Few things throw light on the state of our journalism than the quality of cricket writing in the newspapers and magazines, English and otherwise. Here is a fine game almost designed for rousing prose. And yet, all we get on our sports pages is unadulterated bullshit, if bullshit can be unadulterated that is.
We are stuck with correspondents of the ‘after-winning-the-toss-and-batting-first’ variety. We are stuck with “writers” who are PR men for the stars of their home-states. We are stuck with players-turned-columnists who give both Wren and Martin a run for their grammar within the first 100 words.
Gone in all this blather is the colour and flavour of God’s Favourite Game. Barring honourable exceptions like a Prem Panicker, a Rohit Brijnath or an Ayaz Memon when was the last time you saw a fine profile, a stirring interview, a great mood scene?
When the last time you read something that somebody—a player, an advertiser, an agent—hadn’t planned or paid for with the aim of selling something to you, your spouse, your parent or child?
So, who killed cricket writing. Is it the quality of journalists entering the profession? Is it their bosses who look at cricket like Jagmohan Dalmiya did, with dollar signs in their thighs? Is it the marketing geniuses who treat cricket not as a game but as a mandi?
Is it you, the reader, who no longer cares as long as you get your dose of pseudo-patriotic puff and fluff?
Or is it the cricketers themselves, who think the only job of cricket writers and their publications is to pump up their advertising appeal and modelling rates?
David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, who also did a landmark book on boxing, has been giving interviews to promote his new book titled “Reporting”. He has this to say why he got into writing about boxing:
“Because it’s very naked and exposed. It’s very much harder to get close to ball players than it was 30 years ago; they’re so rich and they don’t need you, and they’re so insulated by agents and the rest. The best you can do nine times out of 10 is very superficial reporting. Boxing is the one exception because these guys are very alone and have stories to tell, and, what’s more, are willing to [tell] them.”
So, who killed good cricket writing in the land of K.N. Prabhu and Rajan Bala and R. Mohan? And why are all our best cricket writers non-cricket journalists and columnists like Ramachandra Guha and Mukul Kesavan?
Seriously, after the likes of Neville Cardus, Jack Fingleton there hasn’t been any serious writers on Cricket.Fingleton ,like Sunny Gavaskar opened for Australia and became a good cricket writer.
Same is the case with Cricket Commentary. John Arlott, Micheal Charlton, Alan Mcgilverry,Bill Johnston brought the match ‘alive’ to the homes by their sheer descriptive styles.Our own Pearson Surita, Anant Setalwad and Harsha Bhogle -yes- Harsha, were good Radio Commentators. Harsha was brilliant in his ‘debut’ year in Australia as Radio Commentator, sadly, losing the magic, as a telecaster.Now, even with a ‘Live’ telecast,the commentary resembles a dirge fit for a funeral!
I don’t know if any of you listened to the Radio Commentary from West Indies, when India beat West Indies after chasing 400+ runs,Ravi Chaturvedi and Suresh Saraiya ‘fought’ over the microphone as to who would bring the great news to Indian Public. Since those were the ‘Emergency’ days, one of the commentators praised Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi for the Indian Victory!!
Well, before the advent of live coverage, we were glued to the running commentary by the likes of Bobby Talayar Khan and Vizzy. It used to be memorable prose! There was no chance of a replay and one had to remince and imagine what is going on by the sheer quality of the description of those eminent men. After the end of the day, there was no highlights as the only highlight came the next morning when the paper boy on the cycle threw in the our very own Deccan Herald (was there any other paper those days ?) and from the Press Photographer and the writers like Pathan Joseph and why even Raju Bharatan ( In Illustrated weekly ) ! So it is elementary erram, it is the live video coverage which has killed Good Cricket writing!
I don’t the answer to the question posed here, but I can certainly tell you that I would go and grab “The Hindu” just to read R Mohan. I also rememebr Harsha Bhogle writing Indian Express. And, Harsha Bhogle still is one of the ebst commentators out there. Coming down to the local level, I thought even Vedam Jaishankar used to do a good job for Indian Express.
It’s not just newspapers. TV commentary has the disparity too and it’s goign down the drain. Where is Boycott and where is Henry Bloefeld (did I spell it right ? who cares ?). And, I heard Mandira Bedi did wonders with the men folk.
I think erram wanted to say “Brian” Johnston. Yes, the funniest commentator by far. I’ve read all his books, bought tapes, and recall all his jokes! E.W.Swanton was another good TMS comm.
