TELECASTING AN EYE OVER THE CRICKET COVERAGE

With the Shrees walloped without too much trouble apart from a late (and great) Kumar At No.3 inspired heart palpitation, it might be a good time to see how the cricket coverage is shaping up in 2007/08. Well actually, of course it's a good time to reflect on the coverage; we've got oodles of time since the stupid schedule means there won't be another Test match until Boxing day, with the only light entertainment coming via December's Chadlee.

But rather than forcing you to endure yet another post from me going over the same old ground, complaining the same old complaints, ranting the same old rants, let's instead look at three articles that have come out in recent weeks.

The first was written by Alvin Blundell (I bet he loves being called that) in the Weekend Strayan:

Spin bowled

WILL the Test cricket on the Nine Network this weekend be a revelation, or another illustration of how the one-time television heavyweight is always moving, but never getting anywhere?

There's no doubt sports broadcasting here has to find a way to compete with new media environments and the consumer-created clips that appear on YouTube.

It's a perfectly respectable piece, but because articles that appear in a weekend supplements seem to require extra gravitas, they often get built up with layers of what some might call "analysis", what others might call "padding" and what even less charitable other others might call "making shit up to make a case".

There's no doubt sports broadcasting here has to find a way to compete with new media environments and the consumer-created clips that appear on YouTube.

Excuse my old-fartedness, but when you are watching the cricket on the telly, you are watching the cricket on the telly. Maybe the punters to which Blundell refers need to augment their viewing with strata of extraneous media environments, but not me. Just show me cricket and tell me about it. And yes, I'm aware I blog during the cricket, but that's is in response to the coverage.

In sports TV, David Barham, Ten's AFL finals series producer, has pointed the way with a clever, often technologically witty, series of broadcasts this year and Dennis Cometti and Bruce McAvaney led a brilliant Seven football coverage throughout the season.

Clever, technologically witty and brilliant are not words I would use to describe our footy coverage. Capable, sometimes enjoyable, but mainly pedestrian, overladen with stupid graphics and spattered with hipster jargon would be more appropriate. You can't use the AFL coverage as a touchstone of comparison with the cricket coverage.

Nine hasn't cracked portraying what it actually feels like to attend the event, while still offering a multitude of information about the game and its participants presented with the speed of cyberspace. It's a big call, but the Americans have been doing it for years.

I'm not convinced I need to feel like I'm at a sporting event; especially, in light of the fact that I'd rather watch most cricket at home on the telly; the exception being when a match is tight and you can suffer with a bunch of other like-minded tragics.

Nor do I accept that Americans weave ads seamlessly into their coverage. I love watching the baseball playoffs and the NFL but their ads are every bit as intrusive as ours. As I see it, the main reason they might appeal to us Strayans is that we don't see them all the time. Just like we get sick of Bunnings, KFC and back-yard Ford, I bet most Yanks get sick of ads for Bank of America, Coors, Bud Light, etc; and that's in spite of the fact that their ads ARE a far sight better than ours. There is also the different rhythm of the American games. You can't telecast cricket in the same way you telecast NFL and baseball. And, anyway, why do we need to? Cricket is cricket and its best commentators never felt the need to turn their commentary into the sort of patter spoken at McAfee Coliseum, Lincoln Financial Field, Qualcomm Stadium or Minute Maid Park. (Although Dennis Cometti was a very good cricket commentator.)

It's the use of commercials as much as anything that has destroyed Nine's version of the game. The constant interruptions destroy any emotional involvement for the viewer and frustrate the kind of narrative complexity radio broadcasts of the game still offer.

Blundell needs to watch more American sport. He ought to start with ESPN which even has its replays chock full of ads. Touchdown, ad; kick, ad; timeout, ad; nauseum, ad.

Nor is our radio coverage as great as he makes out:

few of Nine's captain-codger commentators appreciate the importance of narrative and the role of the hero in sports presentation, something at which only the ABC's radio team excel.

