Is watching cricket as exciting as it used to be?

Ashish Khurana - Televisionpoint.com | New Delhi
For the pre-TV generation, radio commentary brought cricket well and truly alive into their homes. But times have changed. TV has replaced radio and somebody has replaced a real cricket commentator.

Cut to today, and it seems as if we have forgotten life's simple pleasures like putting up our feet and enjoying a cup of tea while listening to radio commentary, in this age of multi-tasking. Instead, our imagination is held hostage by those mind-numbing 20-angle TV replays, accompanied by all that inane noodle-strap glamour.

Is watching cricket as exciting as it used to be? Do we miss the running commentary rendered by radio and then TV veterans like Sushil Doshi, Dr Narottam Puri, Ashis Ray, etc? Have the current TV presenters overshadowed the role of commentators?

"It's painful to see the quality of content going down. In the current crop of commentators, barring a few, most just don't have enough understanding of the game," laments veteran commentator Dr Narottam Puri, adding that, "They are not familiar with the broadcast media, and do not have the desired communication skills. Take for example a common phrase in today's cricketing parlance: deflected the ball. How can you deflect a ball? You drive the ball in a particular direction!"

Dr Puri makes another befitting statement when he says, "Today, people are so fond of their own voice that they just don't stop jabbering. They get repetitive. They need to realise that there is no point in describing the obvious to the viewer. Instead, it is a distracting element."

A statement seconded by Aseem, a blogger who remarks vehemently, "We do not need an oomph girl like Mandira Bedi or a cheese boy like Rohit Roy on the sets of cricket discussion. We would like to hear some serious talk, match analysis, cricketing strategies and techniques, instead of the nonsensical chatter of Mandira Bedi and more of her ilk, even though she might be a role model for some. We do not need entertainment to share space with cricket. And nor do we want to see any glamour pushed into cricketing extravaganza. This is clearly not cricket!"

The current occupants of the commentary box have indeed spun their art around the microphone with consummate skill and savoir faire, changing it from a backroom, to a glamorous, hip club. But in the process what is left behind is a gaping audience, asking for the real cricketing action.