Former England cricketer Stuart Broad.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Listening to Stuart Broad, England’s latest television pundit, during the West Indies series showed how far behind India are in this crucial area of the game.
A match can be watched only by a few thousand spectators; a telecast has an audience in the millions. To inform and entertain could well be the expert’s motto. Broad brings to his assessments recent knowledge of both the players and the game’s changing perspectives.
India haven’t had a recently-retired addition to their commentary team, with the exception of Dinesh Karthik. And Karthik came via England where he was a big hit when he started out. Harsha Bhogle, who began in the 1990s, has been bringing to us his passion for cricket and the sheer joy of watching it. He positioned himself as the eyes and ears of the average spectator, leaving the so-called experts to analyse and criticise. Except that Indians in the box seldom do the former and never do the latter.
No dissent
One reason Indian commentators tend to be bland is that anything critical about players or selectors or the Board of Control for Cricket in India is ironed out when they sign the BCCI contract. There is no room for dissent. The Justice Lodha panel, constituted by the Supreme Court to clean up Indian cricket, had condemned the BCCI for this lack of objective commentary.
We expect our commentators to be jingoistic and uncritical, and thus cut off their objectivity at the knees.
In 2016, when Bhogle was sacked apparently because he had criticised some senior players earlier and had had words with a BCCI official, even Amitabh Bachchan got into the act condemning Bhogle in a roundabout way for being unpatriotic.
A player complaining about a commentator is taken seriously. Sanjay Manjrekar was sacked after calling Ravindra Jadeja a “bits and pieces” player. He returned after writing a letter of apology to the BCCI which said among other things, “I will be happy to work as per the guidelines laid by you….If unwittingly, I have offended anyone I would be happy to apologise to the concerned party.”
This is the atmosphere in which Indian commentators work — not surprisingly, Ian Chappell turned down an offer to work here.
Touch with the game
Yet, the BCCI advisory does not justify blandness. Dinesh Karthik talks a good game with authority and humour, two elements that seldom go together in the others. The fact that he is a recent player suggests there is something to be said for youngsters who are in touch with a game that is changing constantly.
Take Broad. Asked about England fast bowler Mark Wood being unlucky in a spell, Broad explained that coaches now look beyond bowling figures to determine effectiveness. The modern concept (at least in the England dressing room) is “expected wickets” based on the quality of deliveries bowled.
You can have a great bowling spell and yet go wicketless; or a bad one and pick up three wickets. By the new reckoning, bowlers don’t get discouraged, and taking wickets is anyway a morale-booster. This is not a psychology known beyond the dressing room, and it took a recent player to air it.
Youth and experience
The commentary box too benefits from a mixture of youth and experience. And — if the BCCI will allow — a maverick. Perhaps someone like Virender Sehwag who can be a surprise here too.
When he is in the mood, Sunil Gavaskar can be engaging and share the benefits of his vast experience. He is probably the Indian to have seen the most amount of Test cricket, perhaps international cricket overall. That’s some six decades of playing and watching the game at the highest level around the world.
Briefly before he moved on, Sourav Ganguly brought to the box a freshness and an original perspective. When a fielder once indicated he was unsure of a catch, he observed drily, “If he asks, then it’s not out.”
In Indian cricket, those who speak well do not understand the game well enough; and those who know the game well often can’t express themselves. There is too the pressure of having to talk continuously. Is that what viewers want or do commentators just assume that is what they want? Perhaps we need more research on this.