AS A PLAYER, I had an opinion about everything. I was not afraid of sharing my opinion in team meetings. By nature, I am extremely judgemental. All these turned out to be the very qualities I needed in my life post retirement: as a commentator. Getting into commentary was a seamless transition. Right from my first game as a commentator, I felt at home. Except that watching the game so closely on the monitor was a new thing for me. I remember thinking every leg-before appeal was out, but by the second game I was all right.
I was not educated in the best English school in Mumbai, but the language was not a big hurdle in my new profession. My school was good at basics. It made our grammar sound. Diction and fluency came later. My sisters studied in a convent school, and had good command over English. This would become evident when they fought. English might as well have been their official fighting language – they would switch from Marathi whenever things heated up.
They would constantly pick on my English, especially my pronunciation. When they came to my school’s annual functions, they’d find faults with my teachers’ English as well. It’s thanks to them that my English didn’t turn out like my teachers’.
I have always had a flair for languages, and I loved English as a subject, so I learnt fast. Even if I could not speak as evocatively as, say, Harsha Bhogle, I could articulate my cricketing thoughts quite easily. Language was never a constraint in speaking my mind. Even today, I like to use language for its main function: to express, not to impress.
I could see that people were generally impressed with my work in my early days as a commentator. There hadn’t been many iconic Indian commentators; expectations therefore weren’t too high.
Once I started doing this job regularly, I realized it could be a long-term professional option for me.
Naturally I wanted to get better at it, and not restrict myself to expert analysis, which is what’s expected of former cricketers. When you start off, you are put in the role of a ‘colour’ commentator alongside a more seasoned commentator who handles the descriptive part of the coverage. The lead commentator is more the spine of commentary while the colour commentator can afford to take a back seat and talk only over slow-motion replays or analyse the play and tactics in it.
The lead commentator is responsible for the general mood of commentary, which makes him or her a more vital part of a commentary team. I wanted to be the lead after I had established myself as a colour commentator.
Because it’s my nature to observe, I was familiar with most of the elements of a live coverage even if they didn’t directly affect me. That’s why it was not difficult for me to slip into the role of a lead. How good you are in the commentary box can sometimes be gauged by how many lead stints you get.
The one thing that I had to consciously work at was to sound excited. I am not an excitable person – I’m passionate but not excitable. I had to train myself to become excited and animated. I would be passionate and animated when analysing, but to react to a gorgeous cover drive took some conditioning. I am proud that I worked so hard on it that I began to get many lead stints.
The hardest I have had to work in commentary has been in Twenty20 cricket. It’s such a high adrenaline activity that a calm quiet voice does not go well with it; and therefore commentary needs to be high octane too. Fortunately, I genuinely love T20 cricket. When some people in production felt I was a bit dull for T20 cricket, I worked on it. I sought out Simon Doull, who gave me a simple piece of advice: While in lead, just focus on reacting to the action, and don’t think about too much else. And yes, inflect the voice when there is a spike in action.
I get quite a few lead stints in T20 matches nowadays and I consider that an achievement to be proud of. It’s a bit like Cheteshwar Pujara becoming a good T20 player.
The real pinnacle of our job, though, is hosting a live discussion. Having established myself as a lead commentator, this became my next goal. It was Ten Sports that gave me that break. Even when I was not hosting and just commentating, I used to be interested in how it all worked. How the host received instructions from the director through his earpiece. How the host would then manoeuvre the discussion in such a way that the director’s next item could be addressed on the show. How sometimes there would be some glitch, and the control room would panic and tell the host not to throw to the next package because it’s not ready. The host would still have to wear a smile, a happy face, retract his statement and coolly go back to the discussion while listening to the pandemonium behind the scenes through his earpiece.
The line of conversation also had to head in a certain direction because the videos that will run during the show are pre-decided. They are just waiting for the host to veer the conversation in that direction so that they can be played on the screen. I found all this very challenging. I wanted to give it a shot.
Many kinds of people can become a host, but there is one kind who just can’t: the kind who gets easily distracted. Quite a few have tried and failed at this job because they could not handle the commands in the ear while having a conversation with the guest in the studio. It puts them off. I was fortunate on that front. By nature, I don’t get easily distracted. In fact, I like the buzz of all activity in the back office loud in my ear so that I know what exactly is going on down there.
