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The Australian sporting public is, I submit, a generally forgiving bunch. We forgave Shane Warne. We forgave Wayne Carey. We even seem to have forgiven Margaret Court, inasmuch as we have not yet placed her in an institution.
But even the most happy-go-lucky, laidback of sporting publics has its breaking point. And I fear that breaking point may be approaching if drastic changes are not made to the Channel Nine commentary team.
Now, please bear in mind, I do realise that Nine’s commentators are some of the greats of the game, with magnificent playing records that command respect. So don’t think for moment that the vicious character assassination in which I am about to engage reflects on their sporting achievements in any way.
I’m not saying the Nine team is beyond hope.
The situation is not irreparable. There is nothing wrong with Channel Nine’s cricket coverage that could not be fixed by sacking the entire commentary team and replacing them with a CD of soothing ocean noises.
Because I’m not sure I can take much more.
Of the banter, of the match situation assessments which veer between the blindingly obvious and the bewilderingly inaccurate. Of the cringeworthy plugs for other shows on Nine. It’s beyond a joke.
All of the current commentators are culpable, even Richie Benaud.
He has been a great servant of the game, but it is just possible that now, at the age of three hundred and ninety, it is time for a graceful exit. He retains the ability to make keen observations on players and the progress of a match, but unfortunately, each one he makes takes around four hours to complete.
One feels that he mostly comes in to work these days in order to find a comfortable air-conditioned spot in which to complete the 20 hours of sleep he needs each day to retain his human form.
Mind you, his somnolence is still preferable to Mark Taylor’s rapid-fire babbling, which spills haphazardly out over the game like tomato sauce out of a bottle that’s been struck too hard on the bottom. I don’t even know what he’s saying when he starts talking: my brain just sends the signal that someone in the background has turned on a Fujitsu air-conditioner, and I adjust accordingly.
Meanwhile, beside “Tubby” sit his erstwhile teammates, Michael Slater and Ian Healy, the latter of whom is mostly occupied with describing events in the fantasy game being played inside his own skull rather than the one actually happening, and the former of whom’s main job is to engage in lively banter about which member of the commentary team the viewers would most like to see French-kiss a mongoose, as measured by the “Vodafone Viewers’ Verdict”, a brilliant new innovation for the telecast, inspired by Nine producers’ belief that the last thing any cricket fan wants to do with his time is watch the cricket.
And then of course there are the old reliables.
Bill Lawry still keeps plugging away, desperately trying to convince everyone that life is much, much more exciting than it really is. Lawry’s commentary style is best described as “I wish I’d worn my Depends”.
Meanwhile, his old “sparring partner” Tony Greig engages in those jolly robust “back-and-forths” we know and love so well, right?
Well, no.
These days mostly Tony Greig just advertises cheap, tacky memorabilia and achieves explosive orgasms over how detailed Hotspot technology is. Seriously, there are surely obscenity laws prohibiting the amount of satisfaction Tony Greig seems to get from Hotspot. It’s positively pornographic.
And then there’s Ian Chappell, who pops into the commentary box every now and then to continue a thought he started to have in 1987 but hasn’t quite fully teased out yet about David Boon’s wrists.
Ah, but what of Mark Nicholas, you say? Well, when he first arrived, I liked Mark. He was British, which meant he was classy-sounding, and he seemed to have something of a handle on the game. But it turns out he’s just like all the rest – he will happily fake enthusiasm at ten consecutive overs of batsmen tapping singles to deep fielders in the middle overs of a one-day game. He’ll join in the wacky conversations about how the Vodafone Viewers’ Verdict says Richie should commentate on horseback.
He’ll tell us all how much he loves Kate Ceberano in Excess Baggage. And even worse, at every opportunity he’ll grovel to the cricketing greats in the box, meekly asking them “what’s it like, playing test cricket?” Which frankly makes me lose all respect for him, and irritates me because the fact he’s asking the questions suggests he thinks any of us care what these senile fools think about anything.
And yet despite all this, cricket commentary on Nine does not actually hit rock-bottom, until James Brayshaw steps up to the microphone.
And with a mix of pig-ignorance, faux-blokey anti-comedy, dementedly facile analysis, and an all-round on-air personality that will soon be banned by the UN as a chemical weapon, “JB” plumbs depths of commentary undreamed of since Geoff Boycott ate some funny mushrooms and asked Jonathan Agnew to marry him.
Listening to James Brayshaw commentate on cricket is the sports-viewing equivalent of having your kidneys forcibly removed by chimpanzees.
So what are we to do, to improve this situation.
Well, here is my theory: Nine’s woes stem from the fact that it has always been obsessed with employing ex-cricketers. Feeling the achievements of its team lent gravitas to the coverage, they recruited yesteryear’s greats to provide comment and analysis.
Admittedly, Nicholas and Brayshaw break this rule somewhat, but they are at least both former first class cricketers, and in Brayshaw’s case, in possession of some compromising photos of Nine directors.
The point is, it’s time for something new. We’ve tried experience, we’ve tried deep knowledge, and it’s been an unmitigated failure. It’s time for a fresh approach: let’s try ignorance.
Let’s put some complete noobs up in the commentary box and see how they go. And I don’t just mean people with no broadcasting experience, or people who haven’t played at the highest level.
I mean people who have never even watched a game of cricket. Possibly people who don’t even WANT to watch a game of cricket. That way we’ll get a refreshing new perspective on the game: through their virgin eyes, we too shall see the game anew, reinvigorating our enthusiasm for it. Just imagine how fun it will be watching cricket to the sounds of:
“Ah…the…tall one…the bowlman I think he’s called…he’s thrown the ball at the batman, and…the batman…has hit it maybe? It’s gone…somewhere, I dunno. One of these guys is running, not sure why. Oh actually a few of them are running. The ones with the sticks are running too, the batman and his friend. What do you think Sam?”
“OH MY GOD THIS IS BORING”
I think with this sort of commentary we can make cricket come alive again, and win back all those fans who deserted Nine’s commentary in favour of watching drug addicts ride up hills in France. A clean slate, a new era, a vibrant new start for the art of cricket commentary.
And anyone mentioning Two and a Half Men will be shot.