The nightmare called Television Commentary

1998 Coca Cola Cup- India vs Australia in the finals at Sharjah.

1999 The ICC World Cup- South Africa vs Australia at Headingly

2006 South Africa vs Australia this time at the Wanderers, Johannesburg

Great ODI's all of them. Can you imagine them with Rajinder Amarnath (How many sons did Lala Amarnath have??? Everyday one new one comes up!!!) or Javagal Shrinath at the box. All of them had one common thread that was Tony Greig in the commentary box. Richie Benaut with his Grandpa influence, Geoff Boycott with his Mum and Shilpa Shetty, Siddhu with his histrionics, Shastri and gavaskar with their expert and neutral analysis, and above all Tony Greig with his orgasmic and yet so honest description…Where are they???

And yep the most famous Alumni of IIMA Harsha Bhogle…Sweet and Critical.( I know just 2-3 more...the famous ones from IIMA).

My father tells me stories of the days when people were glued to the Radio for commentary. Those were surely better times. Infact technology is crapping the scene up rather than improving it in any sense. Channels come up with so called expert panels (some of whom played just a few matches...and speak like that they know everything)

Situation much more worse in football now. So much so that I wrote a mail to ESPNSTAR to chuck of its Hindi Commentary. With phrases like "Ronalandinhio ne baxe main khalbali macha di!!!" God better save us. That poor soul doesn’t even know the names of player. It sounds disgusting.

And somehow things get worse on television nowadays. The entry of Mandira Bedi was a huge turning point to the whole cricket saga. She definitely was brought drive the male hormones crazy with her noodle straps but I bet Tony Greig can do the same without even wearing them. Though it would look funny with his Hat on.

Somehow I don’t understand the thing behind Ex Cricketers every one of them coming up in the box. And I surely have nothing against girls coming up or someone not with a good cricketing Career backing him. Saw this girl in the South Africa Australia series and she was great much better than the girl named ROSHNI who sat in the "Fair and Lovely Fourth umpire Show".

This show though has to get the award for the worst cricketing show ever. Infact the respct I had for Mohinder Amarnath and Shrikanth is now furrrr and the way they talk its horrible.

I just want to tell a few of the chaps that you are not for this please.

And as Maninder singh says "Mujhe Samjah nahi aa raha hai yashpal ki hum commentary kyon karte hain??"

Yashpal"Jee haan maninder. Main bilkul shamat hoon aapse."

Desh says" Appne Khasa pareshan kiya hai hume.Please Spare us...Matches should go back to Silent Era...nothing is better than this..."

I read something on Commentary here too, the inzy-blackwell incident is nice
"The nightmare called Television Commentary"
Sorry for Picking up the same title but no other way of putting it up. Nightmare though may be too lenient.

qu'est dans le nom? <-->Whats in the name?

Name....a right name...the search for it kept me away from this act for so long...

Well thought about many finally zeroed on this one. Many reasons.
Most of them go with a catchy title. I thought of many but hardly any of them left now. Infact 95% of those blogs are inactive.
Ok so thought about adding my nickname to it. Now desiblogs sort of names doesn’t sound right for the family audience does it and it would have to challenge my college firewall too but it would have garnered many hits none the less.
Anyway the first name is the thing of the past with so many namesakes around(7 in my batch) i give a stare to someone who calls me Abhishek(kya Bola bhai/behan no problem calling any girl that in college yaar ;))
God my whole generation full of abhisheks and looking at the popularity of Abhishek Bacchan seems it would be same for the next generation too.
I get a random thought all the time this may be the most common name in the world. Obviously China being the most populas country gives stiff competition but there all the names are random. Heard a story in bachpan that when a Chinese is born his relatives through a DABBA full of stones and they name their child after the sound which comes from the DABBA. That’s why the Chinese I think went through heavy shortage of steel in the 60's Mao China which led to him ordering a blast furnace at every rural home leading to severe shortage of food material because in that period the population was exploding too.
Also another option was adding another name desh to it. Sounds all right but people going so much desh bhakt nowadays (temporary RDB effect) it would have been a cliché.
So going ahead with my surname. Best possible option as its surprisingly still not there. I mean I thought Deshpande to be a popular surname. For those who don’t know surprisingly there is a Deshpande Center for Research at MIT. And those of don’t know MIT cant help.
Its Maharastra Institute of Technology at Pune: P

Though there is one at the Real MIT.
So finally I give into my bollywood inspirations and a clichéd title to come up with this. Hope this hangs around for a while.