Having a chat is the easiest part of the job but keeping it relevant with what the director has planned and incorporating the graphic and video clippings into your discussion without it seeming pre-planned and deliberate is the tough bit.
Once you start hosting and do a reasonable job at it, you earn the respect of your peers. Your colleagues realize you are doing the most difficult job in live broadcasting and you become somewhat like the star of the team. Peter Hutton, who was CEO of Ten Sports, warned me that many a commentator became difficult to handle after he became a host. ‘Success’ went to their heads.
Steve Norris and John Gaylard, two stalwarts of live cricket production, held my hand as I took my first step in hosting live cricket. I will never forget that first pre-match show we did in Pakistan in 2004, India’s first visit there in fifteen years. It was an elaborate, hyped ninety-minute show, but as it often happens on first days of a tournament, there were last-minute technical snags and we could not rehearse or get a proper sitting with the producer on how we were going to do it. I was still fairly new at hosting, but thankfully, Gaylard’s experience came to the fore. ‘Sanj, don’t worry, I will run you through all this when we are on air,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, we will be fine.’
And for those ninety minutes it was the controlled, pleasant voice of Gaylard in my ears telling me what was coming next. If there were any accidents down in the production control room (PCR), he did not give me an inkling of it. He just ensured that I was hearing only what I needed to hear as I dived into my preview of a historic Test and series with my two guests Imran Khan and Navjot Singh Sidhu. Viewers would have seen nothing amiss in the show. It was all thanks to Gaylard. After that experience, my confidence got a major boost.
That telecast had an interesting combination of guests. Sidhu, the TV personality, can be quite a bully if he feels he can dominate you. He knew he stood no chance of doing that with Imran. So he made the extreme compromise. Almost all his responses to Imran’s statements would begin with, ‘As the great man said…’ He agreed with everything Imran said, which I found amusing having seen him work before.
Sidhu worked hard on his game, so to speak. On that trip, he did just the studio show, which meant a lot of free time. While the game would be on, he would keep taking notes in this big book. Some of them were legit cricketing observations, rest was what came to be known as Sidhuisms, the wacky one-liners he came up with by improvising on idioms. If he couldn’t use one of those Sidhuisms on a particular show, he would find a way to use it on the next. He ensured no Sidhuism went to waste.
Every time he would mention one of his punchlines on air, he would look beamingly at the producer. After a few of those ‘Sidhu looks’ in his direction, the producer spoke into my earpiece, ‘Can you ask Sidhu to stop doing that? He is scaring me.’
But Sidhu was great value, though. It’s amazing how he would use all those one-liners on air without fumbling even once. As his colleague, I knew they were not spontaneous, but to the viewer they felt spontaneous. It’s not like he looked down to read them.
They might have been an odd combination, but Imran and Sidhu worked well on that show. Once when Pakistan were struggling, Sidhu said, ‘Their situation is not as bad as it looks.’ Then he paused and said, ‘It’s worse.’
Imran just collapsed with laughter. It was a while before I could ask Imran a question because he was just unable to speak. It’s a side of Imran that not many have seen. Needless to say, Sidhu was thrilled at having made the ‘great man’ laugh so much.
The other show I remember hosting, and many people do too, was when Imran and Nasser Hussain were my guests. This was also during an India–Pakistan series. We were shooting in Dubai. When Imran arrived at the studio and learnt that Hussain was going to be the guest alongside him, he said, ‘What’s an Englishman doing in an India Pakistan series?’
By including Hussain, Steve Norris, our head of production, had made a great call. For Steve, television was all about content and he knew Hussain would give great content. And he was right – Hussain turned out to be as passionate about this series as he would be in a series involving England. After a few shows, Imran had had a change of heart.
I still look at those Ten Sports shows with fondness. During that series, Imran kept banging on in the show that Younis Khan should be batting at No. 3, and not lower down in the order. (Younis, however, kept batting down the order.) I remember telling Imran on the show that perhaps he must give up on it and move on. And then when Younis finally moved up the order, he got runs and Pakistan did well.
Imran had that ‘I told you so’ look and couldn’t wait to get on air. As it turned out, it was a short tea-time show, and there were a few commercial packages to get out of the way too. And then a sponsor’s interview was forced on us. I just couldn’t get to my eager guests in the studio for their views on the session. And one guest was now turning red in anger. It was my worst day in the office. We ran out of time, and I had to throw back to live action without asking my guests a single question in that show.
