Who are the Cricinfo commentators ?
sidd
Can someone tell me who are the guys who do the ball-by-ball on
Cricinfo? Are they hired locally for every match, or is there a
"panel" drawn from all the Cricinfo centers? Just curious, apart
from the fact that it leaves something to be desired ( the commentary,
that is ).
On a brighter note, I am going to India for a couple of weeks and
looking forward to seeing the whole shebang on TV; no need to
tear my hair out when the chase hots out and Cricinfo conveniently
goes on the blink in post-real-time.
John Hall
In article <337D55...@hotmail.com>, Dianne van Dulken
<dog...@hotmail.com> writes
>I have never done this for cricinfo, but I have tried this commenatary
>bizzo,
>and it is nowhere as easy as you think. Taking into account that you
>are trying
>to let people who are not watching know exactly what is going on AND
>keep the
>excitement and pleasure of the game alive, you have to be both a very
>good
>writer AND extremely knowledgable about the game.
And a fast typist, I would imagine.
--
John Hall "Do you have cornflakes in America?"
"Well, actually, they're American."
"So what brings you to Britain then if you have cornflakes already?"
Bill Bryson: "Notes from a Small Island"
Sailesh Krishnamurthy
>>>>> "sidd" == sidd <sid...@serv.net> writes:
sidd> Can someone tell me who are the guys who do the
sidd> ball-by-ball on Cricinfo? Are they hired locally for
sidd> every match, or is there a "panel" drawn from all the
sidd> Cricinfo centers? Just curious, apart from the fact
sidd> that it leaves something to be desired ( the
sidd> commentary, that is ).
As I understand it, the commentators are unpaid volunteers, who
are doing us cricket-starved fans a _great_ service. I'm really
disappointed that you consider the commentary bad. The quality is
generally "A1" as Tamilians would say :-)
As always, I'd like to record my appreciation for all irc comms.
sidd> On a brighter note, I am going to India for a couple of
sidd> weeks and looking forward to seeing the whole shebang
sidd> on TV; no need to tear my hair out when the chase hots
sidd> out and Cricinfo conveniently goes on the blink in
sidd> post-real-time.
Why don't you take a laptop, get an internet connection and type
out quality comms for us ? After all if you're just going to be
watching the games you would have the time to type out comms.
Some people just can't appreciate what they're getting ..
--
Cheers
Sailesh
http://www.cs.purdue.edu/people/krish
Dianne van Dulken
sidd wrote:
>
> Can someone tell me who are the guys who do the ball-by-ball on
> Cricinfo? Are they hired locally for every match, or is there a
> "panel" drawn from all the Cricinfo centers? Just curious, apart
> from the fact that it leaves something to be desired ( the commentary,
> that is ).
My dear chap!!!
They are volunteers, and we should all speak their names with due
respect.
I have never done this for cricinfo, but I have tried this commenatary
bizzo,
and it is nowhere as easy as you think. Taking into account that you
are trying
to let people who are not watching know exactly what is going on AND
keep the
excitement and pleasure of the game alive, you have to be both a very
good
writer AND extremely knowledgable about the game. The people reading
are going
to get very bored if all you can submit is "bowled by....., batted
by...., one run"
As a person who often has Cricinfo as my only link to what is happening
in the real
world outside work (alas, they don't seem to see my view that watching
cricket is more
important than anything else), I am constantly amazed at the generosity
and ability of
these commenators
Di
Jeff Urs
In article <01bc608d$a90c1d90$958d389d@siddeb97>, "sidd" <sid...@serv.net> wrote:
>Can someone tell me who are the guys who do the ball-by-ball on
>Cricinfo? Are they hired locally for every match, or is there a
>"panel" drawn from all the Cricinfo centers? Just curious, apart
>from the fact that it leaves something to be desired ( the commentary,
>that is ).
They're not hired at all - they're volunteers who could just watch or
listen to the matches, but who choose to do commentary for those of us
who can't.