It can be better than the television, but all too often it resorts to the same old formula. New old-boy, Drew Morphett, is fair dinkum unbearable. What a suck! Kerry O'Keefe can be excellent, but can also be a self-indulgent boob. Jim Maxwell and Glenn Mitchell are cut from the same cloth: "this is the way we've ALWAYS DONE IT!, it seems to WORK!, so let's just KEEP IT! coming." Spanky is pretty good; at least he has opinions that aren't straight out of the 1977 ABC Cricket Book. I dread the appearance of Terry Alderman, Bob Massie and Terry Jenner. Well, perhaps dread is not the right word, since I fall asleep long before the dread sets in. Damien Fleming is a much needed breath of fresh air. Is it too much to hope that Fleming, Spanky and O'Keefe do most of the work?

Despite padding to make a case, though, Blundell's thrust is fine. Nine's coverage, despite the gee-gaws, is tired. It is predictable. Not that predictability, per se, is a bad thing. Is Michael Hussey predictably making runs a bad thing? I thing not. Nine's patter is pathetic. The grammatical flourishes are missing. The colloquial energy seems put on. The journalism is absent, although I'm not sure that matters. The incessant clumsy merchandising is an insult. The classic catches just plain stupid. Tony, Bill and Chappelli have spent far too long spoiling our summers. Move aside, boys. Simon O'Donnell is a goose. Tubby is passable, if barely intelligible. I disagree with Blundell's assessment of Slogger Slatts and the Dick. Slatts is a suck, and while the Dick can be excellent, he gushes. But Heals is excellent.

Hmmm, I just used up my alloted time on the first article. I hope I don't run out of steam for the other two, the first of which is an article by the excellent Richard Hinds.

C'mon, Nine, Warney's plum for a call

THIS summer Shane Warne is taking what newsreaders — who must be close to exhaustion after 30 minutes in front of an autocue every night — like to call a "well-earned break".

What Warney is actually taking a break from is best left to the fertile imaginations of the editors of women's magazines. However, for cricket fans enduring a lacklustre start to the summer, the great leg spinner's decision to spend time at home before stepping back into the limelight is almost as disappointing as his retirement.

Now, I don't necessarily endorse Hinds' call for Warnie, but surely Shane is better than most of the other pinheads. He's got a bit of the Pat Cash or the JP McEnroe, in that he's prone to say the things you're not supposed to say - the harsh but fair. I suspect Warnie's not too far off, though, given the way Nine have been buttering us up this summer: ACA, advertisements, billboards, pretty much everywhere.

Hinds also mentions one of the things that has really bitten me over recent seasons: the delay. Time was you could watch the telly and when the commentary invariably started to grate you could switch over to the radio. I suppose given the pros and cons of the two outlets, it's a case of cherry-picking. That's denied us now. The truly mammoth delay has got to be at least three seconds; as far as "truly mammoth" and "three seconds" goes, anyway. They'd probably say it was a technical issue, but there's really only one reason they do it: we'll switch.

The third article is by Marieke Hardy.

Who knew she was a cricket fan. I do know she's an acquired taste. As FX and myself mentioned elsewhere, she needs to take her cool-dag persona out of her articles. There's way too much "being plied with cheap hooch" sort of stuff.

Still, she makes a fair point. The filling last Saturday was abjectly dreadful. None of your Johnners, Blowers, Aggers sitting around waxing lyrical about cake, seagulls and the 2B to Brixton; this was rank mugging. At one point Simon O'Donnell fixed a desperate grinnace - a grin that hurts - on his face and gawked at the camera as if to say: "Hey! Enjoy our rowdy hijinks! Look how much fun we are having." It reminded me of those wankers who laugh too loud in pubs, advertising how much fun they are. It was pitiful. And a pity, because when Chappelli, Richie and the Dick - to name a few of the better cricket brains - get going on the caper, they undeniably know their stuff. What they don't know is how to pretend to be having a good time for the camera.