Imran flung his lapel mic away, and walked out saying, ‘What’s the point of being here?’ He was absolutely right to feel that way. And just to needle me further, the cheeky Hussain said, ‘Sanj, it’s all your fault.’
Ten Sports had effective and experienced people who’d worked with Channel 9 and Sky Television. So I was in good hands when I started off my second innings. Norris was so intent on having quality content on air that if a conversation was interesting he was happy to let it go on, pushing all the sponsors’ packages forward to the next segment. As a result, sometimes in the concluding segment there would be a huge pile-up of pending commercials to run. The analysis, though, would be deeper and revelatory.
I still get compliments for the show we did with Imran and Hussain. In fact, Rahul Dravid told me that this was one show his wife watched diligently, and he too tried to catch it whenever he could. This was incredible to know. I was thrilled that Dravid, who was playing in that series, was one of our viewers.
There have been glitches, though. I remember once when we were ten minutes into a live show and we realized it wasn’t our voices but that of the director’s that was on air. Gaylard, the director, is well known for his colourful language and that’s what now went on air. As a host, I was quite used to his swear words, but imagine putting his usual instructions on air for ten minutes for all viewers in the subcontinent. But guess what – we were lucky that day. In fact, we couldn’t believe it – Gaylard didn’t swear even once during those ten minutes. He confessed he himself was shocked.
Then there was the Dean Jones–Hashim Amla incident, when Jones was heard by the TV viewers calling Amla a terrorist. There was a bit of history to this. Jones had just returned from a long stint of commentary in the West Indies where the director there had shackled him a bit. He hadn’t let Deano be Deano. He kept stopping him from talking excessively. Basically, Jones had been kept on a leash for more than a month, and he was suffering.
After that he was like a prisoner set free when he joined us in Sri Lanka. There was no one here to nag him, and he was now in his element. Interestingly our head of production at Ten Sports had a little chat with us just a couple of days before the incident, asking us to be careful about talking too loudly in between overs, even if it was off the mic, because not everyone is taking commercial breaks and when it’s silent you can hear what’s being said even when the mics are down. ‘Especially you, Deano,’ he said, pointing his finger at the man.
To get a few laughs in private, Jones had nicknamed Amla ‘a terrorist’ on that tour. By all means, this was locker-room humour. As it turned out, Amla took a catch, and a highly excitable Jones thought that we were off air and that everyone was on a commercial break, turned back towards us in the back of the commentary box and said the fateful lines.
Viewers were right to get angry at this, even if the commentator was not saying that into his mic and was under the impression that the whole world had gone for a break. To expect everyone to understand this kind of humour and not receive any backlash for it was also being very naive.
Ten Sports did the right thing. I read out an unconditional apology on behalf of the channel the next day, and Jones was sent home. When he approached Amla to apologize, Amla showed his class by immediately forgiving him for what he had done.
I met Jones that evening. He is quite a character. Anyone in his position would have been completely shattered by the episode; I know I would have been but he seemed to get some kind of kick out of it, not because he was labelled a racist – which he is not – but from the attention he was getting from the incident. At least that’s what I thought when I talked to him briefly as he was getting ready to catch the flight back home.
This incident shows the kind of tightrope a commentator walks. A flourishing career could come to an end in the blink of an eye. We want to be funny sometimes, but even while indulging in some humour, we must stay clear of matters of great sensitivity. As commentators we address a universal audience. It’s better to stick to a language that offends no one.
There is a video of me on YouTube saying things before we went on air. Which is why I now follow the mantra: once on air, always on air. Even when the mics are down and you think you are in a commercial break. Once you’re wired up, in the studio or in the commentary box, there is always someone hearing you or recording you even if the show has not begun. I guess the money we earn doesn’t come as easy as some might think.
I miss Wasim Akram when he is not there on the panel. He is a real darling, and great fun to work with in the commentary box. He is like how geniuses are. They can’t be expected to suddenly, intricately analyse the performance of others. At least that’s what I think. Wasim does not claim to be the best in the business. He does his bit, and he leaves. He is hilarious when it comes to names. He somehow struggles to remember them, and if you have worked long enough with him you know when he needs a bit of help. And when even you are distracted and not around to assist him with names, all he’s able to say about someone doing well on the field is, ‘That lad is pretty good.’
