Nine’s cricket team: all out except Slats
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As the cricket season eases into being, it’s time to reflect on the upcoming fixtures for the Aussies. Test series against world cricket’s also-rans, the West Indies and Pakistan, do not really engender too much in the way of enthusiasm. Why bother to reflect really. And what’s going to make it worse, hard to believe though that may be, is the Channel Nine commentary (read pensioners) team, most of whom are well beyond their use-by dates. Richie, who may well have commentated on the birth of agriculture, has already signalled his intention to put us out of his misery by pulling stumps at the end of 2010. “I’ll be doing Australian cricket next year, 2010, but I don’t do any television at all anywhere else now and when I finish next year, then I’ll be doing other things,” Benaud said in a radio interview. “That’ll be no more television commentary.” Sure, Rich has some wonderful moments during his almost 50 years of dining out on the “two for two two two” (none of the moments fashionable, in a beige clothing sort of sense … and let’s not start on the haircut, which rivalled Ray Martin’s in the derision stakes) but the writing was well and truly on the wall. Enough already. A lot of the others in Nine’s team have been riding on Kerry Packer’s coat-tails since he revolutionised the game in the ’70s, but the big fella has gone to the great World Series in the sky, so why the need to keep ‘em on? Certainly not for entertainment value. There were reasons aplenty to love the excitable Bill Lawry over the years … “Gone, got him”, “he’s a Victorian”, “it’s all happening”, etc … but the time is right for him to become a full-time former-plumber-turned-pigeon-racer. Bill’s on-screen adversary, Tony Greig, has seen better days. Rethinking that last statement, no, Tony has not seen better days. He has never had better days … not even a particularly good one, come to that … certainly not since he played for the Poms. My old man (who is no doubt having a jar and arguing cricket with big Kezza somewhere up there) used to say “Greig would make a great Aussie”. The old man hasn’t been around to be tortured by the big key-poking bald bloke who sells the memorabilia that those who should know say isn’t memorabilia. With Greig, whose Tony Greig impersonation isn’t half as good as Billy Birmingham’s, Nine should do the Lou Richards thing, when it consigned him to the handball segment on the Sunday morning footy show as a way of easing him out. Greig could be trotted out every time there is a handball segment on the cricket coverage. Ian Chappell, great cricketer that he was, is a grate cricket commentator. Boring. Time to walk, Chappelli. And don’t get me started on Mark Taylor, perhaps best remembered for not passing Bradman’s 334 during a Test in Peshawar in October, 1998. Imagine talking Bradman and Taylor in the same breath. Jesus wept. Taylor was not even as good a player as Justin Langer. The fact that Tubby talks faster than Alvin the chipmunk is reason enough to send him back to selling air-conditioners on TV, where the more words you can get into an ad, the better, apparently. Ian Healy, sorry, but you have to go, too, and again make way for Adam Gilchrist. Sure, you deserved to get a final home Test before the selectors trotted out Gilly in a baggy green, but they made the tough call. Sentiment has no place in the commentary box either, in much the same way that Mark Nicholas has no place in it. Ditto Simon O’Donnell. Michael Slater rocks. Nine can keep him for as long as he keeps doing the business. The game has changed so much since Nine’s oldies played. What now can they offer that they haven’t said a million times before. Bugger all is a safe bet. And who should replace the senior’s card brigade? If Mark Waugh and Damien Fleming (currently commentating on FoxSports) are not, along with S. K. Warne, the best in the business, then James Packer’s a jockey. And although he bowled a shit line and length, Brendon Julian (FoxSports) is more than good enough to play the Nicholas role, whatever that may be. Waugh is a joy to listen to … he’s incisive, analytical, humourous and almost as entertaining as Flemmo, the bowlologist. Throw in wine buff S.C.G McGill (he’s a natural after his excellent Ashes stint on SBS) and for colour, Greg Matthews (SBS: he and Warnie could talk hair crap during rain delays) and Skull, aka Kerry O’Keeffe, who has a great head for radio. Gilly, a champion bloke in anyone’s estimation, would be skipper. Damien Martyn (SBS) and Greg Blewett (FoxSports) would come off the bench. None of these blokes, Skull aside, are that long out of the game (Warne and Gilly are still going around in the funpark that is India’s 20-20 thing and Matthews is still rolling the arm in some form of grade cricket in Sydney) and would offer the freshness that’s sadly absent at the moment. Remember, Nine, it’s about entertainment, too. *Michael Vaughan had the name long before the former England captain, and once scored an unbeaten hundred in a grand final for the mighty King Harold CC. |
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18 Comments
Kerry O’Keeffe? Are you serious?
