I strongly believe that if you completely randomised the three deliveries prior to a wicket, the Fox commentary team would still not hesitate to weave a narrative about how the bowler set up the wicket. #AUSvIND 🏏
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Only in the last over before a break. That’s the best time. Followed by immediately after a break and ‘just as a partnership is beginning to develop’. Then when it is ‘reaching dangerous proportions’. Evidence down the years suggests that player views on wanting to get out the tail are more mixed.
That's why all young commentators setting out on their journey should be advised to talk often about pigeons, beer snakes, the weather and the light. Things that don't make them sound stupid.
I didn’t see the Marsh wicket live, but when I re-entered the room, they showed how Bumrah set him up, when I saw the Marsh heave and bottom edge, I nearly choked on lunch. Lulled him into a premeditated pull shot 😅
I mean that one XKCD strip about sports being the art of weaving a story from the output of a random number generator may have missed the point a little (sports are a mirror of the human condition Randall, and weaving stories from randomness describes most things humans do) but it wasn't inaccurate.
I once told a colleague, a theoretician, that I had successfully made a difficult measurement that proved, let's say, that A was larger than B. "That's easy to explain," he said, leaping to the chalkboard and furiously scribbling equations for 20 min. to clearly explain why that must be so.
. . .
. . . When he finally paused for me to acknowledge his brilliance, I said: "Oh, I'm sorry, did I say A was larger than B? I meant to say that B is larger than A."
Without missing a beat, he replied: "That's even EASIER to explain!"
Well, the random nature of the deliveries would lead to the batter being confused and hesitating with their decision-making and subsequent shot selection, so the bowler would have actually contributed significantly to the wicket. I guess.
"He's thrown a wild leg side full toss past the keeper to lull into false security. Then overpitched on the yorker, only to go straight to a beamer, hitting him flush in the orbital bone, great planning from the leadership group, Huss. Cant dominate down the ground with your cheekbone missing I say"
Comments
. . .
Without missing a beat, he replied: "That's even EASIER to explain!"