I have worked with Wasim during a couple of Under-19 tournaments. You can imagine his plight with player names in events like this. He does not take himself too seriously in commentary. Once when he saw me trying to correct something I stated incorrectly on air, he looked at me, confused. ‘Why is this so important for you? I have let go of such things many times,’ he said with a hearty laugh.
Shoaib Akhtar is also great company in the commentary box. I have worked with him several times for Star Sports’ Hindi coverage. He has become a great friend, and I can tell you that he is one of the most talented guys in our world. His reading of the game is quite sharp, and his view of the world, interesting. He too was intrigued by how I went about my work, and would nudge me sometimes.
‘Give your mind a rest. How much will you think? How much will you analyse?’
He is right. I take life and work too seriously sometimes. He once insisted we go to his room on the way to dinner to a restaurant on top of our hotel, and I kept saying, ‘No, let’s meet directly there.’ But Shoaib would not budge. I gave in. And then I realized why he wanted me to come – he had got a luxury suite with a 360-degree view of Mumbai city.
Sometimes, out of the blue, I suddenly get a message on WhatsApp from him, ‘Hi baby.’ Make what you will of it.
*
Commentary is a great job, really. When we are not ‘working’, we are free to do whatever we please. It could be five days in between two matches and we could be in London, for example, staying in a nice hotel. Basically, it’s five days of paid holiday. A lot of commentators spend their free time playing golf. I have stayed away from this occupation because I know it will soon end up being an obsession. It’s a bad hobby for a perfectionist. For me those free days are a mix of hitting the gym, watching movies and having great meals at the best restaurants in town.
It is perfect if you can find like-minded company, but it is really important in this profession to like your own company because when you are free, which can be on weekdays, when the rest of the world is working, it’s hard to find company all the time. Fortunately, I enjoy my own company. Having room-service meals and watching good television or Netflix is a plan that’s hard to beat. Only if something better comes along do I choose otherwise.
My answer to most work opportunities in my free time is a no. I don’t like the busy life, rushing from one commitment to the other, like Harsha Bhogle does. He keeps cribbing about how he has no time, but I know, deep down, he likes it. I don’t.
For me, this job is custom-made, especially because I don’t have to rush from one commitment to another. I played international cricket for nine years, but have commentated on it for much longer. I love my job. I have seen many Indian international-level players try their hand at commentary before moving on to other jobs if it didn’t work out for them. Their experience has led me to believe that commentary is a coveted job.
I love commentating for a reason that not many will admit. Yes, it gives me financial security; yes, it lets me stay in touch with the game; but importantly, it gives me visibility. As performers, we become used to this visibility. Anyone who has been a celebrity, big or small, loves to get recognized by people and the perks that come with fame. It’s a nice feeling when people you don’t know smile at you.
In a way, commentary ensures that people don’t forget you. People hardly remember Sidhu the cricketer, for example. Tony Greig is remembered by a generation of fans as merely a commentator – maybe one of the greatest. So commentary gives us that second shot at fame.
I am lucky to have become a commentator and not a coach.
My future as commentator does not depend on the team’s performance in matches, which a coach can’t control. My future depends on what the viewers think of me. Ever since I have taken up the job, I have been loyal to my viewers because they assess my performance constantly and dictate my future as a commentator.
For me to be good at my job, I make a conscious effort to maintain a certain distance with the players so that I can remain clinical in my assessment of their performances. I have not been close to any current player in my eighteen years as commentator.
Once you know a cricketer too well personally, things can get complicated. He may tend to get hurt when he hears public criticism of him. He would rather expect you to have a private chat with him about it. But players often forget that my loyalty lies with my producer – he must not be denied my views because I prefer sharing it with the player.
I often see fellow commentators walk on to the field on the morning of the match, go out of their way to talk to some player. I wonder then whether they can say the things that ought to be said about that player.
Cricketers too, sometimes, talk about how they are okay with constructive criticism. They lie – I was a cricketer myself. I know.
As players, you are too sensitive about everything, especially criticism, constructive or otherwise, more so when it comes from a cricketer you played with. Cricketers often have this perception that if an ex-cricketer has some critical observations about his game then he must have a personal grudge. Which is why, strained relationships with players is one of our occupational hazards. On the odd occasion when you run in to such a player, you may get a vibe – a cold one. You’d think it’s got to do with something you wrote about him, or said on air. I know one player who stopped talking to me ever since I wrote a piece critical of him. What can a commentator do in such cases? You take a deep breath and move on.