Testing times for summer viewers

The first thing that struck me — with no small amount of surprise, as I truly did used to adore the game — was that things had grown a little dull over the years. To be fair, for the most part on Saturday this was due to rain stalling play and the subsequent display of at least an hour's worth of hideously embarrassing time-filling.

Our awkward commentators sat miserably in front of an enormous window with wild storms beating down outside as they made small talk about exciting moments from days of yore. It was like hovering at a failed party while the desperate hosts ply you with cheap hooch to try and make you stick around, and utterly excruciating for all concerned except Richie Benaud.

The man is starting to resemble one of those Pickle People made out of old pantyhose and cotton wool that your grandma sticks on her fridge. After a while I grew tired of watching Andrew Symonds' career highlights and switched over not long after the players had marched back on to the pitch only to frown up at the sky and troop off again with sulky mutters. All in all, it was very disappointing.

Comments

[nick]

TV makes money from advertising, hence the prostitution of Richie et al spruiking crap instead of building a narrative. With the advent of multiple channels/datacasting etc, the government and regulators should piss off out of the way, and let the TV channels essentially narrowcast to interested groups. To some, this will mean 24/7 soaps with net access to forums and fan sites, to others, cricket with no delay, multiple camera angles, Cricinfo interactive sidebar, and choice of sound/effects/commentary feeds, and, to the rest of Australia, porn.

[Scott Wickstein]

Very good work, Tony. Top of the class for you.

[Vindicate]

I finally bit the bullet for this summer and bought Foxtel since little Jimmy Packer decided it would be a good business decision to shitcan the local cricket coverage and bring on the sport of kings instead. Maybe he's right but I still think he's a prick for doing it.

However, this does not help me come Test time as I'm still hogtied to Neins coverage and 80% shit commentary.

More import commentators are needed IMO, I'm not sure what India and Sri Lanka have to offer in terms of quality commentators but I'm willing to take a punt rather than put up with the same bunch of clowns for another summer.
Fuck, I'd even accept a few pommy commentators.

As for the bias thing, if we can live with Greig as long as we have I'm sure a pop in visit from their most die-hard commentator isn't going to hurt. Much.

[David Barry]

I'm in France this summer, and unable to get any radio or TV cricket coverage at all (at least not without paying more than I want for it), so I can't add much on the commentary this year. But I can't believe the ABC have got Drew Morphett doing Test cricket. What happened to Roger Wills?

[RT]

Alvin on Simon O'Donnell - on the money.

Drew Morphett - fucking hell. At least the Bogle will bring something new.

I'd read more cricket articles but I find I'm busy counting the amount of times they try to link Bollinger with a champagne reference. Bubbles in rare form however.

[Andrew]

What's wrong with a three second delay? I potter around the room doing whatever I need to do. Every time the ABC voices are raised in excitement I look up at the telly and thanks to the delay I can actually see the event, without having to sit through the tediousness of ads and pictures of seagulls until the Channel 9 crew deign to put on a replay.

What's not to like?

[tONY]

The 1977 ABC Cricket Book was bloody good, Tones...

[Mark]

A new Labor Government!!

Well done.

[Bruce]

Is it the mists of time giving me a false impression - or did Classic Catches used to be really good?

Over the course of a season a lot of decent grabs would make the list, but now the need to have a catch of the week means that pool is highly diluted and we end up with regulation second slip chances making the reel.

[nick]

Players take catches these days, regularly, that would have been dismissed as uncatchable 15 years ago. However, with the increase in cricket, and hence the need for more 'classic catches' for filler, the overall quality of the catches in 'classic catches' has decreased.

ps : looking at the current Indo-Pak series, and the 'strange coincidence' of Tendulkar getting out 3 times this year on 99, and the fact that over $1 billion is bet on every game in which India play....does anyone NOT think that every game involving India, on the subcontinent, is fixed?

[Yobbo]

You trying to suggest Kumar was 39 places too high in the order?

[nick]

Just 10 days late.

[big.ramifications]

I liked Mark Nicholas initially. Can't stand him now.

I think it's the regular "Mark interviews his fellow commentators during the break" segments that grate on me. But I can't stand him so I really can't stand bothering to think about why he grates on me.

