*Officlal* Commentary Praise Thread

[quincywagstaff]

Not commentary per se, but I watched the first Forged In Fire episode and the biggest take from it is Thommo is the loosest unit on the planet.

I watched most of this series and it was pretty well made (if a bit heavy-handed and pretentious). The downside to the 1974/75 & 1981 eps is that they were already covered by the ABC cricket docos done in the 2000s so there wasn't much terribly new to be said there. The 2005 was more interesting though; actually favourite bit was all the reaction to the Australian team wearing the baggy greens at the Wimbledon 2001 final.

 

[quincywagstaff]

In terms of Oz radio coverage, Macquarie's is pretty good.

Tim Lane is still an excellent cricket caller (big loss when he left ABC cricket in the early 00s) and Bruce Eva is a pretty good ball-by-ball caller as well. In terms of special comments, Ian Chappell is better utilised than the self-indulgence and silliness of Ch 9, John Emburey is good for an alternate non-Oz perspective, Mike Hussey is solid (better than he was on Ch 9) and Glen McGrath is OK if a bit bland. Damien Fleming provides some good insight but his constant desire to talk about himself and his career is tedious.

 

[Burgey]

I thought the best part of the 2005 episode was Strauss sledging Warne when he was facing Giles, saying he was struggling and Warne saying the only bloke struggling was Strauss because he was ****ing ****, and if he said anything else Warne would hit the next ball for six.

Understandably, Strauss chirped him again and Warne dutifully plonked the next ball about 10 rows back over midwicket.

Warne was and is a complete ****, but he was an amazing cricketer, and he was a one man army on that tour.

 

[S.Kennedy]

It is produced by Cricket Australia. I'm suspecting the same unbiased and factually based approach we have all come to expect from Australians pertaining to international sport?

 

[Burgey]

It contains interviews with players from both sides, and two of the three series featured are 81 and 05. But sure.

I mean, I know the British typically approach their sport with complete equanimity. Ne’er a biased word spoken or written.

 

[S.Kennedy]

It contains interviews with players from both sides, and two of the three series featured are 81 and 05. But sure.

I remember watching a Channel Nine potboiler called ''Cricket in the 70s'' and ''80s'' on youtube and enduring fifteen minutes of Australians whinging - yes, whinging, thirty years after the event - about fusarium-gate.

 

[Burgey]

That was an abc documentary about the Chappell era.

Fortunately it contained interviews with a number of English players, none of whom felt at all aggrieved with what was dished out to them in 74/75.

 

[S.Kennedy]

That was an abc documentary about the Chappell era.

Fortunately it contained interviews with a number of English players, none of whom felt at all aggrieved with what was dished out to them in 74/75.

I assumed it was Nine as it spent so long brown nosing Packer/World Series Cricket.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah because WSC wasn’t a significant development in Cricket in the 70s.

Anyway, I really DGAF whether you watch it or not. Imo it’s a decent doco series worth a squizz.

 

[S.Kennedy]

I'll watch it.

 

[quincywagstaff]

The ‘Cricket in the 1970s’ doco is excellent as it not only contains great footage and interviews (with several who have since passed on) but had an overall narrative of the growing resentment the players had towards how the ACB was treating them which made WSC almost feel inevitable.

The ‘Cricket in the 1980s’ doco is not quite as good, just basically a potted nostalgia trip of Australian cricket in the 1980s with no real underlying perspective and narrative and as S. Kennedy says, rather sycophantic towards Kerry Packer & WSC. Still worth watching though.

 

[S.Kennedy]

It seems to be regimented that every single World Series Cricketer says ''World Series Cricket was the greatest cricket they'd ever played'' and basically the greatest thing since sliced bread.

 

[quincywagstaff]

The way it’s presented now you’d think post-WSC it was all beer & skittles for Australian cricketers in the 1980s. But there was considerable dissatisfaction with the schedule they were given for a summer at the request of Channel 9 (quite a bit more arduous) than they get today. In the 1984/85 summer for example they played 16 ODIs (and could’ve played up to 18 if they’d made the final of the World Championship)!

That was the backstory behind Greg Chappell’s underarm decision; he’d been basically worn down by the severely increased demands of the role as player and captain; it’s mentioned in a biography of Chappell done after his retirement but not even hinted at in the doco.

Even with regards to money payments there were still issues post-WSC. After Australia’s 1989 Ashes triumph there was a major dispute between the players and the board over money payments for example.

I’m not saying the 1970s setup where the players were paid a pittance was preferable, but the mindset now in cricket that WSC was 100% good and led to harmony and happy times for the players is totally correct either.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

WSC was so good for players that a Rebel Tour could be got out of them.

Another thing the W.S.C. did was demolish attendance at test matches:

(From here, 13 March '09)

 

[GotSpin]

Didn't that kind of coincide with a serious decline in Australian cricket generally

 

[NotMcKenzie]

I very much doubt that was the case in the 1977-79 period.

 

[quincywagstaff]

My take was that Australian cricket took a full decade to recover from the tumult of WSC; probably the 1987 World Cup victory was the definitive turning point for Australian cricket.

It wasn’t just the lost years of 1977-79, but the fallout and recriminations for years afterwards. The Hughes/Chappell captaincy issue the standout example and how Hughes was seen by WSC players as the establishment’s favourite. And then the Rebel tour ensured more years in the wilderness for Australia.

 

[Burgey]

Yeah it did, because all the good players were in WSC.

 

[NotMcKenzie]

But post-WSC, attendances still hadn't recovered by 2008, and the post-WSC recovery, before that drop after 84, was still not particularly high, still missing the draw-fests of the mid 60s. So it seems to have led to a systematic decline in attendance.

 

[quincywagstaff]

post-WSC ODI's were given prominence over Tests for probably 15 years. Kerry Packer's organisation PBL handled the marketing of cricket until the mid-1990s and they always put more effort into promoting ODIs over Tests. It was only when CA took back the marketing aspect of cricket that this changed and not entirely coincidentally, Test crowds started to spike again.

Also in scheduling, ODI was treated as the main game over Tests. Not only would they dominate January, but they'd often be played on New Year's Day or even on Boxing Day on occasion; for example a couple of times in the mid-1990s the SCG Test was played in November while a ODI was played at the SCG on NYD. And the Australia Day long weekend was always defined by a triple-header in Adelaide.