Why not, BK? He actually does talk a lot of sense when he’s not trying to be funny. And when he does have the clown hat on, I have to confess to laughing along with him more often than not.
My ideal line up:
Holding, Warne, Slats, Lawry, Boycott (!), Fleming, Atherton, chappelli
What?!!!!!
No more ‘tchew for twenny tchew’ or even better “tchew for tchewtwenny tchew”?
Cover your ears, close your eyes and sing a lascivious soul song loudly children
My ideal commentary team (people in quotation marks mean Twelfth Man impersonations):
Presenter (aka Commentary Team Captain): “Mark Nicholas”
Pitch report & memorabilia shop segments: Kerry O’Keeffe - plenty of room for lewd, crude yet hilarious exchanges between him & the commentary team captain should make for great viewing.
Commentators: Jeff Thomson, “Darrell Eastlake”, “Max Walker”, Michael Slater
How refreshing the commentary was during the Australian tour of England earlier this year. The Brits leave our sad excuses for commentators for dead. Insightful comments, light-hearted banter, friendly exchanges of nicknames and not one skerrick of bias for or against either team. And unlike our Aussie crocks, when there was nothing to be said… well… nothing was said! Simply wonderful…
It seems to be a Ch9 malaise. The Footy Show is well and truly past its UBD but they seem to operate on ‘if you’re on a good thing stick to it … and stick to it … and, even when it’s no longer a good thing … stick to it.
Not so keen on Matthews (I’d have the Skull over him any day)
Botham and Willis are shocking Cupachup. Even the english don’t like them. And Nicholas, his suits and golden tan are just a little too much.
Aussie crocks! You strike me as someone who knows nothing about cricket pretending that they do. Like someone who goes to the races only on cup day and ponces about offering tips to pretty ladies.
The old-skool aussie line up were great and showed the way in good test cricket commentary. The best of the modern day one’s - Warne, Holding - owe much to their older counterparts.
At least Benaud could write, was precise, incisive and would never have used such a crass phrase as ‘enough already.’
I’m told Lawry is responsible for chamioning the natter that doesn’t natter, during the quiet bits. When Greig calls him “Bull” it’s the only thing he gets right.
Good riddance to all of the channel 9 crocks.
O’Keefe, Lawson and the rest of the ABC “in my day” mob can bugger off, too.
I strongly agree that a generational turn is way overdue.
Shaking out the junk from under the keys, the above should read “championing the natter that doesn’t matter”.
Oy.
You’re right on the money, except for Mark Nicholas. When I first heard him, I wondered why Channel 9 had hired this too-smooth Pom. The reason is he knows what he’s talking about and can actually describe the game and tell us about tactical niceties we might not have spotted. Keep ‘im.
Keep Slats. Bring in Warnie, Damien Fleming and Geoff Boycott. I’m not so taken with McGill or Damien Martyn, but hey, a change is as good as a holiday.
Please, please no Darrell Eastlake. That was a joke, surely?
No, not Darrell Eastlake. Just the Twelfth Man impersonation of him.
Mark Waugh? Are you on drugs?
Conrete Gannet: Mark Nicholas is a passable but annoying presenter, a simultaneously rude and sycophantic interviewer and a hyper-inflating commentator (“best shot of the day”, rinse and repeat x 24), not to mention thinks he’s a fair bit better than he actually is. And no, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Boycott getting a gig would be embarrassing; hearing about how his granny was better than both Warne and Bradman at the same time every 3 years is way too often.
My favourite Mark Nicholas moment was when he seriously explained that even though Mitchell Johnson didn’t bowl as fast as some other bowlers, when he bowls the ball it hits the bat harder ‘because he is so strong’. What made this Pythonesque forray into physics so memorable was the exeedingly pompous and learned sounding delivery. Comic genius!
But seriously, Mark Nicholas is rubbish and adds nothing to the commentary. Give me a bunch of fast talking grammatically challenged ex-players with some knowledge of the game ahead of a pompous twat reading from a script anyday.
glazedham
Are you actually saying you LIKE the current crop of Nine commentators? You think that saying something… ANYTHING… is good commentating?
You really missed my point, didn’t you? I didn’t say our guys weren’t good players (or even commentators) in their day, but having played the game does not necessarily an orator make.
And while they may have been weally, weally good commenators back in 1979, they simply don’t cut it these days. To follow your argument, they should still actually be playing because they were good players back then too. Perhaps we should get Moose Mossop back doing the rugby league… after all, he was pretty good… once.
Sheesh… and you say I know nothing about the game!
“Perhaps we should get Moose Mossop back doing the rugby league… after all, he was pretty good… once.”
Pretty good at Mossopisms, that’s for sure.