"I think their minds were already on the plane home. I am just not sure they were here to play today."
Jamie Siddons on Bangladesh's performance in the last league match of the Asia Cup Jul 4, 2008
Until now, with the odd exception, ball-by-ball commentary has been performed by mystical faraway people with no names. As if by magic, bang on time, the scorecards at Cricinfo appear and within a few minutes a stream of fascinating (and for many people, vital) commentary is revealed.
The veil of intrigue as to the identity of these people is, on Thursday at least, to be removed as me and my colleage, the utterly venerable Jenny Thompson, will be providing live ball-by-ball commentary. My editor and boss started the ball rolling the other week, during the one-dayers against Sri Lanka, which was (near enough) the first time an editorial team had access to it. Actually that’s rubbish: our colleages in India, Jamie and Sriram, have been doing it for the India v West Indies series - and a splendid job they’ve done too.
Anyway it’s all pretty new and exciting and, hopefully, me and Jenny (and others of course) might provide something a bit different. We’ll see how it goes. I’m keen on pointing people from the scorecard to various things on the site - be it a funny/interesting new photo that’s just landed; a “breaking news” story - and generally bringing our own personal style (within house rules, and The Cricinfo House Style) to proceedings.
On that note…what do you like/dislike about Cricinfo’s scorecards and live commentary? What do you want to hear about when you’re stuck at work, clock-watching? I promise not to do a Henry Blofeld re his fascination of butterflies and London buses…but a stray pigeon simply has to be mentioned.
The Cricinfo commentary is pretty good and much appreciated when I’m at work. It is good to be able to have a look and see what the last few overs have been like every few minutes.
I don’t watch every ball as I’m usually at work and I’ve got things to do. If I’m at home then I’ll probably listen to TMS instead.
One thing I would like is to have each bowler’s over in a different colour on the ..1.2.|.1..4.|…1.. line. Just so it would be easier to get a quick view of what is going on.
Other things which would be nice:
How many overs are left in the day
How many overs have been bowled in each bowlers spell.
How many overs have been bowled with the current ball.
Is the ball turning/swinging/seaming ?
The commentary itself gives us what we need. I’ll have a look on Thursday and see if I can think of any other improvements.
Editorial comment is the main thing of which there is too little generally. Just little things like the level of discomfort that the bowler is causing the batsman (or vice versa). A few scathing criticisms of field placements.
I want the ball-by-ball to read like a newspaper column, dammit! Atmosphere, critique, player body language. As much as you can type!
Make as many references to this blog as you can. You so deserve it.
I’d always wondered what it would be like to do the ball-by-ball commentary. Are you going to be one of those people that go into detail [i.e. where every ball is played and who it's fielded by] or one of those that say only the bare minimum?
I am, of course, assuming (assume makes an ass out of you and me) that you will not be doing the scoring though? Sometimes, let’s be honest, the scorecard is a bit out of whack by cricinfo. Get a real scorer in! I happen to know one … grovel, grovel - any chance of a job?????
For ODI coverage - at all times, along with the Run Rate and Required Run Rate, can you also post the Duckworth Lewis standings also at the top of the scorecard ?
Hi,
I wanted to if all the guys doing the ball-by-ball commentary are actually present in the stadium where the match is being played. I have seen a single match being covered by 4-5 people. With so many matches being played simultaneously at different places, I was curious to know if the *all* commentators actually went to the place the matches were being played at.
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