Have you noticed how all the commentators seem to have only good things to say about the IPL, its matches, its atmosphere, and especially about Lalit Modi? It is positively nauseating the way we have the lovely Mandira Bedi gushing on and on about how wonderful everything is: how exciting the match, how wonderful the atmosphere, how perfect the weather, Blah! Blah! Blah!
For a while we were so happy that Bedi brought a fresh perspective, a woman’s point of view to cricket commentary, which was a complete male bastion. But this year she has done everything except prostrate herself before the mighty Lalit Modi and her gushing is frankly beginning to wear very thin, even though she is so easy on the eye. One longs for some insightful comment, some intelligent cricket related discussion. I mean last time we checked the
IPL was supposed to be a cricket competition?
At least that is what Ravi Shastri assures us; in which even we should expect cricket commentary from him at the very least? But he also has departed from the tradition of cricket commentating. This descent of Shastri from commentator to wannabe showman began with the lamentable ‘Shaz and Waz Show’ where Shastri and Wasim Akram would chat with one presentable looking (and preferably minimally clad) female fan at the end of the day’s play in a banal and inane attempt to engage the lowest common denominator among the cricket spectator.
The way the cricket commentators are these days at the IPL is many moons away from the tradition created by the likes of Trevor Bailey, Richie Benaud and the like. It is all enough to make one long for the dry Yorkshire lilt of Geoffrey Boycott or the incisive insight of one of the Chappell brothers or even the tomfoolery of Henry Blofeld (remember him and his preoccupation with earrings in the days of cricket at Sharjah?).
If cricket commentary these days is a lost art, one has not to go far to find a culprit: it is T20, with its Americanisms, its cheerleaders, its emphasis on entertainment rather than sport. It is the whole American sporting trend that has as much to do with beer and babes as with athleticism is reasonably difficult to digest for the serious cricket fan who goes for a match hoping for a game and gets a three act tamasha instead. It is unsettling; it is irritating and unfortunately it seems here to stay! Unfortunately for us all beer and babes are here to stay!