Nice piece, Tony.

[Tony T.]

One thing I meant to mention up above was that when Nine move to filler mode, it looks as if they are trying to emulate what the Poms are up to when Gower, Nasser and Athers get going, while chucking in some "antics". Wrong. Approach.

If cricket went to Foxtel you'd get some of that interactive gear.

I often wonder what might happen if official broadcasting (in the pejorative sense of the word), long term contracts and cushy deals were ousted. What would happen, for instance, if each and every tour was put out to tender? Would we get a flood of new talent? Or would we get the same old honkers "doing the rounds"?

Not a million miles from that, it sucks that Dave has to pay top dollar for the ABC. I wonder why he has to pay, while we get to stream for free.

And as for Drew Fuckin' Morphett... well, root my boot if he's not a paragon example of "dredging the bottom". The ABC have truly run out of talent if they feel they need to reinsert him into out lugholes.

The Australian obviously feel there is plenty more gold in that there Dougy mine: Bollinger gives Tigers taste of class.

It's true, the three-second delay DOES give you a chance to do the housework, but I have a cleaning lady.

True, the 1977 ABC Cricket Book WAS bloody good, but so were prawn cocktails, desert boots and David Hookes' jaw. Things have changed.

A Labor government? In name only, Mark. Think further right than Tony Blair. At least, so far. You know what they say "One day is a long time in politics."

I remember when classic catches were Lawrence Rowe full length at gully. Keppler Wessels full length at square leg. John Dyson, of course. (Question: who did he catch? No looking it up, you dogs!) Steve Waugh running around the sightscreen. Now a dolly C&B back to the bowler will get you nominated. And it's all in aid of raking cash via 1-800 phone numbers.

I wonder if anyone had $1 billion dollars on Tendulks getting out on 99 three times this year.

One thing's for sure; Kumar's average this year is a lot bigger than 39.

Nicholas should host the padding, the tea-break talks, etc. And he should also be told to put a cork in his gushing.

Thanks to those of you who said "good stuff". I hate the rest of you. But in a good way.

[RT]

Dyson's catch - at the SCG, late in the test. Against the West Indies I think. Big Bird?

AB took some ripper gully catches in the 80s stench period.

Watched a ODI rewind match from the 80s on Fox on the weekend. Bruce Reid had to get 2 off the last 5 balls against some Kiwi tosser called Pringle. Didn't lay bat on ball.....

[Tony T.]

It was a drawn Test at the SCG in Jan '82. Not Big Bird.

AB snaffled John Reid a beauty at the Gabba against the Kiwis in 1985. Pity Reid had already made a hundred, the Kiwis were then 3 for heaps, Hadlee took 15 wickets and we lost by an innings.

The scores from those grim matches ought to be tattood on the stomach Ben Cousins style of all the commentators who say Straya deserves a contest.

Bruce Reid & Bhagwat Chandrasekhar: batting at its best.

[Colin Campbell]

Good work Tony. I agree with everything you said.

I hate Mark Nicholas, Tony Greig, Simon ODonnell and the like. They are up there in the category of Prize Wankers. They need to be sent to run the sight screens. It is rather like the (former) Howard Government. Finally Australia woke up and kicked them out. Who are the Kevin 07s of the potential cricket commentating gene pool/ Regardless, I will probably still listen to the radio and rush over to watch the technicians do their replay job.

[Tony T.]

Could be there's a valid parallel there, Col. I mean, Rudd's lips move and then three seconds later waffle comes out.

[Dave C]

Tony T and RT.

Re: John Dyson's catch against the West Indies in 1982 Test in Sydney, he caught out Sylvester Clarke.

I would love to see the footage of that catch on YouTube. I was only 8 years at the time and still remember the image. Bill Lawry's excitement of "The greatest catch you'll ever see" was almost matched by Chappelli in the commentary box.

[Tony T]

Well, you didn't beat the buzzer, Dave, but you're right.

Sylvester Clarke.