RaviSez

I thought I was the only one who shuddered when Ravi Shastri said "It will do his confidence a world of good." Clearly there are others. I have been away from Indian TV for a long time but had plenty of opportunities last year to see him perform his role as a commentator. He would come on ESPN Sportcenter and say inane things like the one mentioned above. He might just be proving that he can be as bad at commentating than he was while he was batting. The Shaz-Waz show is one program fully riddled with cliches; with both Shastri and Akram throwing one after another. I remember one episode during the championship in Sri Lanka where they would ask a woman to sit in the commentary box with them. That particular day the woman in question was the starlet Priyanka Chopra. Shastri was so floored by her, he would go on and on about how lucky they were to be in the presence of "The woman in red". He at least said "Woman in red", twenty odd times. A classic case of Shastri-bot crashing.

I know what Ravi Shastri is going to say on TV tonight. "There's a lot of cricket left in him," he will say referring to Tendulkar. Incidentally which is what Tendulkar said during his end-of-the-day interview. He also said "Test cricket is a different cup of tea". But Tendulkar is paid to bat and not appear cute on TV while it is Ravi Shastri's job to come up with something orininal when he is called up on as "Expert Commentator".