm not alone in my appraisal of RS too. Check out this hilarious Shastri commentary generator which claims to adequately replace Ravi with a simple computer program.
http://blog.rohandsa.com/2010/04/ravi-shastri-commentary-generator.html?m=1
Nick Knight
Last year Kevin Pietersen took to Twitter to make what was a long overdue assessment of Nick Knight's aptitude as a cricket commentator. He wrote:
"Can somebody please tell me how Knight has worked his way into the commentary box for Tests? Ridiculous."
Now KP was rightly fined for his behaviour, but that does not diminish the simple fact that Pietersen was bang on in his analysis.
In fact, I have yet to meet a single human being who can persuade me that a 30-minute stint with the former England opener behind the mic is anything more than a complete waste of life.
Listening to him for the first time you may think that he is quite a studious man. You can just imagine him in the commentary box stroking his bum-fluff whilst weighing up the relative pros and cons of Jonathan Trott's defensive technique. But this is all a charade!
In fact a 30-minute session with Knight can be a dizzying experience. His constant barrage of hollow rhetoric and vacuous inquiries rarely result in any concrete conclusions. Instead we're thrown a boomerang of bullshit whereby we are left where we started and no more the wiser.
Here's a funny example of Nick's often confusing delivery:
No comments:
Post a Comment