Before Garry Sobers, before Rod Laver, long before George Best and the Beatles became heroes, and several years before being captivated by the mind-feast offered by the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, Samuel Beckett and Albert Camus, there was That Voice – a voice with an unmistakable Hampshire drawl that brought cricket from England into the drawing room.
The man’s job was to tell us what the heroes were up to in Test matches in England. But to me, the hero was the man himself. He never padded up or scored a memorable goal; nor was he showered with encomiums by commentators.
The legend of John Arlott But then my first sports hero was himself a >commentator — John Arlott . I would often go to bed muttering his words under my breath.
And I will always remember Arlott’s last words as a commentator at Lord’s in 1980 in the Centenary Test — with Geoff Boycott and David Gower in the middle — even if they have been thought of as unromantic, undramatic and anti-climactic.
“End of the over…it’s 69 for two, and after Trevor Bailey it will be Christopher Martin-Jenkins.” Simple, straightforward. But the standing applause from the crowd would have had a novice believe that a great batsman had just reached three figures.
Sounds prosaic, doesn’t it? And imagine, the man had been behind a microphone from 1945 to 1980 and has been celebrated as the best in the business even by people who had only a passing interest in the game.
But that’s Arlott, under-statement personified, his pauses as memorable as his words, not a single excited rant, no screaming at the top of the voice, few clichés, if any, nothing over-the-top, but no less involved and passionate for all that. He always steered clear of hyperbole, bringing fresh perspectives, and always tried to tell us something we don’t know or could not see.
Arlott’s was the first name that came to mind when an old friend, a cricket connoisseur for over 70 years, recently bemoaned the lack of quality and nuance in cricket commentary in India by the so-called Indian experts.
The shrillness and nationalistic frenzy, the inability or unwillingness to embrace a balanced point of view, celebrating hollow victories on made-to-order dust bowls as if India has just won the World Cup, the easy excitability and the seeming lack of credibility…yes, my friend was right even if he is something of an old-timer unwilling to make allowances for the passing of time and the change in public tastes.
Compromises If the lack of balance — and the adoption of the Us vs Them posture — can be partly attributed to the demands made by the broadcast channel, which does not want to get on the wrong side of the biggest cricket audience in the world, as well as the strictures issued by the all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India, then how can a celebrity commentator live with the fact that his views have been compromised?
“There is so much money in Indian cricket and the BCCI is so autocratic that these guys are always watching their backs. Even if they embrace the right perspective and can offer positive criticism regarding the functioning of the BCCI or team selection, they choose to keep their mouths shut,” says a former Test cricketer.
Surely no one would admit that he would be better off working without the handcuffs, or to be precise, taped mouths. But the fact remains that what is on offer is a bland product, robbed of nuance and serious audience engagement.
There are times when the commentators, instead of being critics, begin to don the garb of salesmen. The game is well-packaged technically and is sold aggressively.
What we hear is the obvious plus a little bit extra that marketing men deem necessary. It is an insult to the intelligence of the viewer, even a schoolboy viewer. And the punching bags are always the poor umpires, never the megastars in the middle.
A senior colleague of mine tells me that on a tour of New Zealand, when Sachin Tendulkar was out to a rush-of-blood shot — and later admitted that his shot selection was poor — the commentator on air said that it was “a great delivery to get a great man out.”
All this is not to condemn every single Indian cricket commentator. Some are adequate, others strive to be the best they can be, and some are good.
But do we have a potential Arlott or Richie Benaud out there? I doubt it. Indian cricket, and cricket commentary by Indians, have evolved along the wrong path to be able to accommodate men of the calibre of Arlott or Benaud.
And here is a sample of the best of Benaud. “He’s done it.. he’s done it with the most beautiful delivery. Gatting has absolutely no idea what happened. He still doesn't know.”
This was the description of what, in time to come, would be celebrated as the greatest single delivery in Test history — Shane Warne’s first ball in a Test match on English soil. The unfortunate batsman was Mike Gatting.
Little wonder that there were many moist eyes in the stands and a noticeable silence when Benaud said at The Oval in 2005: “Thank you for having me. It’s been absolutely marvellous for 42 years.”
But these days, the mute button comes in rather handy. Some of my cricket-loving friends keep the TV on mute, turn on the radio commentary, and enjoy the action.
Finally, to me, mute is music. Most of the time when India plays. I can make sense of the action without aural assistance.