That’s why it was nice to have Kevin Pietersen join us as a commentator during the World T20 in Sri Lanka in 2012. He came in as someone who had well-documented issues with commentators, but over those two weeks he realized that whatever we said on air was just an observation or analysis for that moment and that we didn’t carry any agenda, and more importantly it was not personal. Well, Pietersen’s analysis holds true for most of us.
Pietersen left us with words to the effect of: ‘Gee, I just realized these guys say things on air and just move on to talking something else. They don’t have an elaborate well thought-out plan to destroy a KP or anyone else. We cricketers tend to make a big deal of it, and think that there is a personal vendetta that they have against us.’
Along the way, you meet exceptional people with whom you spend upwards of seven hours a day, with whom you travel over a series, whom you run into at breakfast and gyms. These are my impressions of some of the more exceptional ones that I have worked with.
Tony Greig
My first experience working with Tony Greig was in Sri Lanka for WorldTel. This was my first year in a new profession. I could sense that he was scanning me. He knew me as a player, but now that I was trying to get into his territory he was sussing me out. Did I deserve to be in his world – was I good enough to take some space in the world that he was so passionate about?
Two weeks later I could see that I had passed the Tony Greig test. He told me to my face that I was good, and it started reflecting in the way he worked with me after that. I could have a point of view different from his, and he would be okay with it. The guys he did not approve of would get some heat if they did the same.
He was childlike in many ways, which was also why he made such a name for himself as a TV commentator. His childlike excitement on air was genuine, infectious and distinguished him from the rest. He also had childlike views, mostly about changes in the game, about how to make cricket more exciting. He would share them with excitement whenever he had an audience. If you snubbed his ideas with logic, he would react like a child who had been running around excitedly and had just taken a tumble. He would quickly move on to his next big idea, the next topic of discussion, with the same fervour.
I used to admire him for how upbeat he was about his work every day. Even in a low-key series, say Sri Lanka hosting Bangladesh, when we would assemble in the hotel lobby at 8 a.m. to go to the ground, he never ever looked like a man looking at a long day ahead. He never looked like someone who found it hard to get out of bed or had to drag himself to work. He always dressed the part. I will never forget his walk: the gangly, leaning-forward walk. He never walked slowly; he was always a man on a mission. His mission during commentary assignments was only one. He would often tell me, ‘C’mon Sanj, let’s lift this coverage today.’
Tony truly believed he could single-handedly raise the quality of the broadcast and generate interest for the cricket he called. That’s what made him unique. Every stint that he did was like ‘Tony the great’ doing everything within his powers to make the coverage great for the viewers. He was a producer’s delight. Once you had him in your team, he was there every step of the way to make the coverage better.
All you had to do was give him the most stints in commentary. Childlike that he was, he was pretty sensitive about such things. As long as he was doing more stints than other commentators he was happy. If some other commentator got more time on air, he would get a little grumpy. He believed that his was the voice people wanted to listen to the most.
Tony worked hard; he never came unprepared, even for a minnows’ game. He used to carry what looked like a slim pen but was in fact a lead pencil. He would keep taking notes in the little diary that he carried in his pocket.
In his excitement, to take the broadcast to the next level, he would sometimes make embarrassing mistakes but he was never embarrassed by them. He would just say ‘correction’ and move on.
We were once shooting a studio show in Delhi. It was a chat show that was to be serialized. It was produced by a bright young bunch of TV pros, and Tony was the host. We started rolling. Tony introduced the show, the guests, and began asking a few questions. Seven or eight minutes into the shoot, he suddenly stopped. The producers were talking to him in his earpiece from the control room. And Tony kept nodding and muttering ‘yes’, ‘no, but’, ‘okay’.
Finally, he said ‘okay fine’ to the producers, and turned to us and said, ‘Look, these chaps think I am talking too much, and that I should take a back seat and let you guys speak more.’
This was a brilliant moment for me in our television business. It’s rare for a producer to be able to give feedback to such legends. Most producers are just too intimidated to say anything. Here a thirty-year-old was telling one of the biggest names in cricket commentary to play the role of the interviewer, not the expert, and let the guests speak more.
That thirty-year-old man was Arup Ghosh, now a seasoned TV news professional. Unfortunately, the show was aired on Doordarshan, the government-run broadcaster; it deserved a better platform.