Adding Ray Robinson to the list of good writers. Jeevrathna’s mention of Vizzy is the first I’ve ever heard anyone mention him and AFST in the same breath. Almost every “uncle” I’ve spoken to has stated that Vizzy was an unqualified, pompous, stupid bore – not counting the fact that he was a man singularly responsible for doing much damage to Indian cricket with his fights with Lala and other “common people”. Secondly, jeev mentioned Raju Bharatan (shudder!). Bharatan equates cricket writing with framing terrible puns. Even his book Indian cricket 1976-77 (iirc), has a lot of interesting facts, but is terribly written. Bala, Mohan and Bhogle are reasonably good writers. Brijnath is by far the best. Nirmal Shekhar was the best sports writer around in the 80s and 90s. He was poetic!
India has had exactly three good commentators, AFST, Dicky Rutnagar and Harsha. The rest were very mediocre.
Funny – so many Kannadigas out there and no one mentioned Joseph Hoover. :-) :-)
Yikes – the topic was “what killed good cricket writing”. It is out there – in blogs. Print journalism took a nosedive after the advent of the new TOI in the late 1980s.
QM
I agree with you on Vizzy being a negative influence. As far as Raju Bharatan goes I remember him as a treasurehouse of trivia on the film industry and cricket. Rajan Bala, Mohan and Brijnath, I would rate highly.
As for the radio commentators, while AFS & Dicky Ratnagur no doubt were great, I don’t agree with you about the rest being mediocre. Anant Setalvad is one name that comes to mind. He was as good as the very best. There were probably others too.
But coming back to the topic of what killed good cricket writing, my take is that cricket writing today is more like an action replay of what we have watched on TV. Its purpose today is different. It is not to give the complete picture of what happened on the field but more like an affirmation of what we have viewed. All the issues on the field would have been already beaten to death during the live commentary, so the written description cannot offer much more.
Earlier when the radio ruled & also during the early days of TV telecasts in India, the match report was eagerly awaited to fill in all the missing pieces and to find out about things the commentary could’nt cover.
India were 210 for 5 at the end of the first day’s play in the first test match against Australia at the Chinnaswamy Stadium today.
Opting to bat first after winning the toss, India were in trouble at 16 for 2 before skipper Rahul Dravid steadied the boat…….
Evocative, brilliant, poetic, inspiring, beautifully descriptive and so very soul stirring indeed!
How many can wield a pen with any felicity at all!
And talking of commentary, a line comes to mind. Christopher Martin Jenkins. In his propah English intonation. ‘ A crow flies away in the distance as Chris Broad takes off from his his postion in the covers……’
Just one of those immensely enjoyable creative lines uttered in the nick of time..
Joseph Hoover….aaahhhh….How can we forget ?
We are losing the way a bit here. We need to forget radio/TV commentary for a while and think about writers and journalists. People who put mouse to pad. Where are the good ones? In spite of television, Britain has fine cricket writing in the dailies. In spite of television, America has fine baseball/basketball writing in the papers and mags. Why have we lost it? We seem to stuck with half-assed, staged, paid interviews and columns, which end before they begin. And let’s not talk of international cricket alone. Where is the coverage of local matches, State level matches, where there is so much colour and possibility?
When was the last time you heard Rahul Dravid say something interesting and stimulating in a PC??? I guess the game in India has become the domain of boring and staid people and this include cricketers and (for KPs sake) print journalists (though i feel TV cricket journalists suck big time… example Nishant Arora on CNN-IBN) till “the boys played well” mentality rules… we will be subjected to more and irritating bull shit from the media
KP, you are right, both in the piece and again here in urging
us to stay with the question. What comes to my mind
immediately is the one really good (and very perceptive) line
Steve Waugh wrote in his massive autobiography to describe my
favorite contemporary cricket writer, Peter Roebuck. Waugh
describes him as the ‘murderer of mediocre County attacks by
day and devourer of Shakespeare by night’. It’s that
combination of passion for both the sport and the craft of
writing that marks a good writer. Why don’t we produce them? I
am again reminded of a story that you told me a couple of
months ago about MUCC team, which took to SOM only its score
of a match against NCC and of course, the photographs of two
century makers. If this is the cricketing culture we are
creating, wherein you don’t even want to acknowledge the
existence of another team that competed against you, or how
much that other team scored against you, what will you
describe about the game itself.
Also cricketer-columnists seem to spelt deathknell for cricket
writer-columnists.
