The coverage of cricket in Australia is a joke…a bad joke…

For a start coverage certainly doesn’t cover much extra. I am yet to see the toss, and captains commenting before play. Pitch conditions…non existent. Why? For the second ODI on sunday we went straight to ball one with coverage. There was certainly nothing special on beforehand so why can’t it be shown earlier.

In Australia all the different states get slightly different coverage. In Queensland which is an hour different to Melbourne and Sydney, ODI day nighters are a pain in the ass. They show the news while the game is being played. Why not show it during the innings break?? Instead they put pointless programs like temptation on. I was appalled in the first ODI to not be able to see the start of the South African innings. If Channel nine (which is absolute rubbish) can’t do justice to having the rights, rather let someone else have it. I’d prefer to see it on fox sports personally.

There is barely any post match coverage, except if Australia win. If South Africa win, the coverage simply ends. At the end of the Perth test match there were no interviews, wrap ups or anything of the like. Duminy hit the winning runs and that was the end of the coverage. Considering the game finished early and nothing else was scheduled, surely they could wrap the game up. After all we had just seen the second largest run chase in the history of test cricket…oh I forgot, Australia lost. Come on be a bit more professional than that Australia!

Melbourne wasn’t much better. The first series win by an overseas team in 16 years…oh no one in Australia wants to see that…

The commentary team is also pathetic. Channel nine’s team used to be highly respected. I’ve always liked Bill Lawry, he’s a straight shooter. Richie Benaud is too old and past it now. Tony Grieg is confused. He is pretty average and is South African born, captained England and loves Australia. He supports whoever is winning. Ian Chappell is another one i’ve always liked, but he is also getting to the end of his use by date.

The newer, younger commentators are pretty pathetic. I have always liked Mark Taylor as a captain and commentator. Insightful and honest. Ian Healy is a waste of time. Thinks he is a doctor, tries to always be enthusiastic and may as well simply wearing his canary yellow Australian colours each time he is on air. Michael Slater is much the same. And Mark Nicholas is an Englishman who now loves Australia. Overall they are all way too biased, and simply take something one person has picked up on (rightly or wrongly…usually wrongly) and simply each repeat it every time one of them comes on air. eg Duminy is a real find (well we’ve known about him for ages. And he had played 37 one dayers before this series), Harris is much improved (he’s never been bad, just that no one in Australia knew who he was or had seen him play), Herschelle Gibbs is great to watch (he has no footwork and pokes at the ball, and rarely ever comes off). I can’t stand their dribble…

Speaking of commentators there are not many good ones around. I love listening to Barry Richards (not just because he is South African, but because he is very astute and very fair), Robin Jackman isn’t bad, Ravi Shastri, and David Lloyd is another excellent observer too…I’ll be glad when the series starts in South Africa and I won’t have to watch nine or listen to their verbal garbage…

I also never knew Australia was the centre of the universe. Here they don?t even mention other international cricket games yet alone give you any coverage of them (except for fox sports which has some, but never the ones you really want to see!). Sports news only cover Australians. I think it’s disgraceful this so-called country that is sporting mad has such a biased view of the world. Prehaps when they are knocked back to the rest of the field that may change…