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England fight but falter
By Will last year, at the start of December, 7 Comments »
What a cracking day it was. My mate messaged me shortly after it, having only caught snippets, and was surprised at my post-match adrenaline. Today was Test cricket at its gnarliest, epitomised by Ian Bell and Matt Prior’s stand. They played magnificently and it took a genius, Muttiah Muralitharan, to dismiss them both. With them went England’s hopes of salvaging a draw (if not a win). Had the tail managed to wag, England were about 20 minutes away from the safe confines of a draw owing to the fading light…but it wasn’t to be.
It was fun on comms, too. In the last three hours we had a consistent 40,000 people reading the live scorecard. That’s a heck of a number, and several hundred emailed in to say hello. We had people from Warsaw, librarians in Warwick and a school-teacher with his feet up setting his pupils a long (and quiet…) test.
What made Murali’s day all the more remarkable was that he was wicketless for most of the day. Only on receipt of a juicy, shiny new ball did he strike, and how, with the crushing double blow of Prior and Bell.
Worrying for England, they only have three days in which to recover - and Matthew Hoggard won’t be part of their Colombo gameplans. Come on down, scattergun Steve Harmison.
What did you make of England’s performance? Or, for that matter, Sri Lanka’s?
7 Comments »Cricket commentary on your mobile
By Will last year, mid-October, No Comments; be the first!
Meant to note this down last week and forgot. We’re now doing commentary for mobile phones - and it’s really brilliant. I know it’s a bit sycophantic to praise Cricinfo’s services but, let’s face it, we do rock - and this is really very cool. If you’re away from your PC, just download this program and you can keep an eye on our accurate (yet irreverent…) commentary on your phone. It’s quick and free.
No Comments »Celebrity commentators: Tony Benn
By Will last year, at the start of June, 1 Comment »
A fruity voice, outspoken, opinionated - and best of all, easily impersonated. Imagine how entertaining the rain intervals would become.
Previously, Jools Holland
1 Comment »Celebrity commentators: Jools Holland
By Will last year, at the end of May, 4 Comments »
As predicted, the rain is tumbling down. Not quite as bad in Leeds as it is here in London, which is encouraging, but I doubt there’ll be any play at Headingley until mid-afternoon. Hey ho (Flint), stick some music on, make a cuppa cha. I’m watching Jools Holland’s Later from last week with a frightening looking Joan Armatrading bitching it on a Fender. Rawk. Incidentally, Jools would be a shoo-in for my Celebrity Cricket Commentators list - welcoming everyone in the comm box. “And here, today, we have the brilliant, the extraordinary, the multi talented…AGGERS! Thank you!†etc.
So Jools would be one, Alan Partridge another. Who else?
4 Comments »Broadcast Views
By Scott 2 years ago, at the start of December, 11 Comments »
Reverse Swinging Mark has his say on Sky’s broadcast roster.
The classic sports arrangement consists of a commentator who actually describes what’s going on out in the middle, alongside a ‘colour’ man who, well, adds the colour to the picture the commentator has described - effectively providing deeper analysis of what’s going on.
Every other sport seems to recognise this - football commentary is left to the professional commentators (Motson, Davies, Tyler) with ex-pros like the exemplary Andy Gray, just providing the ‘colour’ - the same with Rugby Union where Miles Harrison and Stuart Barnes have developed a level of understanding that rugby hasn’t witnessed since Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett were strutting their stuff.
Sky Cricket’s problem is that they have too many ‘colour’ guys and not enough commentators - in fact, they haven’t actually got any at all. You need balance to ensure that the commentary flows with the game - but instead, with Sky, we get a series of ex players who feel that they have to continually justify their presence with elaborate analysis of every thought, word and deed of the players in the middle - plus a whole lot more beyond that, without realising that all we actually need is some sort of insight into what is actually happening, and why. No one is doing orthodox commentary, because no one has been asked/told to - so the Sky product is fundamentally flawed.
As it happens, I tuned in my television to watch the New Zealand vs Sri Lanka Test match, and to my surprise the first voice I heard was that of the veteran West Indies commentator, Tony Cozier. Whether or not he’s emigrated to New Zealand, or doing some freelancing, I have no idea, but it was a delight to hear him.
Cricket in New Zealand is broadcast by Sky NZ, and it suffers from almost the opposite problem to that described by Mark- too much commentary, and not enough colour. I’m not sure where Jeremy Coney has got to, but the rest of the local commentators are too descriptive and.. boring.
Unfortunately, there’s not a great market for Test cricket in New Zealand. Shane Bond is giving the Sri Lankans a royal grilling before a nearly empty stadium, and so when broadcasting in this sort of environment, it is important to ‘pep it up’ a bit. You do not need the ‘Barmy Army’ to create atmosphere but you do need to have more then 15% of the seats sold.
This isn’t meant to be an attack on Sky NZ, who are doing a great job- the camera work is as good as anything Nine in Australia can come up with. The graphics are smart and professional. They just need to think ‘outside the square’ somewhat to liven things up. If they hired Tony Cosier to this end, then they have made a good start.
11 Comments »Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary
By Will 2 years ago, mid-July, 8 Comments »
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.
8 Comments »