I also think a much stronger publishing industry in the west
has made it possible for good writers, journalists and
columnists to do a lot of additional work. I mean these
writers are also constantly working on book projects, to tell stories
on a broader canvas, which rarely if ever seems to occur in
India. A season of a highschool football team or a college
basketball player’s career get better treatment than the
pre-eminent cricketering heroes. A good book is then often
made into a movie. The point is there is a greater synergy
among many industries; but more importantly story telling is valued much more
greatly. Good writing then emerges as a byproduct, almost.
Also it helps when journalists of David Halberstam or
Remnick’s accomplishment, sensibility and training write on
basketball or boxing. Remnick’s book on Ali is fantastic and
so is Halberstam’s book on Jordan. When I was thinking
seriously about the narrative form of my dissertation on South
Indian history, I read Halberstam closely, to get a sense of
how he constructed his narrative. Can I say that of any recent
book on Indian sports?
I am surprised by some strong denouncement about Vizzy ! First i did not comment on his cricketing skills or his influence. While we grew up it was his role as Broadcaster, which caught our attention.
I feel it is not fair to comment on some one on events that happened behind the scene. Let us look at the positive side of the man.
Let us not forget in those nascent days of Indian Cricket in the early 1930’s India was not an Independent nation. Cricket survived by the pompous patronage of the Princely order. Vizzy spent his personal fortune to get such legendary cricketers like Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe to India. Even during the 1932 tour of GB, players had refused to play under CKN ! Lala as we know was quite acerbic till his death. So it must have been not easy for a Prince who had spent his personal fortune (He had his own team playing in Unite province) to take a team to tolerate the likes of CKN and Lala. But for the likes of Vizzy, Maharaja of Patiala or porbandar these men would not have had any Test cricket at all. If our prince of Calcutta can end careers of many in modern times because of his whims or Kiran More can do that to him now and the likes of Shivalal yadav can make a test cricketer out of a certain Noel David, then it would be odious to comment on Vizzy.
How many know that Srikanata Datta Wodeyar played for University and captained the team. Would he have played if he was not a prince?
As for as Raju Bharatan as a writer, he may not have written in Queens English, but he was encyclopedic in trivia and cricketing facts and he mastered what is today called Hinglish long ago. That is why I had qualified my reference to him by the phrase “even Raju Bharatan ” .
I agree Vedam and Hover were good when they lasted but were not very popular with the players because of their arrogance. So was Rajan Bala.
Joseph “Thesaurus” Hoover was good?? Of all the crappy reporters around, he was the worst by far. I think you will find that Quizman’s reference to Hoover was in jest.
In all this doomspeak , and rather belatedly…will give you some names which you can try reading:
1. Sandeep Dwivedi (Indian Express); 2. Jaideep Marar (ToI); 3. Siddharth Vaidyanathan (Cricinfo)…am not old enough to read the golden oldies, but these three write stuff – i’d like reading
Reading this piece reminds me of an old joke. It happened at the Press Box in Chinnawsamy Stadium 13 years ago. There was this burly urdu journo (everyone in Blore knows who he is) kept disturbing the scorer pestering him with questions about the bowling analysis and stats of batsmen. P.R. Vishwanath aka PRV formerly of The Hindu butted in anger and asked him which newspaper he represented. Promptly, the burly journo replied that he would reveal this information the next day.
The next day flashing a copy of the urdu newspaper he pointed out to a cricket story on the previous day’s play as his story. PRV requested urdu journalist Siddiq Alduri of Daily Salar to read the story only to be told it was an agency copy.
An irate PRV asked the journo what he was doing in the press box and the latter unfazed, calmly replied “No Vichu, the story is from the agency but the score board is mine!!” So much for cricket writers!!
The English sportswriters ( Guardian, Daily Mail, etc.) like Simon Barnes, write with a touch of humour that is a delight to read. Of course, the golden days of Cardus, Miller, Fingleton, Arlott and their like are forever gone. Brijnath’s standard has dropped to average. Bhogle comes up with something readable when he’s had a whiff of cocaine. The Cricinfo journalists are the worst ever. Vaidyanathan, Vasu and Premachandran. Rahul Bhattacharya is a very good reporter.
I felt I must stick my oar in on this one! The problem is most of the writers we have in India today reporting on cricket feel a lack of passion with the game. When I see prosaic turds like Tendulkar and “bore-you-to-tears-first-and-then-bore-you-to-death” Rahul Dravid playing the game ‘passionately’ what stirring copy can you get?
