It's All Happening
I happened to hear my son going to the toilet the other day. I wasn’t spying; it’s a very small house, so that from the front bedroom I can hear my partner munching on a salad sandwich. It wasn’t the action of his ablutions so much as the commentary that went with it that struck me: ‘Ricky Ponting does a wee. Now he washes his hands in the sink and takes a small drink ...’ When, in my distant youth, I played backyard cricket, we all commentated as we played.
Sports commentary rules television sport. It’s been with us longer than a Tiger Woods drive, but has metamorphosed into a monster that won’t shut up. Commentators no longer give players names and sit back to let us enjoy the visuals; they intrude, impinge and reminisce, until the blood seeps from our ears.
The change in television sports commentary happened with the advent of betting. The hapless colour and movement vocaliser, who had simply described an event or performance, now had to predict what was going to happen. I remember in the early nineties, Bill Lawry using the white-squiggly-line pen on my television to suggest where a fielder should be placed. The next ball, Steve Waugh, who was captain at the time, moved a player there and had the batsman caught. This sent Tony Greig into a frenzy of field-placing predictions that made the screen look like a bored teenager had graffitied the MCG. Tony’s still trying to make predictions, with all the insight of a priest in a brothel.
Commentators help to make a traditional game like cricket seem informal and viewer friendly. It is a sport overloaded with obscure rules that make it impervious to cultures that have not been brought up on the gentlemen’s game. 20/20 cricket has made the pyjama game of one-day cricket look as traditional as Mum’s Christmas roast on a forty-degree day. The players’ backs are emblazoned with nicknames. Our society has become so busy that no one even has time to say a full name. Nicknames are very important to sport; just ask Slats, Church, Punter, Roy or Tubby.
Perhaps commentary could be used to help us understand bigger events than sport. I wish the Channel Nine cricket commentary team had been in Dallas in 1963.
BILL: Welcome to Dallas for JFK’s drive through the city. Tony Greig is on the grassy knoll as we speak. Tony?
TONY: Thanks, Bill. I’ve used the key test and it’s very firm ground here, with a perfect view of the passing motorcade. If you look closely at the turf, you’ll see empty shells. I think someone’s been practising ... Back to you, Bill.
BILL: Here comes the motorcade now. There’s the President and ... something’s going on ... the President’s been shot. What an amazing shot that was. Special comments from Richie Benaud ...
RICHIE: I don’t think JFK will be getting up after that incredible shot. Notice the President’s head go forward, back, and to the side. Watch the replay and you’ll see the gunman wasn’t working alone. It’s all about teamwork.
BILL: Thanks, Rich. Michael Slater has got Lee Harvey Oswald on the boundary ...
MICHAEL: Thanks, Bill. Well, Ossie, that was an incredible shot through the covers of the second-floor library.
OSSIE: It was all about the preparation, Slats. Those years in Russia put me in the right frame of mind.
MICHAEL: Back to you, Bill.
BILL: It’s all happening here!
‘This piece originally appeared in 'The Big Issue’.
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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