Cricket commentary Clichés that need to be banned

Cricket commentary Clichés that need to be banned: With the stadium audiences declining continuously, the onus of restoring the interest back in the game rest of course with players but also with the commentators as well. For the scope of this article let us focus our attention on Cricket commentators. They add flavor to the game and can spark interest in a dead rubber too. Ask a genuine Cricket fan and he will tell you what a joy it was to listen to Richie Benaud or listening to Radio commentator backing the 60’s and 70’s.

Commentators need to be insightful about the game and remain unbiased. They stand for freedom of speech and should utilize their right very judiciously. Though the commentators provide an account of the proceedings on the ground but sometimes they tend to be very mechanical in their approach and limited in terms of their vocabulary.

We as TV audiences tend to thrive on the spontaneity in their voices and love to hear them lend a fresh perspective to the game. If this is not the case then after a while we tend to get tired of their particular punch lines and start expecting them to invent new punch lines.

It is for this reason that Harsha Bhogle is an absolute darling of every commentary lover because there is so much spontaneity in his voice and he modulates his voice so beautifully so as to not get mundane.

It cannot be said so confidently in the same light about the other commentators who have their fixed set of taglines which they repeat day in and day out. In particular, the following phrases/ comments used by commentators have become so clichéd that it is about time that they banned.

1. Playing this game for the pride:

Often we see commentators resort to saying that so-and-so team is playing a particular match to restore its pride, having lost the series in previous encounter(s).

To be honest, this is not a very clever thing to say. Nothing can instill more pride in you than playing in your national colors. Hence every game you play irrespective of whether you win/ loose doesn’t really matter as the pride of nation is stake every time you play. Even though the team won a game/series/tournament doesn’t imply that pride was not at stake… Pretty simple, isn’t it?

Hence in lieu of aforementioned points, it really makes no sense for commentators to say that Teams play for pride in games where the result doesn’t matter. It’s about time that they stopped using this clichéd commentary term and come up with something original.

Also Read – 20 Hilarious one liners used by the Cricket commentators

2. So-and-so is very Passionate about the game:

It is usually the case that players who are very vocal in the field such as Virat Kohli, David Warner are described as being very “passionate” about the game by the commentators. It seems a bit odd because by this logic players like Rahul Dravid, Ajinkya Rahane who like to keep their emotion to themselves on the field should be not at all passionate about the game.

Every player who makes it to the highest level in the game can’t make it unless he/she is passionate about the game. There has to be additional factors which make them successful at the highest arenas possible. Passion is always a great thing to have, but remember being Vocal does not really mean being passionate.

3. None of the teams deserved to loose:

Well this one is self explanatory, isn’t it? The game is designed in a way so as to give us a winner and a looser. Sure, the game may come very close and either team could be the winner. But at the end of the day it is as simple as this – whichever teams holds its nerve better deserves to win. No point cribbing about it once the result of the game is decided.

If a team lost despite playing reasonably good Cricket then certainly something must have gone wrong somewhere down the line and they need to improve it.

Article by Pomil Bachan Proch