Take it from me, commentary isn’t easy. You have to know what you are talking about, be able to describe things and think on your feet. And not swear. Not swearing is very important – unless you book Jrod, in which case you ought to know what you are getting and plan to pay the fines accordingly.
And sometimes you just have to keep talking. The stunt that was pulled on Henry Blofeld in his first BBC commentary is now the stuff of legend. I used to do audio commentary for the blind, where you have to keep talking or the audience really do think you’ve buggered off for a pint.
Similarly, I yield to no-one in my admiration for David Lloyd. If anyone has managed to blend insight with humour, wit with intelligence, in cricket commentary, it is Bumble. But tonight, he went too far.
The point of no return was when Bangladeshi wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim managed to get himself smacked in the face by the ball. Now, I can forgive him for omitting to point out that this could only happen to Rahim, who is not only the smallest player I have ever seen in international cricket but possibly the smallest cricketer ever. Keeping wicket without a helmet was, for him, either ridiculously brave or ridiculously stupid. What I can’t forgive is the stick that he then proceeded to give to Rahim’s replacement, batsman Junaid Siddique.
Keeping wicket isn’t a simple job. Just ask Matt Prior. Being asked to do it at a moments notice is even harder, especially if you are not a regular ‘keeper. Junaid (or ‘Zunead’ as he seems to now prefer, which sounds like a Marvel Comics villain to me) was thrown in at the deep end by a management who didn’t think it worth bringing a second keeper on a fortnight’s tour.
I’ve done this stand-in keeper thing once myself, when my then-club’s temperamental Aussie keeper Treacle suddenly decided after 15 overs that he had had enough and wanted a bowl, ripped off his pads and refused to put them on again. It’s the most difficult thing you will do on a cricket pitch, for so many reasons. So when Bumble started laughing when Zunead let through five wides in his first over, I bristled. After all, if the bowler chucks the ball way down the leg side when he knows that he’s not got a regular keeper behind the stumps, where does the blame really lie?
There then followed patronising comment after comment during the rest of his commentary shift, a theme which was picked up by the lesser commentators on the Sky team. It was all extremely unfair to a man doing his level best in difficult circumstances.
Moreover, in the past few years, England have utilised Marcus Trescothick, Vikram Solanki, Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan as wicketkeepers in ODIs – the latter two in the same injury circumstances as forced Zunead to take over. I don’t remember the same level of snide commentary being directed at any of their efforts.
In this utterly pointless series, it is going to be hard for anyone to enhance their reputation. But David Lloyd and his colleagues demonstrated tonight that is still going to be easy to sully it.