>On a brighter note, I am going to India for a couple of weeks and
>looking forward to seeing the whole shebang on TV; no need to
>tear my hair out when the chase hots out and Cricinfo conveniently
>goes on the blink in post-real-time.
I have a better idea; get an internet connection while you're there
and show us what commentary that doesn't leave anything to be desired
is.
When you say "Cricinfo", do you mean that you're following the match
through the live scorecard or that you are are doing so on the #cricket
IRC channel? Not surprisingly, the IRC commentary is more complete
than that included in the scorecard, as there are often two commentators.
--
Jeff Urs email: yor...@vnet.ibm.com, stalky@lexgate
Phone: (606) 243-4832 snail: 11th Floor, 250 W. Main St
Fax: (606) 243-4999 Lexington, KY 40507
Satya V. Nitta
Bob Dubery (el...@the.king.org) wrote:
: On 14 May 1997 17:38:37 GMT, "sidd" <sid...@serv.net> wrote:
<great post by Bob snipped>
To Bob and all the others involved with Cricinfo/IRC:
A huge THANK YOU for your fantastic efforts. It's a pity that people
like Sidd in their ignorance choose to find fault with the great
favor you guys are doing to all the genuine cricket lovers like me
by providing live coverage for all the games. I hope you guys will not
take his words to heart. For every Sidd, there's hundreds of us who marvel
at your dedication and are deeply grateful for keeping us in touch
with this great game. Once again, a huge THANK YOU!
Cheers
Satya
--
Satya V. Nitta
Graduate Student, Dept. of Chemical Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180
Ph. (518)-276-2681/2688 (Off/Lab) (518)-271-6395 (Res.)
Dhruv Gupta
In article <5lnml5$s...@usenet.rpi.edu>, Satya V. Nitta <nit...@rpi.edu> wrote:
>Bob Dubery (el...@the.king.org) wrote:
>: On 14 May 1997 17:38:37 GMT, "sidd" <sid...@serv.net> wrote:
>
><great post by Bob snipped>
>
I just wanted to add my voice in support of the great job that the Cricinfo
volunteers are doing. Actually, my work is suffering somewhat due to the
commentaries given -- while I should be working on a paper or something,
I inevitably end up watching the IRC comms.
Please keep up the great work, and thanks.
Dhruv
[aka IRC nick "super_" and more recently "Elmo"]
--
___________________________________________________________________________
Dhruv Gupta su...@leland.stanford.edu
P.O. Box 12115
Chemical Engineering/Economics Stanford, CA 94309
Bob Dubery
On 14 May 1997 17:38:37 GMT, "sidd" <sid...@serv.net> wrote:
>Can someone tell me who are the guys who do the ball-by-ball on
>Cricinfo? Are they hired locally for every match, or is there a
>"panel" drawn from all the Cricinfo centers? Just curious, apart
>from the fact that it leaves something to be desired ( the commentary,
>that is ).
Sidd,
CricInfo is by-and-large a voluntary organisation, and most of the
people who do commentary on IRC do so with no reward other than
knowing that they are providing a valuable service to cricket lovers
who have no other way of following a cricket match.
I'm one of those volunteers - and let me tell you that it's not as
simple a task as you might think.
Firstly, whenever possible we use our own scoring software. This
serves a double function - it updates the live scorecard that you see
on our web site and it "pipes" a record of each ball thru to #cricket
on IRC. This is the "bland" commentary that you often see on IRC EG
25.2 Donald to Tendulkar - 1 run.
Those messages are automatically generated by our scoring software.
Now, our first responsibility is to provide an accurate score. This
means that sometimes the "color" commentary (eg "Great shot by Soheil,
coming down the wicket and playing it against the spin and over extra
cover") takes a back seat. We are cricket lovers ourselves and know
that people like to hear that kind of information - but as I said the
score is our number one priority and our software automatically
generates these messages so that we concentrate on the scoring and
still keep people on IRC informed.
