In the second Test of the series between South Africa and Sri Lanka in 2005-06, Shaun Pollock did something unthinkable for a bowler of his pedigree.
He asked Boucher to stand right up to the stumps because he had decided to bowl off cutters for the rest of the inning, or at least for some overs. Ever so forthright, Sanjay Manjrekar, commentating alongside Dean Jones for broadcaster Ten Sports, likened Pollock’s tactics as nothing short of disgrace to the game. Jones, however, was more sympathetic towards the ageing bowler, claiming the tactic as part of the bowler’s plans to unsettle Jayasuriya. The couple argued over Pollock’s decision, until Manjrekar broke out a huge sigh on the microphone and said to Jones, “I give up.”
Whatever you may think of Manjrekar’s candour, it is clear that he has never shied away from speaking his mind, or making his disagreements with his fellow commentators clear. Bhogle’s is one among the recent instances when Manjrekar’s disagreement bordered around smugness. But what do I mean when I call Manjrekar as the part of a larger malaise affecting the discourse around the game?
I can recall a few more instances from the past when the dichotomy between the experts and “non”-experts of the game came to light. When DRS (then called UDRS) was first trialled during the Ind-SL series of 2007-08, controversy surrounded the LBW decision of Virender Sehwag. While he was ultimately given out by the third umpire after much deliberation, Geoffrey Boycott, who was commentating for Ten Sports, called into question the expertise of the third umpire.
Boycott said that Rudi Koertzen did not have the first-class cricket experience to understand the finer points of the game, otherwise he would not have given Sehwag out. Boycott’s rant aside, Koertzen is, just like Bhogle in the commentary box, one of the most respectable figures in the game. That they lack expertise in the form of first-class/international experience should be a cause of their celebrity, since it’s rare for an outsider to become a part of the cricket fraternity.
However, over the years, cricketers have not averred from calling themselves the foremost voice of the game. Current Indian team coach, Ravi Shastri, is also among those who have maintained that the privileged, epistemic joys of being a former cricketer eludes the common cricket fan. When India won the Adelaide Test in 2003-04, he said that it was the momentous victory for those who have represented India at any level in the game. Never mind the fact that it was a joyous moment for any cricket fan who had waited for an Indian win on the Australian soil for the first time since the 1980s.
In fact, Shastri’s arrogance was also pointed out by a reader of Wisden Asia Cricket around the time. The hubris of sportspersons to create a division between experts and non-experts has always embroiled under the surface, but rarely reared its ugly head. And to be sure, it’s almost always ugly when a sportsperson tries to shut up a non-expert from speaking their mind or making a point, however valid it might be.
The dichotomy gets complicated a bit when we consider the question of who exactly is the expert in the game. Surely, we would consider Ravi Shastri more erudite than, say, Navjot Sidhu, who is better known for concocting metaphors in the comm box. Or, among the older commentators, Ian Chappell stands out far better as an expert when compared to the late Tony Greig. And anyway, as I pointed above, Manjrekar’s disagreement with Jones only vindicates the point of the article vis-à-vis expertise.
Having said that, I do believe Manjrekar could do better with a little potion of humility. The game belongs as much to him as it does Bhogle. More tellingly, the absence of Bhogle in the comm box will pinch the viewers a lot more than any other self-proclaimed experts going around in the game.
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