Your Favourite and Most Hated Commentator?

Of all the English-speaking commentators who regularly feature as commentators, who is your favourite and who is your least favourite? Who do you enjoy listening to as you watch the action and who infuriates you to the point where you press the mute button?

I can't stand Mark Nicholas, without a doubt the worst commentator on the sport, and the only one I would actively seek to avoid. Ian Healey is dreadful too, something exacerbated by the 3 man teams they seem to favour on Channel 9 now, meaning that even if one co-commentator tries to ignore his prattishness, the other one (invariably Michael Slater) will join in with it.

Good ones for analysis are Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton, Shane Warne too when he is in the mood, then for blunt speaking Ian Chappell, and for sheer joy and enthusiasm Bill Lawry and Tony Greig.

Barring Harsha Bhogle and Sanjay Manjrekar, all the Indian commentators are pretty poor. Thankfully, we got Sanjay on Sky in the UK for the duration of the India-England series and I enjoyed listening to his insight. Pity we don't get to see more of Harsha here as he is usually on duty for ESPN-Star, only really get to listen to him during IPL/Champions League and he is great there.

I like all the excitable commentators. The key thing about commentating on a game, even more than insight I would say, is to liven up proceedings and thoroughly engage you. No one does it better than Tony Greig, which is why I would say he is my favourite. Pommie, Haysman and Jackers are really good in this regard too, which is why South Africa series always excite me. Morrison used to fun but he has really become grating in recent times. He is better suited to T20 games. For insight, I always enjoyed Holding and Bishop, the West Indian fast bowlers' views are often accurate and shed light on things I never really thought about much before.

I agree with Clobs on Mark Nicholas. He is far from the worst commentator but something about him is incredibly irritating. I would say the worst is Sanath Jayasuriya, I don't know if he can be considered regular yet but he has been doing the recent SL series. If only his commentary had the same spark that characterised his batting. I hope they send Arnold/Abeysinghe to the SA/SL series without Jayasuriya.

You guys have got to be kidding me, no mention of David Lloyd???

I like Lloyd for his sheer humour.  Guys like Holding, Chappell, Bishop, Atherton are very insightful.

There is not much commentators that tick me off, but Arun lal is very dull, and there was a Sri lankan that I found irritating, can't remember his name but I guess people will know who I'm talking about.

Sanjay from India is quite partial, he's a good commie.

Not really BP, I've watched whole summers of Lloyd, didn't get irritating.  The man's ah legend!

Athers and Nasser are top notch - they don't witter , when they comment it's worth listening to. I love Bumble and have a wish to meet him in the bar - he's a grand lad !
         Ian Chappell knows his stuff and I like his reminiscing of the old days (maybe because I do it a lot as well!) - his stories of Lillee and Thommo still resonate.  I'm not a big fan of Tony Grieg - talsk a lot and says very little. Mark Nicholas is so up the backsides of everything Australian it really grates !   No one's mentioned the finest of them all though - Richie Benaud is streets ahead from a purely cricket perspective - totally unbiased , a man of few words and is the best at letting the pictures tell the story. He's probably the only commentator who could carry a broadcast for an entire day and not irritate at all.
            The locals in SA are okay , no more than that. Haysmen is a sensationalist (sensational shot !) and Robin Jackman is a tad dull - he knows his cricket , but is rather repetitious.  As for Pommie Mbangwa - don't get me started !!

     Lastly , the one I really dislike (even more than Nicholas!) is Ian Botham.  I worshipped him as a player and all his fine charity work - some good books as well - but his commentating is wooden and so , so bleeding obvious !! I think he probably has only about 7 or 8 different lines and all of them are rubbish !


Edited by Sledger - 02 December 2011 at 5:00am

I think this thread shows there is a tendency to appreciate the commentators we don't have to listen to all the time as a general rule - there is only so much you can say on cricket, and when you hear the same blokes week in week out, year after year, they will become a touch tiresome, so when you hear the overseas commentators, it sounds so much better - witness the number of Channel 9 commentators I expressed a liking for.

Sledge was perhaps the first to mention Richie Benaud in the thread; in my view Richie is a bit of a fading force, he seems tired - he's not getting any younger and I genuinely believe that his ageing is the reason that Ch 9 opted to have 3 commentators on at once (we'll see if I am right if they go back to 2 once Richie eventually retires). That said, he is unquestionably the finest cricket commentator ever, and it is hard to imagine anyone ever usurping that title.

I also wanted to say that Michael Holding's commentary is hugely over-rated - to my ears he's not far removed from the Geoffrey Boycott school of "it was much better in my day" commentary, but just because he says it in a deep voice with an exotic accent, people rave about him.

Ian Bishop is a smart man, he is very careful with what he says.  Micheal Holding calls it as he sees it, but Clobber is right about him and Boycott!

Originally posted by MalhotraRaj84 The other reason could be due to the fact that Richie does not do a live commentary/ball by ball on TV anymore.

Sam the man is about 80 now. He has contract with 9 network for few more years I suppose, I remember some report which said he won't be doing things like live ball by ball , taking commentary sessions in rounds like earlier he used to.

Originally posted by BackwardPoint What's wrong with Pommie Sledge? I think he is pretty good for entertainment value. Jackers is far from dull, I have always liked listening to him.

Maybe Clobs has a point - Pommie and Jackers commentate on all the local cricket as well as the test matches . Maybe I'm just tired of the same old voices/faces.  I find Pommie very often goes over the top - as if he needs to raise the temperature , build tension when the game's plodding along. There are quiet moments in all cricket matches and they should be respected !

lol I gotta add that one to the cricket cliches thread.

In all seriousness though, he said it about 4 times and it's only because the package has the sixes compiled back-to-back that it seems excessive. In real-time, you probably wouldn't even notice it. Secondly, I would far prefer to see an IPL game featuring Gilly smacking it about with Pommie bellowing "OH MY WORD, HE'S GONE AGAIN, THAT IS HUMUNGOUS!" rather than some boring sod giving analysis. It's T20, it's IPL. The commentary is meant to be fast-paced and exciting. Sledger's point was referring to Pommie needlessly injecting hype and excitement when the game is meant to be progressing slowly, which is a valid point even if I don't necessarily agree. You can hardly use Pommie's commentary in an IPL game where Gilly smashed a 42 ball century as an example that supports Sledger's point. If you don't like him then fine but that video proves nothing.