Come on guys! It wasn’t the same when Kapil was playing or even before that GR vishwanath and the rest used to play. Sure video killed the radio star and shit like that…bottom line–we Indian players are boring third-rate death rattle turds of cricket players–there are a few exceptions though…
Going back a few more decades does any one here recall reading “Playing to Win” autobiography of Conrad Hunte, a decent WI player? That is writing and passion. His book was serialized in Sports Week Circa 1972-73 I think.
I think we Indians should get our heads out of asses and play more passionately. Staying on passion has any one read Aslam sher khan’s “To Hell with Hockey” semi-autobiography? That is the passion I am talking about…
IMLO (In My Lofy Opinion) Berry Sarbadhikari was pretty good in the good old days. When I see the MBA Monkey Harsha Bogle I can see that here is a turd trying to be funny—sorry guys…
Go in peace!
The villains are the mafia of ex-cricketers who have completely taken over the print and electronic media. Sitting inside the cosy comfort of the commentator’s booth they will pontificate on the ‘art’ of batting and bowling – expecting the players on the field to do whatever they never could do when they were actively playing cricket. Very cleverly they have edged out all the genuine writers and commentators. We will never have another Cardus or a Swanton or John Arlot or Brian Johnston.
Its unfortunate that cricket writing is more about issue-based jingoism than anything concrete. As a cricket correspondent for a leading national daily, I somehow feel that anything Indian becomes big news and gone are the days, when cricket-writing was something that everyone looked forward to read. My friend, the other day was talking in terms of a 3-day media blackout after the Indians won the CB Series in Australia. Its unfortunate that we stoop to such low levels where we become absolute nationalists, and forget that cricket is nothing but a game. Unfortunately, market forces have started dictating the way cricket is directed today, and if I see a full-page ad featuring Indian cricketers, as a newspaper – its money for me. Thats where it is. Apart from it losing its charm, and where cricket writing is nothing but an extension of market-driven jingoism, I think it has become insipid. The game needs to be covered and not the team. We, the media have already made a Dennis Lillee out of a five-test old Ishant Sharma. Unfortunate is the word !
I’m sure there are fine writers who’re yet to achieve the stature of brijnath, or rajan bala…Rahul Bhattacharya’s still in his twenties, but he’s up there among India’s best.
The responses from the public to the debate “Who killed the(good) cricket writing” are quite varied.It shifted from the topic on cricket writing to
cricket broadcasting on the radio. Any way as the subject has cropped up on cricket broadcasting, I do not know how many responders have missed in mentioning the the great batsman cum commentator the Late ‘VIJAYA MERCHANT.’Whenever he took over the mike from his partner the world stood still. Every one who were lisitining cricket forgot the world of realityand listened his mesmerising commentary. His style of narating the events of the match was simple, clear and his english was of the highest order. As they say for a stylish cricket as “Copy Book Style Cricket” so was his English ‘Copy Book Style”, His voice was crystal clear.Many school going childarn took interest in English because of his commentary. Not only he was a good commentator but also a well talented scouter.He was mainly instrumental in scouting the talents of G.R.Vishwanath. Hats off to his cricket and hats of to his cricket commentory.
not cricket but have you read David Wallace’s piece? “Federer as a religious experience”?
To my memory the names that instantly come are Raju Bharathan, R.Mohan, Tedd Corbett. The occasional articles on the game by Nirmal Shekhar were also too good. Suresh Menon has been doing incisive work.
In terms of commentary none can match the legendary Ritchie. We in India have never experienced anyone the likes of Nevile, Fingleton etc.
There was this maverick writer, Mudar Patherya. He was brilliant and used to contribute during the halcyon days of Sportsworld. I understand that he gave up cricket writing to share trading!!
What memories reading these posts! Wonderful.. it was such a joy to listen to English commentary from AIR, John Arlott on the BBC and Alan McGillvery/Chakrapani from Australia. Still remember the hilarious and awkward Kannada commentary .. ” Off-stumpina bali banda chendanna Vishwanath rabhasa dinda hodididdarey… “
Wonder if old copies of Sport & Pastime are available anywhere in India?
not cricket but have you read David Wallace’s piece? “Federer as a religious experience”?I’m sure there are fine writers who’re yet to achieve the stature of brijnath, or rajan bala…Rahul Bhattacharya’s still in his twenties, but he’s up there among India’s best.
Wonder if old copies of Sport & Pastime are available anywhere in India?