A poor comment

Inane remarks and poor analysis dogs radio cricket commentary.

Sushil Doshi and Anant Seetalwad are names etched in Umpire's Post's memory. The duo conjured up vivid imagery on radio of India's tour to Australia in 1977-78. To a child from the cow belt, Seetalwad's English sounded lofty, but Doshi was clearly a magician. On little playgrounds, we tried to describe our own game just as he did.

Even in 1992, when India toured Australia and also played the World Cup there, Harsha Bhogle made us realise what radio commentary could be.

It was a pleasure to put the TV on mute and tune in to Harsha.

Since then, Harsha has moved on to TV, which has become the lord and master of cricket. Its advantages are inherent and obvious. You can see what is happening. Even if the commentary is awful, as it invariably is on channels other than ESPN and STAR, you can turn the volume down and enjoy the visuals and graphics. For any rival medium to survive, it is imperative to move up several notches. Radio, on the other hand, has slipped several. It could go the Internet way. Sites like Cricinfo continue to draw eyeballs, even those that have stayed glued to the TV, for the depth of their analysis and exhaustive data.

Radio commentary, on the other hand, is going in the opposite direction. The analysis is elementary, the language pedestrian, the imagery hazy in spite of four commentators, one scorer and one statistician in the broadcast team of All India Radio.

During the Melbourne Test, the Hindi commentator once said the current over was the 87th of the innings. In the next breath, he revealed: "The next will be the 88th." Not to be left behind, the English commentator said: "Here comes Zaheer Khan, left arm over the wicket, no right arm, no left arm." He also spoke of Clark's cluster report, "as seen on the screen".

The Hindi and English commentators often repeat each other. If one invokes the clichés of glorious uncertainties, his mate chips in with: "Cricket anishchittaon ka khel hai."

Inane lines abound, such as, "This is a psychological blow to the Indian team's psyche", and "the match hangs in the balance, although Australia are in a dominant position".

The tea-time discussion on Friday spoke more about golf. The hosts wanted to end the lunch-time chat with the song from Chak De! India, which has become "a national sports anthem". They promptly went on to play "chak de sare gham", which Saif Ali Khan sings to cheer up a recently widowed Rani Mukherjee in Hum Tum. Given that Australia at that point were 282 ahead with eight wickets in hand, this was not entirely inappropriate.