Nevertheless, Tony’s response was amazing. He was humble enough to take the feedback and acknowledge that the producer knows what is best for the show. He might have been a domineering presence, but like the producers, he wanted to shoot the best chat show ever. He was a man who stood for great television, and I will always love and respect him for that.
Ian Chappell
I don’t think Ian Chappell has uttered even one banal sentence on air. He is not the one to tell you that the first hour of play will be crucial. If he doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say, he keeps his mouth shut. Once asked to conduct the toss, all he said was ‘all right’ and the captain tossed the coin up. He didn’t introduce the captains, nor did he say what a great day it was to be alive. When I asked him what he just did, he just said, ‘The fans know why I am there, they know who the captains are, so why bother with the other stuff?’
Chappelli – that’s what we call him – always speaks his mind. (Although I think his brother, Greg, is far more straightforward than him, which is perhaps why he didn’t endear himself to the Indians.) Chappelli, in comparison, is far more pragmatic.
Chappelli once made some critical remarks about Sourav Ganguly on air. Ganguly hit back in his own column the next day. ‘Your captain seems very angry with me,’ he said to me. ‘What next, now?’ I asked him. He said, ‘Nothing … I will keep looking in his direction; when he is ready to talk, I will talk to him.’
I observed his commentary that day to see if anything had changed, if Ganguly’s reaction in the press would tone Chappelli down a little bit. Nothing of the kind happened. His views and approach remained unchanged.
His honesty towards his job is unparalleled.
Chappelli is a true legend of Australian cricket but that does not stop him from doing research on the game like a match reporter would on his first day at work.
Just before the 2016 World T20, I worked with him on some wraparound shows for ESPNcricinfo. He corrected the producers who were briefing him about a change in the West Indies playing eleven.
Most experts just turn up and expect the edit team to worry about such things. Chappelli, however, feels it’s his duty as a commentator to know all the stuff related to cricket.
There is one thing common to him and Tony. If they don’t respect you as a colleague, it can be difficult working with them. Chappelli, for example, would also take you on, on every view you have but if he likes you and respects you, he lets it pass.
Which is why it’s great fun to see how Dean Jones doesn’t utter a word in the presence of Chappelli. And believe me, it takes some doing to shut up Dean, who is quite a cricket nerd. He keeps talking incessantly, and when he suddenly goes quiet, we know Chappelli has arrived.
Most of the time, Chappelli shows sound cricket logic, except when it comes to his absolute views on match-fixing. It is fair to say that he comes across as less of an expert but it is a good thing not to be an expert at such things.
Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton
After the great Channel 9 commentary team led by Richie Benaud, I feel it’s Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain who are the gold standard of cricket commentary. It’s because of them and Michael Holding that the Sky commentary team has become the new yardstick.
Most broadcasting companies are adept at producing quality visuals. They can have their own gimmicks. Yet, it is the commentary, the voices that accompany the visuals, that makes the coverage stand out. Nass and Athers are those voices. They have all the qualities needed in top-class, complete commentators.
First, they have the two important Vs to start off with: vocabulary and voice. Only recently have I realized how important voice hygiene is. You could have a lot to share as a commentator, but if your voice is not pleasant you are in trouble. (Kerry Packer once heard a cricketer on his Channel 9 coverage, and had him removed mid-match because he didn’t like his voice.)
Second, Nass and Athers both have an analytical mind to boot. They have the overall intelligence to understand the nuances of both the live sport and its commentary. They know the questions that the viewer has about a period of play. They try to think like a viewer, and then use their expertise and their hard work to answer those questions. To viewers, it is almost like someone out there is listening to them and talking to them.
I haven’t seen anyone as committed to their day of work as these two are. They don’t take things for granted just because they are now reputed, established commentators. This happens to a lot of us. We get lazy. Sometimes we don’t watch the game as closely as we’re supposed to. We tend to take our eyes off the ball in phases. Not these two. They watch every ball of the day, every day, like a hawk and their mind is ticking all the time.
Nass adds a little more spice to his commentary. He knows that he must entertain even as he informs. He can get abrasive and argumentative while keeping the conversation dignified. I have had my share of debates with him on air, but he is quick to move on from them. I have learnt to do the same.
