Radio Cricket Commentary - Is it a thing of the past!
Yesterday's Cricket controversy on NDTV featuring Suresh Sarayya, Irrepressible Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Chatruvedi and of course Sherry/Sonali covered the captioned subject and the deteriorating standards of AIR coverage. Those days when TV was a luxury and unheard of except few posh villas, AIR Radio commentary was the only source of getting updated scores and commentators like Suresh Sarayya, Balu Alagannan, Anant Settlewad( not sure whether I have got his name right) Tony Cozier etc ruled the roost. But pick of them was in the international arena and BBC sports with the legendary Brian Johnston, John Arlott and then great voice of Christopher Martin Jenkins to recap a few. Radio commentary had its charm since you had to innovate and keep the audience glued to their sets and there was no picture unlike TV to back up the commentary. If you had a long pause the listeners won't know what's happening and start cursing you. My pick of expert commentators those days was the great Lala Amaranth who used the opportunity to bring up his son's names at will whether or not the occasion demanded such a reference. One of his oft repeated famous quotes when India did not have proper opening pair' India needs a very good left hand opening batsmen who is already well set in domestic cricket'( It didn't need a cricketing pundit to figure out that he was talking about Surindar Amarnath)
Those days I never used to miss even Ranji commentary on the Radio (No wonder I made no appreciable progress in my studies or career) and the most memorable and funny moment was that of great Mr. RT Parthasarathy when he got carried away after Tamil Nadu lost 4-5 wickets for cheap runs and in the excitement shouted' Iyyayyo TE Srinivasanum run outu' and the co commentators burst into laughter! All said and done Radio commentary still has its charm and if you can privatize and allow the FM stations to have a go I am sure that the masses would get back to this medium. Imagine the thousands of Auto, taxi lorry drivers and laborers spread across sub continent for whom this sport is the only hobby in an otherwise monotonous routine and a refreshing voice in the local vernacular languages like Hindi, Tamil and Urdu with a little bit of humor added up can do the job!
RK
Yesterday's Cricket controversy on NDTV featuring Suresh Sarayya, Irrepressible Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Chatruvedi and of course Sherry/Sonali covered the captioned subject and the deteriorating standards of AIR coverage. Those days when TV was a luxury and unheard of except few posh villas, AIR Radio commentary was the only source of getting updated scores and commentators like Suresh Sarayya, Balu Alagannan, Anant Settlewad( not sure whether I have got his name right) Tony Cozier etc ruled the roost. But pick of them was in the international arena and BBC sports with the legendary Brian Johnston, John Arlott and then great voice of Christopher Martin Jenkins to recap a few. Radio commentary had its charm since you had to innovate and keep the audience glued to their sets and there was no picture unlike TV to back up the commentary. If you had a long pause the listeners won't know what's happening and start cursing you. My pick of expert commentators those days was the great Lala Amaranth who used the opportunity to bring up his son's names at will whether or not the occasion demanded such a reference. One of his oft repeated famous quotes when India did not have proper opening pair' India needs a very good left hand opening batsmen who is already well set in domestic cricket'( It didn't need a cricketing pundit to figure out that he was talking about Surindar Amarnath)
Those days I never used to miss even Ranji commentary on the Radio (No wonder I made no appreciable progress in my studies or career) and the most memorable and funny moment was that of great Mr. RT Parthasarathy when he got carried away after Tamil Nadu lost 4-5 wickets for cheap runs and in the excitement shouted' Iyyayyo TE Srinivasanum run outu' and the co commentators burst into laughter! All said and done Radio commentary still has its charm and if you can privatize and allow the FM stations to have a go I am sure that the masses would get back to this medium. Imagine the thousands of Auto, taxi lorry drivers and laborers spread across sub continent for whom this sport is the only hobby in an otherwise monotonous routine and a refreshing voice in the local vernacular languages like Hindi, Tamil and Urdu with a little bit of humor added up can do the job!
RK
posted by RK at 9:26 AM
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