Richie Benaud’s death recently got me thinking about what we like about commentators. Not just cricket commentators, all sport.
For the most part that’s how we connect with top-level sport – through radio and television. Commentators for cricket will always be held to a slightly different standard because we spend so much of our lives with them on in the background.
Rugby and Football commentators aren’t as constant a presence, although given the frequency with which those sports are played these days, they too have become familiar voices as we relax at weekends or in the middle of the week in the case of football.
So what should we expect from them? After all, it is our presence when tuning into radio or sitting in front of a television which attracts the advertisers, which pay the salaries of those commentators, and which drive up rights deals that ensure that many sports can be played and that the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, AB de Villiers, Lebron James and Bryan Habana are well remunerated.
Football and rugby have a rhythm to them, meaning differ-ent times of high excitement are mixed with slow patches in which there is a build up to those action-packed moments.
Cricket is slower by its nature, even though those in the IPL ‘comm boxes’ would have you believe a game’s happening at a million miles an hour with this kind ‘of maximum,’ or that kind of ‘moment of success.’
It’s all the shouting that goes in the IPL commentary boxes that doesn’t make for pleasant viewing. I’ve rarely heard a moment of silence watching the IPL, even if ‘nothing’ has happened on the field of play.
Knowing when to be quiet is an essential part of commentary. The BBC’s Dan Maskill – who commentated most famously at the Wimbledon tournament – did ‘keeping quiet’ like no other. Both service games would pass, the players head to their chairs for their break and only then would he pipe up with a word or two.
Perhaps that is taking matters a bit far, but it did make you feel more intimately involved in what was happening on Centre Court.
The really good American baseball commentators do that too. And in that regard perhaps there’s an example for IPL commentators to follow.
People tuning into cricket aren’t dumb; they don’t need everything explained to them. They certainly don’t need to be shouted at. Leave that to rugby and football where for the exciting moments in the game an increase in decibel levels is understandable.
Shouting out what a good ball it is when the opening batsman ‘shoulders arms’ is unnecessary and makes commentators look stupid. Silence is cool - The Star