Nine’s cricket isn’t the sound of summer anymore

WITH whining Kevin Pietersen, verbose Michael Clarke and excitable Michael Slater, Nine’s golden days of cricket commentary have never seemed so far away, writes Mike Colman.

LAST year I was talking to former Test all-rounder Andrew Symonds about the Channel 9 commentary team for the upcoming summer of cricket.

“How do you think they’ll go?” I asked.

“Well, they have just signed the two most unpopular blokes in the game,” he said, referring to Michael Clarke and Kevin Pietersen.

The animosity between “Roy” and his former mate Clarke is well documented and Pietersen has made an art-form of getting people off-side, but when it comes to TV that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In the case of Pietersen, however, it is. The man is unlistenable — and Clarke isn’t far behind.

The golden days of “The Voices of Cricket” have never seemed so far away.

When I was growing up our next door neighbour was a fella named Stan McMillan. He was so old school he’d had to ride a horse to get there. Stan had been a prisoner of the Japanese during the war and when Dad bought a Toyota he’d turn his back to us whenever we drove past.

Every weekend he’d tend his tomatoes and beans and roses with the ABC blaring, the melodious tones of Alan McGilvray’s commentary forming the soundtrack of youthful summers.

Which is what makes the make-up and quality of the various cricket commentary teams so important.

Salad days: Alan McGilvray...

...and Richie Benaud.

Cricket is our national pastime. Matches don’t last for 80 or 90 minutes like football games. They can go for days and the voices of the commentators provide the background to our lives.

Back in the day McGilvray was everywhere, including my sister’s wedding. Mum’s Uncle Harry sat up the back of the church with a transistor radio as Doug Walters neared a century. You could just hear McGilvray’s scratchy little voice coming through Uncle Harry’s earphones between the “I do’s”.

When Kerry Packer took over the game it was Richie Benaud who picked up where McGilvray left off.

To hear Richie in the background was to know that all was as it should be. The cricket was on, the beers were cold and the barbie was hot. Life, as we knew it, was safe for another session.

And what do we get now? The grating, self-obsessed, fingers-down-the-blackboard whine of Kevin Pietersen, the pointless oxygen-theft of Michael Clarke who can use a thousand words to say nothing, and the over-the-top excitement of Michael Slater — a verbal version of his running between wickets.

Then there’s someone who looks a tiny little bit like Shane Warne, and Mark Taylor who, lovely bloke that I’m sure he is, always sounds like he’s trying to sell me an airconditioner.

And once they’re in, it seems like they’re in for life. They used to say that it was harder to get out of the Australian cricket team than it was to get into it. The same could be said of the Channel 9 commentary box.

The only ones I can stand listening to are Ian Healy, Mark Nicholas and Ian Chappell (who while, in the words of Dorothy Parker, “runs the full gamut of emotions from A to B”, provides the last link to the dream team of Richie, Tony Greig and Bill Lawry).

The ratings would suggest that I’m not the only one being turned off — and turning off.

The welcome alternative: Neroli Meadows...

...and Isa Guha

Last summer’s figures were down 32 per cent on the previous year. Admittedly they didn’t involve an Ashes series but, even so, if Pietersen and Clarke are the best Nine can come up with things aren’t going to improve.

The solution? Well, they could hire Billy Birmingham to provide the voices of the dear departed, or they could move with the times.

This year I have been enjoying the coverage on Triple M radio.

It’s about as far from McGilvray as you can get, with an emphasis on the humorous asides of Kerry O’Keefe and Mick Molloy and the laid-back insights of Mark Waugh, but for mine the standouts have been Isa Guha and Neroli Meadows.

Channel 9 experimented with female commentators Kate Fitzpatrick and Stephanie Brantz but it was little more than tokenism and they were doomed to fail.

Triple M has got it right. Isa Guha is an international cricketer who combines knowledge and wit with the most beautiful voice in sport. Meadows broke the biggest story of the summer so far with the Bancroft-Bairstow headbutt yarn.

If Channel 9 wants to break out of the boys’ club mentality and stop the ratings slide, there’s your answer.

It might not be cricket commentary as Stan McMillan knew it, but it’s the future.

Mike Colman is a senior writer at The Courier-Mail.