Monday, April 9, 2007

Excerpt from Telegraph: Ranjit Fernando -- Leader of the Pack

"And why not indeed? It really doesn't make any sense, which brings us on to some of the commentators. There are several excellent ones, and no one is better at conveying tactics and what might be taking place in a fielding captain's head than Nasser Hussain. On the other hand, there are some so-called expert summarisers, mostly with a delivery like the Speaking Clock, who specialise in the bleeding obvious.

In this field, leading by a short head from Ramiz Raja is Ranjit Fernando. Batsman plays and misses. "He nearly hit that ball, but he really didn't make contact." Batsman hits just short of fielder. "That ball was in the air for a while, but it didn't quite reach the fielder." Much more of this and there'll be no one watching on the TV either."

Full article available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/03/31/scjohn31.xml

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cricket commentaries on TV as against that on Radio in days gone by is different in that you have to avoid as much as possible in stating what is visually available to the audience and that is where a close study of the game, knowledge of strategies of captains,pitches,statistics of players and teams becomes vital for the commentator.Certainly Ranjit needs to do his home work in this regard.I cannot see a successor to Ranjit in the short term perhaps Mahela or Sanga in the future.I hope this Blog has not been set up by supporters of aspiring contenders to replace Ranjit.

Anonymous said...

In general, all the Sri Lankan (sports) commentators (irrespective of their medium being either English or Sinhala)lack the background knowledge on the game, its history & statistics. So they just keep commenting on what's actually visually available to the average viewer too. Anyway I can't see any other better commentator in the Sri Lankan circuit, since they all (including the ones suggested under "Who Should Replace Ranjit?") share this weekness.One thing to mention: if you are an international commentator, you should not be biased, even towards your own country. The players are there to win their respective countries, but the (genuine) commentator has to be impartial/neutral.

Anonymous said...

First let congratulate the person/s who started this blog. Ranjit may have been a good player in his time but some of us do not get that many talents and his was only playing cricket 30 years ago.
he gives a new definition to bad things happening to good people

Getting Back to his commentary we all agree that it is bad and someone should do him a favour and tell him about it, or at least do us a favour. in certain parts of the world TV's are on mute for 7 to 8 overs during his commnetary. i think like the ICC imposes a retirement age for umpires the Media Moghuls should get these experts to retire at some age maybe over 60 or so.