Watched a bit of Seven today and agree to disagree.
I don’t think Fox are great by any stretch but Seven feels very pedestrian, bar Ponting. Didn’t feel like they grasped the moments well enough, especially with Boland’s back to back wickets which seemed to have almost been called in isolation from the previous ball.
What I do agree with is the sheer number of commentators - far too many. Then they pack off some of them into an Uber to go call an off tube game. Resource management not at its strongest.
That’s because it was commentary by Brayshaw. 7 needs to just leave him & add Alister Nicholson to the commentary team permanently with Tim Lane & Alison Mitchell or have him call it like he does on MMM
Thank you for your insightful observations. Well said. You raise some good points. Firstly the number of commentators is excessive, as it definitely creates a revolving door effect during the day. The fact the commentary shifts are only 20 minutes creates much more shuffling around, though the slow over rate certainly does not help, with less cricket to comment on, hence ‘infantile banter and inane puffery’.
As for Guha, sadly she used to be a class act. I am listening to Mel Jones tonight and she is certainly someone, who despite being on FOX, does not stoop to Triple M-style boganess. She is more akin to the classiness of someone like Alison Mitchell.
And you are right about the Waugh/Vaughan dynamic. For example, the way they may argue about the pronunciation of ‘Coogee’, seems somewhat confected.
I thought it was just me, but after reading your comments, I tend to agree. For test cricket, 7+ does seem to provide a superior broadcast.
7 used to do 3 40min shifts. So it was Tim Lane, Alison Mitchell & James Brayshaw to finish.
This year it’s 4 30min shifts. So S1 is Tim Lane, Alison Mitchell, James Brayshaw & Tim Lane. S2 is Mitchell, Brayshaw, Lane & Mitchell. S3 is Brayshaw, Lane, Mitchell & Brayshaw.
Does Fox keep the same line up every session of every day? With 7 keeping everything the same it’s easy to avoid Brayshaw and switch to Fox (except test 1 where sometimes it was Warner )
Fox’s rota is more random, due to them not having a clear distinction between lead caller and expert commentator. The only ones that have consistently been lead callers this season are Howard and Bhogle, which is out of necessity as neither are ex-players.
In general, they have Gilchrist to lead the coverage in the first 30 minutes of session one each day, but other than that it’s been a mix so you cannot anticipate who will be on air at other specific junctures during the day.
I think because of the different durations of stints on Seven and Fox Cricket, that ABC Radio has to change its shifts to accommodate Alison Mitchell and Harsha Bhogle for this test series. The PBP callers now rotate every 15 minutes instead of every 20 minutes. Also, Sunil Gavaskar can only appear on maximum three shifts each day on ABC Radio during a test match.
So Mike Hussey becomes the 13th individual to commentate for Fox during this match, Vaughan and him were covering the Stars - Renegades match last evening at the MCG, therefore, both racking up the air miles. It’s such a needless waste of resources and adds utterly no value whatsoever. Presumably Hussey has replaced AB in the coverage today, which would be a shame.
Thought Fox was going to call from the ground but no, Mike Hussey is at the ground for boundary riding while Jules, Lee & Haddin call from Sydney. Also the score graphics are missing for the time being. They’ve just come on now.
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