Napitully Gaendbaazi Dour Walli Chode Se
Do you remember the time before Mr. Murdoch and his band of merry men descended upon us and changed the way we watched television forever? Do you remember the days before we had Star Sports, ESPN, Ten Sports and the recently added DD Sports? Do you remember the days when the only cricket you got to watch on TV came to you direct from Doordarshan? I do. Ever so clearly.
Many, many years ago, I was a wee tot in school, hooked onto cricket like everyone else around me was. My worst memory of class 8 (besides when the dishy lass who sat beside me cooed about how she HAD a boyfriend) was watching Javed Miandad swat a Chetan Sharma full-toss over mid-wicket to set up Pakistan's most famous win over us Indians. The shot and the ensuing mad dash for the pavilion by Javed and that Lionel Ritchie look-alike Tauseef Ahmed coupled with the words 'It's a six, it's a six, Pakistan are going to win' ..... Stop. Rewind. What the heck was that? Here we have players halfway to the pavillion, runnin with the delight that only victory can bring and we have a commentator who's still a whole 30 seconds behind the rest of the world?
I saw highlights of the same match recently on Ten Sports, a channel that takes great delight in beaming that match, the commentary seemed funny when compared to the trash Arun Lal and L Siva deliver us today that I decided to sit down and think about all the cricket commentary I could remember for the last 20 years.
My first thought goes out to all those dull test matches we played, made even duller by a certain Dr Narottam Puri. I recall during the Reliance World Cup of 1987, the use of many more TV cameras than ever before had Dr Puri not only calling the action on the ground, but also telling us, with orgasmic delight, which camera the view came from... 'As you can see this is the run-out from camera #3 and now we see it from another angle from our camera # 12 and.....' Weird !!!
If the Doc is in the box, can Anupam Gulati be far behind? I still recall the plummy bearded face who always smiled like there was a buffet close by. Other than plain old cricket commentary, Anupam also hosted our other most watched programme ‘World of Sport’ 4:30 pm every Sunday evening. One does not recall anything specific that the good Mr. Gulati said, but yes one remembers that he was not always right.
You know Gautam Bhimani? That irritating chap that goes around town whilst the team battles on to save national pride? Him, with face that only a mother could love? Ah well, his Daddy was in the box too. Kishore Bhimani. He always reminded me of a grouchy army colonel, miffed at the troops for losing a battle over something silly. He never would talk about what happened on the ground but everything else. I still remember a early 1986/87 ODI India being demolished by Sri Lanka at Kanpur or one of those cities. Chandrakant Pandit had gotten out to an atrocious shot and Mr. Bhimani almost bust a blood vessel by yelling ‘what business does he have playing a shot like that’ …
All these gents pale into insignificance whilst compared to the one and only Aakash Lal. Now, I’ve heard people speak slowly but Aakash not only took the cake, he took the baker and the bakery along with it. He didn’t’t just speak slow. He spoke slower than slow. For eg, Azza not only came to the wicket, he took guard, faced up, turned one down to fine leg and got to the other end while Akash was still on ‘ Now … walking to the wicket…. is … Mohammed ….. Azharu…… you get the picture. My friends and I spent many humourous moments playing cricket ourselves in the colony and giving commentary Lal style.
And then, we suffered (and still continue to do so) hindi commentary. Hands up all those of you who remember ‘ kaafi napitully gaendbazzi kar rahe hain dour walli chode se’. Holler if yu hear me say ‘shandaar tarikay se nikala hai covers ke bilkul beech mei se’. Gimme a hell yeah if yu want me to part with my ‘vishesh tippanis’ of the day. And they murdered names. I remember ‘Grammy’ Hick and ‘Gatting batting kar rahe hain’. Who can ever forget ‘Funny’ De Viliers, Hansie ‘Cronj’ and ‘Brain’ McMillan? Not me for one! Sushil Doshi and Ravi Chaturvedi, take a bow!
And then we have a host of present sub-continent commentators who take commentary to another level. Or should I say depth. But that’s all for another day!
Keep it real, folks!
Riggs
Many, many years ago, I was a wee tot in school, hooked onto cricket like everyone else around me was. My worst memory of class 8 (besides when the dishy lass who sat beside me cooed about how she HAD a boyfriend) was watching Javed Miandad swat a Chetan Sharma full-toss over mid-wicket to set up Pakistan's most famous win over us Indians. The shot and the ensuing mad dash for the pavilion by Javed and that Lionel Ritchie look-alike Tauseef Ahmed coupled with the words 'It's a six, it's a six, Pakistan are going to win' ..... Stop. Rewind. What the heck was that? Here we have players halfway to the pavillion, runnin with the delight that only victory can bring and we have a commentator who's still a whole 30 seconds behind the rest of the world?
