Anyone who watched the January 11 Twenty20 match between Australia and South Africa would have been delighted by the addition of new blood to the Australian cricket team in the form of David Warner and Ben Hilfenhaus.
Another match delight was the addition of Adam Gilchrist to the Channel Nine commentary box. He was calm, collected, insightful, professional and funny.
Gilchrist is an all-time great Australian cricketer and is beloved by the public. He would be a marvelous alternative to Mark Nicholas as the next Benaud-style front man for Channel Nine.
Nicholas is slick and undoubtedly a nice guy, if not cringe-worthy at times. But an Australian legend would be better and Gilchrist fits the mould.
Alongside Gilchrist and Nicholas in Nine’s Commentary box for this ‘Rock’n’Roll form of cricket’ were the generation-next commentators in Mark Taylor, Michael Slater, Shane Warne, Ian Healy and James Brayshaw.
With the impending retirements of Richie Benaud, Bill Lawry, Tony Greig and Ian Chappell, Channel Nine have to get the ratio of boofhead to respected commentators right.
In this instance there were far too many boofheads.
Some of the best quotes of the night came from Mark Taylor and Michael Slater who were a little bit too excited. When David Warner struck his first six of the night Mark Taylor yelled “That won’t be his first six of the night, oh wait, yes it will be his first six of the night”.
Then Michael Slater tried to compare Warner’s potential greatness to that of Shane Warne by adding “It’s the first six letters in his last name that worry me.”
Now these are all harmless slips of the tongue, but after an hour of boofheads, it’s a pleasant shock to the system to hear a Gilchrist or a Benaud finally talk again.
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