Fox Cricket commentary and coverage 2018-19

Park cricketer

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Bhogle should have asked Waugh how his bookie mate was going

Not sure Bhogle would want to risk his fox contract after what happened to his star contract two years ago in India. I guess it comes with the package and he must have grown a thicker skin owing to his past experiences.
 
Mar 20, 2007
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Park cricketer

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At the risk of sounding out of touch, what exactly is the issue with his comments. Is there a negative stereotype about canteen staff and Indians that I have missed?
It is widely known that batters do very well in Indian domestic cricket, and pitches are often very batter friendly (every year there seems to be a story about a 13 year old scoring a triple ton).

For starters, it's denigrating to compare the cricketing abilities of a professional cricketer akin to that of a canteen chef and waiter.

Also most of those records you mention are scored in school tournaments (like the Harris shield), I would bite your hand off to get a 13 year old kid scoring a triple ton in the Ranji trophy.

I guess it was a joke from O'Keefe, albeit an awkward one at that.
 
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Mar 20, 2007
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For starters, it's denigrating to compare the cricketing abilities of a professional cricketer akin to that of a canteen chef and waiter.

Also most of those records you mention are scored in school tournaments (like the Harris shield), I would bite your hand off to get a 13 year old kid scoring a triple ton in the Ranji trophy.

I guess it was a joke from O'Keefe, albeit an awkward one at that.
Disrespectful sure
I struggle to see the racial angle which some people are saying exists ?
 

Park cricketer

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Disrespectful sure
I struggle to see the racial angle which some people are saying exists ?

I don't think that was a racist comment from O'Keefe. Just a poorly worded joke I would say. He is a pretty jovial guy.

Mark Waugh on the other hand can sometimes come across as condescending, maybe it's just me.
 
Jan 6, 2004
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Odd time to be having a go at domestic comps anyway, even if 40 in the shield is 50 over there so what? We are picking blokes for test cricket who average in the 30's in the shield we would kill to have a ton of blokes who could average 40+ here.
 
Odd time to be having a go at domestic comps anyway, even if 40 in the shield is 50 over there so what? We are picking blokes for test cricket who average in the 30's in the shield we would kill to have a ton of blokes who could average 40+ here.

By which logic we can say that their point was correct, but India is still producing better batsmen than we are.

So the complaint about his joke is misguided - although Railways has actually turned things around over the last couple of decades. For the sake of a joke, though, their name and long history of being pretty ordinary makes them ripe for the picking.
 

Park cricketer

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By which logic we can say that their point was correct, but India is still producing better batsmen than we are.

So the complaint about his joke is misguided - although Railways has actually turned things around over the last couple of decades. For the sake of a joke, though, their name and long history of being pretty ordinary makes them ripe for the picking.

How so?
 
Feb 6, 2013
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Entirely offtopic, but if anyones FC comp deserves to be mocked it's South Africa for making a higher standard competition of merged teams, but keeping the old lower standard one as FC status at the same time, so you can conceivably have what is essentially a Second XI player averaging 45 in First Class cricket while not being able to get a game in the top tier comp because a guy averaging 30 in the exact same format is better than him.
 
Entirely offtopic, but if anyones FC comp deserves to be mocked it's South Africa for making a higher standard competition of merged teams, but keeping the old lower standard one as FC status at the same time, so you can conceivably have what is essentially a Second XI player averaging 45 in First Class cricket while not being able to get a game in the top tier comp because a guy averaging 30 in the exact same format is better than him.

It's one of those weird carryovers from the old Currie Cup. I suppose in terms of quality it can't be much worse than County Championsip Division 2, but still strange.
 
Feb 6, 2013
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I don't think that was a racist comment from O'Keefe. Just a poorly worded joke I would say. He is a pretty jovial guy.

Mark Waugh on the other hand can sometimes come across as condescending, maybe it's just me.
Agree on Mark Waugh coming across as a very condescending dickhead at times, similar to Ian Healy. I think I recall from the last Test a moment where Bhogle was trying to explain how some Indian sport (name I can't recall) influenced one of the bowlers and Waugh chimed in with "The name sounds like kebab. Kebab, kebab, kebab".

Would say in his defense that it is entirely possible he is an equal opportunity condescender, as I think I recall him acting the same way on BBL commentary to fellow Australians.
 
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Also, on the Railways comment, I must admit when I first read the name as a kid I assumed that it was a team made up of people who worked on trains, so maybe that's where he got the inspiration? Also thought that all the Pakistan teams with "Bank" in the name were teams for people who worked at those Banks.
 
If you ever go onto news.com.au during a test match, under all the prince harry and karl stefanovich headlines there'll be some minor incident that they'll have blown up into a 'you'll never believe' style bullshit headline. It used to be a decent proper news site but is now the most shameless clickbait site I've ever seen.

So basically there was no controversy yesterday unless you really want there to be some.
 

Ishikawa

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Entirely offtopic, but if anyones FC comp deserves to be mocked it's South Africa for making a higher standard competition of merged teams, but keeping the old lower standard one as FC status at the same time, so you can conceivably have what is essentially a Second XI player averaging 45 in First Class cricket while not being able to get a game in the top tier comp because a guy averaging 30 in the exact same format is better than him.

Yet their depth of talent (particularly fast bowlers) that come through the system is insane. I don't know much about it, but it seems to be working surprisingly well.

Also, on the Railways comment, I must admit when I first read the name as a kid I assumed that it was a team made up of people who worked on trains, so maybe that's where he got the inspiration? Also thought that all the Pakistan teams with "Bank" in the name were teams for people who worked at those Banks.

I think you're actually right. Historically it was the case with teams being owned by rich businessmen or patrons associated with different industries in these countries (ie. Sui Northern Gas Limited Pipelines FTW) and when cricket wasn't professional players would be supported with a role at the company. Pretty sure Rangan Herath was working as a bank teller for quite a while and even after he made his test debut.
 
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Have really enjoyed the mix of commentators on Fox.

Just the right balance of analysis and bit of light hearted stuff.

No blokey banter which eventually sunk Channel 9 and made it unbearable by the end.

Also not too much of one person - no matter how good a commentator is they can't help but get repetitive if they are constantly on there. Go to phrases become grating, feels like they labour their points.

Shame Ponting isn't on there as he's my favourite current caller but I can't listen to Slater so have avoided Channel 7 mostly.
 
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