Sometimes, we Indians get touchy about such things. In our culture, disagreement has come to be equated with disrespect, unfortunately. Once during a one-day game when a fielder hit the stumps, L. Sivaramakrishnan called it a ‘good throw’. Nass jumped in: ‘C’mon Siva, there was nothing good about that throw. It was unnecessary and that has cost them an extra run.’ I could see Siva was taken aback by this whereas Nass had already moved on to the next ball while it took Siva a long time to do the same.
Commentators like them and Mikey compel you to elevate your craft behind the mic. A series with Mikey, Nass and Athers shakes you out of your comfort zone. You have no choice but to be as attentive and perceptive as them. Else, it’s difficult having a meaningful stint with them. Commentators should cherish the time they get to spend working with them.
Simon Doull, Pommie Mbangwa and Ian Bishop
Pick these three in your commentary team, and you have the pillars of a live cricket broadcast. They can do everything – host a show, conduct interviews, the toss, post-match presentations, be the lead commentator or the expert, and they are good as commentators for all three formats of the game. If I was a producer, these three would be the most valuable talent on my commentary panel.
Like there is no place for a bad player in a cricket match, I believe there should be no place for a bad commentator in a commentary box even if he has played 500 international matches. Often, we miss out on a lot of exceptional commentary because we insist on them being international cricketers.
One of the best pieces of commentary I heard was during an IPL game that ended in a super over. Doull, Bishop and Shaun Pollock were on air. That stint was a lesson in commentary, on how to work together as a team, in perfect harmony to give the viewers the best experience possible. Despite being three voices at one time on air, there was no excessive talking. The pictures did most of the job. One person called the action, the second analysed it, and the third tried to pre-empt what was going to happen. It was brilliant.
No one obviously would remember this performance in the commentary box because it is the performance on the field that matters, but if the commentators mess up it can turn the viewers off. Audiences have no time for your playing experience here – here they only care about how you call the game, how you analyse it, and how you keep them engaged. For that, they need not look further than these three.
When Sachin Tendulkar retired from international cricket after his 200th Test match at the Wankhede stadium, it needed a Harsha Bhogle and no one else to sum up the emotions that everyone was feeling at the time. And Harsha did a terrific job.
Harsha has not played Test cricket, but it’s for such reasons you need people like him in commentary. I think fans are missing out on possibly great commentators only because production companies these days insist on having former players as commentators.
The day when Sachin retired was the kind of a reminder that even though we all work for money and visibility, it is crucial to have people on board with deep passion for cricket and great television. One of the best producers I have worked with often kept talking about the whole day’s coverage in the car ride back home from the game. Yes, you need moneybags around, there would be no broadcast without them, but their number must be kept to the bare minimum. Money-minded people will be at peace working for a builder too, but a creative, sports-minded person will be miserable there. These are the kind of people sports television must retain and embrace.
Some of my best television experience has been with Ten Sports, ESPNStar and ESPNcricinfo. I worked with some smart people here with high educational qualifications who chose to be in cricket media because they loved the sport.
At ESPNcricinfo, we had lawyers, IIM graduates, chartered accountants, talking animatedly about cricket and what we should be discussing on the show. Content that comes from such brainstorming sessions has to be exceptional.
The kind of television we did didn’t insult the viewer’s intelligence. There are millions of people who are possibly not that educated about cricket, but they are more educated now than they were ten years ago. To presume they need entertainment from outside the sport is insulting their intelligence. If they wanted that, they could switch to another channel. Viewers come to us for sport; we must entertain them with sport.
After all, sport is entertainment of a unique kind. It is human drama, totally unscripted, featuring a high level of skill and real emotions. This combination can’t be found anywhere else. With all that at our disposal, we shouldn’t have to resort to shortcuts. Stakes in television broadcasting have risen unrealistically; and hence TV channels want to engage the non-cricket fan too. But they should be careful not to put off the real fans in the process – after all, it is they who made cricket a billion-dollar industry in the first place.
I must confess, it bothers me to see a film-star commentating on live international cricket. It’s equivalent to a cricketer suddenly appearing on screen while Aamir Khan is in the middle of an intense scene in Dangal.
I have seen the role of a commentator change over the years. Back in the day, cricket commentary was also a platform where grievances about the game were freely expressed. But it’s tricky to do that now. Cricket commentary is now more about enhancing the viewer’s experience, by deploying enriching audio over the visuals. If you’re a keen, opinionated observer of the game, it’s probably a good idea to express all your passionate views on the game on other platforms, not in the commentary box.
