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Australia's Simon Kaitch, second from left, hits a ball from England's Graeme Swann during the second day of the first cricket test match between England and Australia in Cardiff, Wales, Thursday, July 9, 2009. AP Photo/Tom Hevezi
To catch the atmosphere before the opening ball of the 2009 Ashes series, I turned to the Fox Sports coverage. The studio team of Mark Waugh and Damien Fleming were incisive and fluent.
Waugh made the point that he didn’t rate Nathan Hauritiz as a spinner, but as he was in the squad, he had to play.
We were then taken to Sophia Gardens where Brendan Julian and a relaxed (as opposed to grumpy) Allan Border told us that Ben Hilfenhaus and Hauritiz were in the 11.
I then switched to the SBS to find Stuart MacGill, somewhat tense, introducing his studio panel of Damien Martin and Greg Matthews, somewhat as if they were boxers going into the ring, which, metaphorically given the head-to-head presentation contest with Fox Sports, I suppose they were.
Matthews is always interesting.
He is informed, combative and opinionated, which is what you want from a presenter. But the format was too stilted for my liking in comparison with the smoothness of the Fox Sports presentation.
The SBS coverage, too, was a bit off the pace with the latest news.
MacGill said he’d heard that Andrew McDonald was getting a start. Rodney Hogg, SBS’s man at the ground, did not point out that Hilfenhaus and Hauritz were marking out their runs, which suggested they were playing.
For a news and colour man at the cricket, Hogg was a great fast bowler.
At the drink interval, I tried SBS again to see what insights they were offering about the first hour of play.
A VB advertisement ran for most of the interval.
Over at Fox Sports, Fleming, who is a knowlegeable and engaging analyst, was going through what went right and what went wrong, just what a viewer needed to know.
Both channels took the British coverage of the pitch report from Nasser Hussain and then the ball-by-ball coverage.
Hussain is informative and generally says interesting things. But the other commentators are quite poor. Michael Atherton, who opened up with Michael Holding (who at least has an engaging voice), is as boring as his batting.
The level of analysis, with the exception of Hussain, is pitiful.
When Alistair Cook was dismissed, the commentators carried on about his lax shot. In fact, he had been suckered by a shrewd piece of bowling by Hilfenhaus.
Hifenhaus had been moving the ball into the left-hander Cook consistently. Then he bowled short and wide. Cook reached across to whack the ball through point. But instead of moving into him, the ball swung away.
Cook chased it and edged the ball to gully where Michael Hussey caught an excellent diving catch.
Why the commentators couldn’t see this is beyond me. They are all former great players. But they don’t seem to have much understanding of the intricate parts of the game that you’d expect great players to have.
Perhaps the problem is that they are not trained reporters. It should be remembered that Richie Benaud was a working journalist before he fronted up to the television cameras.
After the lunch break, where Fox Sports again excelled, I went to bed and listened for the rest of play. I must say that it was a joy to listen to Henry Blofeld, Jonathan Agnew and Jim Maxwell.
The pictures they painted in words were more vivid that the actual pictures coming across the screen.
It seemed to me, as the talking and excitement continued throughout the night, that the best way to watch cricket is to listen to it on the radio.