Substandard commentaries

Commentaries have been part of of cricket since the early days,here are some commentators who make a mess of it.Lets start with our Jimmy....

1) Mohinder Amarnath:

Starts singing whenever he gets an opportunity. And can never talk more than 2 minutes in the same language. “I think ke use wahan pe fieler place nahi… “ “what you say is right but mere khayal se… “. He is one of the stars of ‘fair and lovely’ fourth umpire. And always gives his views in the end. Hears what Srikkanth says and says something which is exactly the opposite.

2) Charu Sharma:

Poor man’s Harsha Bhogle but gets all the big tournaments – World Cup, ICC Knockout and most of the Home series shown in DD. He is also the host of a crap DD show ‘Fair and Lovely Fourth Umpire’ where he calls himself the fourth umpire. And also gets lovely lady ‘commentators’ like Mandira Bedi and Roshni Chopra to sit next to him. He, like Sanjay Manjrekar very much.He tries to be too ‘neutral’ but unlike Sanjay, ends up being more irritating than boring. And listening to him, you always feel your team will lose no matter what the position is. His favourite lines are “Lets not underestimate the opposition. What if we lose 3-4 early wickets?” “what if India won the toss, bowl first and there is no dew later?”

3) Arun Lal:

A long time partner of Maninder Singh. The pair of Maninder and Arun Lal is responsible for lots of damaged mute buttons on remote controls. Maninder Singh has only one fan in the world and it is Arun Lal. Whatever Maninder has to say will be followed by “Ji Maninder ekdum sahi kaha aapne”. Recently he got an idea that he should do commentary in english too and the DD guys were just too willing to let him do that. His first experience : India were playing West Indies and Ganguly hit a hook shot for a four. Arun Lal “Bahut ach… Very good shot!! Ganguly is a great hooker”. His co-commentator Michael Holding was shocked and after few seconds repeated “hooker?”
One of his most famous lines “Great shot between point and square leg”!!! and what that??? A shot over the keeper?? And “His balls have been hit badly”

4) Kris Srikkanth:

A very heavy south Indian accent and highly biased towards India. Debuted along with Venkatesh Prasad during the 2003 World Cup but unlike him, hasn’t quit commentary and is now an ‘expert’ in ‘fair and lovely fourth umpire’ – A crap show hosted by Charu Sharma during match breaks.
Some Srikkanth Classics :
* If Zaheer can bowl a little extra pace, it will make the ball come to the bat more faster
* Rameez, if Zimbabwe shock Australia by scoring 275 runs, Australia will shock Zimbabwe by scoring 276 runs
* One needs to understand that Test cricket is Test cricket and One-day cricket is One-day cricket
* England players have a typical English like attitude, which is different than Pakistani attitude
* England players traditionally have been playing very traditional cricket
* Venkatesh Prasad, don't get upset because I upset you, take it cool
* The Zimbabwe-England tie is very important from India's point of view because irrespective of the outcome there, India have to beat England.
During WC 2003, Srikkanth was out there to give pitch report :Kapil Dev - from the studio: "Sri, how the wicket looks like? Is there any moisture?"Kris Srikkanth - from the stadium: "Kapil Paaji! Kaise hai tu?".

5) Ranjit Fernando:

India have Sanjay Manjrekar. Pakistan have Rameez Raza and Srilanka have Ranjit Fernando. Probably Sri Lanka’s greatest commentator ever. He believes in few things and never changes his view on them. They are :
* Sri Lanka is the greatest team ever. If they lose, its because they played badly that day.
* Muttiah Murlitharan is the greatest bowler ever. If he bowls a wide, its because he has some plans.. and If a batsman hits him for four, its often a ‘mishit’ and was aimed somewhere else.
* And he believes in reciting the full names of Sri Lankan players no matter how loooooooooong they are.
And his accent!!! “Eye’ve cott et too”

*Another famous line of him is "the crowd is chanting his name dhoni!dhoni!dhoni!