Which is why, I have enjoyed my long association with ESPNcricinfo. To be honest, it’s more Sambit Bal, its editor, that I work for than the brand.
I was lucky Sambit came into my life post retirement. He wasn’t one who would blindly print everything I wrote – he challenged my first draft, my thoughts, even those about cricket; he urged me to explain and elaborate the opinions made in my columns. Further, he was not ready to carry sweeping statements on the game just because it came from someone who had played the game at the highest level.
I remember once I’d emailed him a piece that I was really proud of. As usual, Sambit came back with certain doubts he wanted clarifications on. I obliged. I thought that was the end of it, but my reply was followed by another email, countering my clarifications.
More emails went back and forth, but he still wasn’t satisfied.
I was now angry; this was a piece that I had liked. The next email from me was curt: I said I’d send my article to another publication, if he didn’t like it. He immediately called me, and in his typical, soft-spoken and calm manner explained to me why he was asking for clarifications. All he was doing, was making sure there were no lingering doubts in the mind of the reader when he’d read something written by me. ‘Your argument has to be fool-proof,’ he said. He went on to assure me that emails had gone back and forth several times like that with most of his writers, even his best ones.
Today, after many such columns, Sambit has helped me become a distinct voice compared to the breed of cricketers who think because they have played the game, they can get away by casually saying anything they want.
There is one stint that I did for ESPNcricinfo that I will never forget. In fact, I remember it very fondly. This was in 2013, and ESPNcricinfo was planning to get into videos and not just be a website of the written word.
Sambit had shared this intention with me. It got me very excited. I said, why not do it right now? This was during the India–West Indies series in 2013. There was going to be a lot of attention as it was going to be Tendulkar’s 200th Test, also his last.
Sambit got infected by my excitement and agreed immediately. At three days’ notice, we decided to dive headlong into pre-match, lunch-time, tea-time and post-match studio shows, the full monty, live on ESPNcricinfo, a website that commanded a minimum viewership of a million.
We were ill prepared for it, but our attitude was that of a go-getter. We had some very bright people on board, so there was a good chance we were going to pull this off.
When you do such shows for a TV channel, the set-up is very elaborate. When we arrive at the ground, it’s all arranged and ready for us to go live.
But at ESPNcricinfo, the set-up was very basic, we were using Google Live to get online for God’s sake! One of the critical component of live TV shows is the communication between the technical team sitting downstairs in their control room and us, the talent that’s in front of the camera. The control room is the nerve centre of any live broadcast.
In the Bangalore office of ESPNcricinfo, our studio, we had a total of three people in our version of the ‘control room’.
It dawned on us, unavoidably late, that for the first few days of the Test, we were not going to have the ‘earpiece’, which relays information from the control room to the talent. It’s the lifeline of any live television show.
Raunak Kapoor, one of the most talented young anchors I have seen, was going to be the host. It was his first time, doing something like this live. Like his expert on his television debut in Pakistan, Raunak’s foray into live studio shows was also a baptism by fire.
No surprises – the poor fellow was clueless as to what was going to be up next in the show. For hints, he had to sneak a look towards a little board next to the camera while directly looking at it.
That cue board was held up by a senior editorial staff, Nitin Sundar – we called him the clap boy. Depending on the flow of the event, Nitin would hastily write on the board with a marker pen – pitch report, toss, stats, Sachin Tendulkar, batting record, etc.
Had we assigned any lesser talented person than Raunak as anchor, this show wouldn’t have been possible. We had only slides to play and no video footage – so the show was all about the spoken word.
There were some false starts. Often we would start the show with great gusto, Raunak opening the episode with some smart lines and I with some pertinent, sharp comments as the expert, only to be told three minutes into the show that we had not gone out live at all. The connection had dropped!
But after a few days, we managed to iron out the glitches; Raunak got his earpiece and we managed to get the ‘control room’ communication going. Finally, it all began to look like a seasoned cricket show doing live cricket shows for years.
All things set aside, content-wise, it was the best work I have done until now, because Sambit was right next door, like a vigilant officer, and we were all forced to give our best. I remember, for the first few days, Raunak would get summoned to Sambit’s office after every show. As for me, I was part-time producer, part-time director, part-time editor of content and graphics, and full-time cricket expert when the show went on air.
The show was called Match Point.