Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Shastri, & Sunil Gavaskar: The clowns of India Cricket

[zumi]

These three have turned watching Indian cricket on TV a pathetic charade. Them whoring themselves to BCCI money have effectively made themselves from being a critique of anything related to Indian cricket players, DRS, BCCI, stadiums, etc. And I can't stand Harshar Bhogle, not withstanding is nasal voice and lame sucking up, but his hypocritical stand on being a lover of cricket and what he has become.

[Soorma_Bhopali]

They started out well in 90s but have become parodys of themselves. Hearing there commentary always has the feeling of been there, done that . No insights to the game and repeating cliched comments. Add Arun lal and L.Sivaramakrishnan also to the list . Contrast that with the excellent Sky Sports team with masterclass with Warne & Strauss , contrasting and free-flowing views and debates in the commentary with Bumble ,Gower and Hussain and you know what we are missing . I think Shelflife of these four - Arun lal , Sivaramakrishnan , Shastri and Gavaskar are defintely over and they should now retire from Commentary team :) . It's hard to say 'coz I was a big fan of Gavaskar 's batting AND His commentary . Manjrekar , Ganguly ,Rahul Dravid ,Aakash Chopra & Wasim Akram should be the best for India home series

[King Tendulkar]

They are paid handsomley by BCCI to say what BCCI wants them to say. Sad and pathetic we have reached this satge

[Sachinism]

It's been long established, if you just listened to them from years back, you would've noticed how absurd their points. How pro-BCCI/India they are. On top of that Harsha is a mind-reader of players. Gavaskar thinks he's an impersonator and Ravi is cliches galore. All painful to listen to.

[express bowling]

Harsha and Siva are the worst. I don't know whether Harsha himself understands what he is trying to say these days. And Siva is giving boring commentary a new dimension. It is like he is playing the same tape every day, nomatter what the match. None of the 4 are interested in discussing technical points about cricket. It is mostly just gossiping amongst themselves about the same things.

[Sandeep99]

Harsha Bhogle has the sanity to give the opposition some credit.. Ravi Shastri and Gavaskar are something even *****s would not approve of

[G_B_]

dont we all ***** ourselves out for money? Infact i am on record of saying i dont mind calling Dhoni's captaincy the best thing to happen to the world if i am going to be paid handsomely by the BCCI.

[G_B_]

and speaking about Ravi Shastri and his clichés. Lets get things straight (A) the rank and file Indian fan (the masses) dont have access to the internet. India is going through a golden age of television. More and more Indian households are getting their Tv's for the first time. (B) they dont have have a good hold of the english language. I think about 10% of Indians can speak English fluently. Some 40% speak and understand broken English. IE they like his clichés. © They work hard all day and dont have time to analyse politics. They want to be entertained to forget their woes. They dont want to read or have time to read Sharda Ugra's latest high minded smug piece in cricinfo. (D) They find test cricket "boring". Ravi Shastri caters to the masses. That became painfully clear when i visited India early in 2013. My friends driver speaks broken english and loves ravi the commentator. I asked him if he liked test cricket, he says he finds it boring. Prefers T20s and ODIs. Just to make it clear i asked the watchman in my building in India and even the woman who comes to do the dishes and my local barber. Similar answers. Dont get me wrong, as somebody who has been born and raised in the UK, I find Ravi's commentary to be crap. But At the same time I realise he is admired by the masses and I for one dont want to look down upon them. and maybe the test cricket is real cricket brigade need to stop looking down upon people who prefer Ravi and what they consider to be low brow cricket....

[Lord]

dont we all ***** ourselves out for money? Infact i am on record of saying i dont mind calling Dhoni's captaincy the best thing to happen to the world if i am going to be paid handsomely by the BCCI.

but that amounts to corruption when you are a commentator and are supposed to give your own views.Let these guys leave commentary and they can call Anirudh Srikkanth better than Bradman for all I care

[G_B_]

but that amounts to corruption when you are a commentator and are supposed to give your own views.Let these guys leave commentary and they can call Anirudh Srikkanth better than Bradman for all I care

really? in a world where people do unspeakable things. Your worried about somebody not speaking their mind? Maybe you should stop listening. That choice is most certainly in your hands. As mentioned in my earlier post. The rank and file Indian fans (like my friends driver etc) like what Sunny and Ravi have to say. The views of firmly middle class Indians and NRI's who populate this site are quite frankly out of tune with the indian masses. I read a report saying that some 20% of Indians were middle class. I am guessing the 80% have no problem with Sunny and Ravi. The viewing figures would make that apparent

[The Realist]