6) Maninder Singh:

A hindi commentator who thinks a line isn’t complete unless he uses 3-4 english words in it.
“khoobsoorat ball aur batsman ne loft kar diya over mid off. Isse mein good shot kahoonga”
Once Ganguly was bowled and Maninder was jumping in the commentary box shouting how good a ball it was. Some time later, he screamed “aur doosra wicket!! Zabardast slower ball” (when they were showing slow action replay)
His problem is he gets excited even on singles. “Aur ye zabardast shot. Superb timing ke saath khela hua khoobsoorat shot… par seedha fielder ke paas. Sirf ek run milega”
When a batsman scores a fifty, “achi innings thi. Abhi inko century banana chahiye” and when a batsman scores a century “bahut achi innings abhi inko carry on karma chahiye”
And Maninder Singh has this habit of reading out loud anything written on the screen like required run rate, wickets in hand, etc.. and once he even read out an advertisement.11) Sanjay ManjrekarJust recently (couple of years ago) Sanjay started commentary. His English is quite good but its because of what he says, he comes at #11 in this list. His main problem is that he tries too hard to be unbiased and that usually makes him give negative comments about India. His commentary is mostly lifeless without enthusiasm (except when India lose wickets. The only time he seemed happy behind the mike was when Rahul Dravid declared when Sachin Tendulkar [he pronounces him as Ten-dool-kur was on 194) and has this very bad habit of talking and talking and talking during presentation ceremonies.
This happened once :Manjrekar to a captain : That was a great victory. What did you think of the wicket this morning? we could see some moisture and felt it could give some help to the bowlers and your bowlers bowled an excellent opening spell which really took away the game from the opposition. And your opening batsmen gave the team just the start you wanted, but I think that opening spell is what took away the game?Captain : “yea”

7) Rameez Raza:

Pakistani version of Sanjay Manjrekar. Extremely boring like #11 but has an ability to be biased and can be unbelievably optimistic. During the Ind-Pak match in WC2003, even when Sachin and Kaif were batting well after laying a solid foundation for a win, Rameez believed Shoaib can take all the remaining wickets.
During WC2003,Ravi Shastri: Now, Sachin is struggling with cramps out there, he might do well to ask for a runner.Rameez Raza: The way Sachin is batting, Waqar might not think of allowing a runner so that Sachin will struggle and can be dismissed.Ravi Shastri: Rameez, Spoken like a true Pakistani!!Rameez Raza: Thank you Ravi.

8) Venkatesh Prasad:

Maybe its unfair to put his name in the list as he has done commentary in only one series. But it was the world cup and I will remember his ‘performance’ for a long time.
He tried to talk sense, he tried to talk properly, he tried not to be over awed by the people around, tried not to be spotted by the camera when he was looking at mandira bedi but failed in everything.
He couldn’t speak a line properly “I t-t-t-t-t-think it was a good p-p-p-p-itch to b-bat”. Reminded me of that joke where a kid comes home disappointed at not being selected at the speech team. Father : “Son, why you didn’t get selected?” Son : “T-t-t-t-they t-t-t-t-told me I was t-t-t-t-t-t-too t-t-t-t-tall”
Try to make sense out of this (It was when Brett Lee hit Tikolo on the head)"Definitely, Tikolo is coming in line. Of course, you need to come in line! But definitely Brett Lee is also very much bowling in line and hit Tikolo on the head."
Also got very excited when one thing he said out of thousand happened.He wanted Sachin to open and Tony Greig thought Sachin was better at #4. When Sachin became a super success in world cup as an opener,..Venkatesh Prasad: "You wanted Sachin to bat at #4 and I said that was a bad idea. I was right. What do you have to say?"Tony Greig: "I'm allowed to be wrong once in a year and you're allowed to be right once in a year."

Thats it frnds,i like to thank my friend balaji for compiling this post.