Privy

It is really amazing to hear the commentary of Englishmen in the ongoing one day series between England and India. One can easily decipher the arrogance in their comments and the contradictions they make in what they say. The best example is from the second ODI. When Stuart Broad opened the bowling for England, the commentator didn’t mince words in expressing his displeasure at the move. He was of the opinion that either one of Flintoff or Harmison should open. However, when Broad picked up three wickets, he did a complete U-turn and said, “I told you this guy’s going to pick wickets for us”.

Yet another commentator described Yuvraj’s innings in the first match as Blitzkreig (all right), but termed Ravi Bopara’s innings (which basically involved slogs) as classy. Now, no doubt the innings was great under the circumstances, but classy?

It is fairly evident from the way they talk about the umpires’ decisions and about Indian dismissals (a gonner) versus English dismissal (unlucky). I prefer switching to the Hindi commentary, which is atleast amusing. Agreed, sometimes even Indian commentators can be erratic (Gavaskar, LS), but still they are much better even in their criticisms.

The series anyways is dead, with India now leading 3-0. You know actually Indians were praying for an England victory to bring it alive.