They started out well in 90s but have become parodys of themselves. Hearing there commentary always has the feeling of been there, done that . No insights to the game and repeating cliched comments. Add Arun lal and L.Sivaramakrishnan also to the list . Contrast that with the excellent Sky Sports team with masterclass with Warne & Strauss , contrasting and free-flowing views and debates in the commentary with Bumble ,Gower and Hussain and you know what we are missing . I think Shelflife of these four - Arun lal , Sivaramakrishnan , Shastri and Gavaskar are defintely over and they should now retire from Commentary team :) . It's hard to say 'coz I was a big fan of Gavaskar 's batting AND His commentary . Manjrekar , Ganguly ,Rahul Dravid ,Aakash Chopra & Wasim Akram should be the best for India home series

Sky are anything but excellent when you have incompetents like the one-eyed Botham and the useless Nick Knight. Their football coverage of the EPL is even worse, pathetic jingoism that hypes up the league "as the greatest in the world" when the skills levels are embarrassing, the world's best players play elsewhere and the Eng national team is a joke. If you want biased sell-out commentary then head there.

[jalebi_bhai]

Sky are anything but excellent when you have incompetents like the one-eyed Botham and the useless Nick Knight. Their football coverage of the EPL is even worse, pathetic jingoism that hypes up the league "as the greatest in the world" when the skills levels are embarrassing, the world's best players play elsewhere and the Eng national team is a joke. If you want biased sell-out commentary then head there.

+1 Sky Sports are no better......on par with the Star Cricket stooges.......

[putrevus]

Aren't Nasser Hussain ,Botham from Sky Sports and Ian Healy (this guy was defending Micheal Clarke holding Sachin and saying it was Sachin's fault in 2008 cb series) and Slater from Channel nine any better, they are far worse "homers" than these guys. What about Kepler Wessells and Super Sports stooges are they any better. Of all EspnStar guys Bhogle and Manjerekar are worst, their commentary reeks inferiority complex. Shastri in my view is decent but has vocabulary issues, Sunny I think has become old and lazy. It has become fashionable for everybody to pounce on BCCI. Sharda Ugra is gaining her five min in limelight by using BCCI.

[G_B_]

Nick Knight really is crap. No wonder KP had a go at him. Every country has a Botham. Thats just what they are there to do. You need a right compliment as level headed people and people who wear their hearts on their sleeve. Australia has healy and mark waugh to match Botham. To be frank the commentary this ashes was tedious. While i for one dont back the BCCI's stance of no discussion on the DRS. The Sky team talked half the time about the DRS system. Not about the actual cricket being played. At the end of the day you have to ask yourself, what is the commentator there for? Some people might like the insights. Some people might like them for adding to the viewing mood (whatever that is) I have personally been watching cricket long enough to make up my own mind. I dont need for eg anybody telling or not telling me that Ishant Sharma is ****. Anybody with half a brain apart our selectors and administrators will come to that point.

[jalebi_bhai]

dont we all ***** ourselves out for money? Infact i am on record of saying i dont mind calling Dhoni's captaincy the best thing to happen to the world if i am going to be paid handsomely by the BCCI.

Precisely.....People have the choice to either listen to them or mute their TV sets......I honestly prefer listening to Hindi commentary.....it's not significantly better but anything to avoid listening to LSRK and Ravi......

[Robelinda]

Seems these restrictions came into place for the England series in India earlier this year. Found it hilarious when they were saying yesterday how the ground was full, empty blue seats everywhere! Pathetic.

[jalebi_bhai]

Seems these restrictions came into place for the England series in India earlier this year. Found it hilarious when they were saying yesterday how the ground was full' date=' empty blue seats everywhere! Pathetic.[/quote'] It wasn't jam packed or anything but a lot of people did show up inspite of the stadium's inconvenient location......though most of them probably left after Dhoni got out........

[G_B_]

Seems these restrictions came into place for the England series in India earlier this year. Found it hilarious when they were saying yesterday how the ground was full' date= empty blue seats everywhere! Pathetic.

Actually the ground was full. People were streaming in upto 2 hours into the match. Many people come a little late once they hear India is batting second. So maybe Rob you need to ask for local judgements before coming to conclusions. If you would have seen the entire match you would have realised the ground was filling up as the game progressed. It happens in many grounds in India. I have been to IPL matches that took about 30-40 minutes to fill out after the first ball had been bowled.

[putrevus]

Seems these restrictions came into place for the England series in India earlier this year. Found it hilarious when they were saying yesterday how the ground was full' date=' empty blue seats everywhere! Pathetic.[/quote'] is it more pathetic than channel nine and fox guys trying to portray Aussies as competent team both during Indian series and Ashes.

[The Outsider]

Looks like some ICF posters are also on BCCI payroll to ***** themselves.