I saw highlights of the same match recently on Ten Sports, a channel that takes great delight in beaming that match, the commentary seemed funny when compared to the trash Arun Lal and L Siva deliver us today that I decided to sit down and think about all the cricket commentary I could remember for the last 20 years.
My first thought goes out to all those dull test matches we played, made even duller by a certain Dr Narottam Puri. I recall during the Reliance World Cup of 1987, the use of many more TV cameras than ever before had Dr Puri not only calling the action on the ground, but also telling us, with orgasmic delight, which camera the view came from... 'As you can see this is the run-out from camera #3 and now we see it from another angle from our camera # 12 and.....' Weird !!!
If the Doc is in the box, can Anupam Gulati be far behind? I still recall the plummy bearded face who always smiled like there was a buffet close by. Other than plain old cricket commentary, Anupam also hosted our other most watched programme ‘World of Sport’ 4:30 pm every Sunday evening. One does not recall anything specific that the good Mr. Gulati said, but yes one remembers that he was not always right.
You know Gautam Bhimani? That irritating chap that goes around town whilst the team battles on to save national pride? Him, with face that only a mother could love? Ah well, his Daddy was in the box too. Kishore Bhimani. He always reminded me of a grouchy army colonel, miffed at the troops for losing a battle over something silly. He never would talk about what happened on the ground but everything else. I still remember a early 1986/87 ODI India being demolished by Sri Lanka at Kanpur or one of those cities. Chandrakant Pandit had gotten out to an atrocious shot and Mr. Bhimani almost bust a blood vessel by yelling ‘what business does he have playing a shot like that’ …
All these gents pale into insignificance whilst compared to the one and only Aakash Lal. Now, I’ve heard people speak slowly but Aakash not only took the cake, he took the baker and the bakery along with it. He didn’t’t just speak slow. He spoke slower than slow. For eg, Azza not only came to the wicket, he took guard, faced up, turned one down to fine leg and got to the other end while Akash was still on ‘ Now … walking to the wicket…. is … Mohammed ….. Azharu…… you get the picture. My friends and I spent many humourous moments playing cricket ourselves in the colony and giving commentary Lal style.
And then, we suffered (and still continue to do so) hindi commentary. Hands up all those of you who remember ‘ kaafi napitully gaendbazzi kar rahe hain dour walli chode se’. Holler if yu hear me say ‘shandaar tarikay se nikala hai covers ke bilkul beech mei se’. Gimme a hell yeah if yu want me to part with my ‘vishesh tippanis’ of the day. And they murdered names. I remember ‘Grammy’ Hick and ‘Gatting batting kar rahe hain’. Who can ever forget ‘Funny’ De Viliers, Hansie ‘Cronj’ and ‘Brain’ McMillan? Not me for one! Sushil Doshi and Ravi Chaturvedi, take a bow!
And then we have a host of present sub-continent commentators who take commentary to another level. Or should I say depth. But that’s all for another day!
Keep it real, folks!
Riggs
posted by Sweta Jagirdar at 12:27 AM
4 Comments:
Riggs, you ever consider commentary yourself wot? You have enough opinions to fill very goddamn pause. Will put the advertisers outta business, i imagine
Bart
Ahem.Mutual fanclubs notwithstanding,allow me to pour some butter on this cracklin pope-korn(Righteous commentary wot).
*Grin* Those hindi commentators did a fine job eh.Even my rarely-done-steak of a krikkitin brain can throw up some of those phrases:
' aur yeh balle ke bheethree kinnare se lagti hui gaend wicketkeeper ke gloves mein'
Riggah style.*wink*Keep at it mon.
Mommy-tongue's okay mon.
What about the newgrown breed of
flowery english,interrupted by
flashes of pearlies
(and the only pearls,of wisdom or odderwise).
How could you resist quotin dear Sidhu.Really!
keep an eye on javagal srinath - 'fine cover drive thru the covers'.
the other day some indian bat hit a super boundary and srinath said 'awful shot'. heh, botham had to break the embarrassing silence with 'you mean awful for the bowler?'.
matribhasha gem -ab unhe gaend phutbaal ki tarah nazar aa rahi hogi
very good blog guys.
keep the punch n judy going.
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