Adding color means that we either have 2 people providing coverage -
one to do the actual score and one to add color - or that one person
must do both tasks, which is not impossible but does take up the time
in between balls and is especially difficult when a spin bowler is on.
You'd also be surprised at just how difficult it is to score and, time
permitting, commentate a match. It's more easily done from the ground
as there we can always see the umpire's signals and we don't miss
balls because of commercial breaks, but even then I keep a manual
score as well in case of a connection failing somewhere (think of the
number of connections required to take commentary from the Wanderers
to Washington for example) or in case I need to confirm any figure on
our scorecard.
And yes, sometimes the score does lag behind real time. There's a
number of reasons for that, the most common being lag on the IRC
network that we use - obviously this is beyond our control. It's also
not unknown for a computer to halt in mid over - necessitating a swift
reboot, re-establishing of connections and then catching up from the
aforementioned manual score.
When scoring from TV coverage you can find that your score is correct
at the end of an over but that the first ball of an over is missed -
due to between over advertisements - and then you have to wait until
you can figure out what happened as a result of the missed ball. Yes,
the score has advanced, but was it because of runs off of the bat or
because of extras? If it's extras then were they byes, no-balls, wides
or leg-byes? The answers to those questions are important and often
not readily apparent.
There are also a lot of activities going on behind the scenes that the
fans using #cricket and #crickettalk can't see - and these often
require coordinating the efforts of people in different countries and
, more crucially, different time zones. Consider, for example, Shahid
Afridi's record knock in Kenya - we not only had to score that match
but also check our database for the (then) existing records once it
became clear that Afridi was on course for a record 100, get a story
on his innings prepared for our web site and for other organisations
that we have a co-operative arrangement with, update our web site to
include the new headline and finally update our own datbase.
So, it's surprisingly hard work. You have to stay focused on every
ball - instead of having somebody tell us what happens we have to tell
*you* what happened. It's very different - and whilst I don't expect
anybody who hasn't done on-line commentary to appreciate that
difference I'll ask you to believe me that there *is* a difference.
Most of the commentators on IRC are volunteers. A lot of us have to
give up a large amount of time and accept a hefty increase to our
telephone bills to bring scores and coverage to on-line cricket fans.
It's a demanding task - more so if done off of TV - and it's put me in
a position of great sympathy for those other whipping boys of the
cricketting world - the umpires! I'm sitting down, I only have to
record what occurs for each ball whilst they also have to adjudicate
on line, length, position of the bowler's feet etc etc etc, and I have
to tell you that I'm often knackered at the end of a day.
Sidd, I hope that this will help you, and anybody else reading this,
to better understand what goes into providing CricInfo's live
coverage.
Regards
Bob Dubery (MegaPode on IRC)
CricInfo SA
***************************************************
The adresses shown in the header are bogus.
You can mail me at mega...@global.co.za
*****************************************************
Soam Acharya
> On 14 May 1997 17:38:37 GMT, "sidd" <sid...@serv.net> wrote:
>
>> Can someone tell me who are the guys who do the ball-by-ball on
>> Cricinfo? Are they hired locally for every match, or is there a
>> "panel" drawn from all the Cricinfo centers? Just curious, apart
>> from the fact that it leaves something to be desired ( the commentary,
>> that is ).
>
> Sidd,
A vote of confidence for the CricInfo commentators: to all those people
toiling manfully (or rather person-fully - dang this political correctness
thang) on dem machines to provide scores, a big thank you and may you be
showered with loads of virtual candy. It can't be easy to pound on the
keyboard, keep track of the match, chase the cat away from the modem lest
it pisses on it again and keep your significant other from getting bored,
all at the same time :-)
Alas, most of you are known to the rest of us only by "nicks" of your
choosing and some, like "cabzyx", prefer complete anonymity, don't ask me
why. Shirking work perhaps? Such dedication! Anyway, I urge those of you
who've wondered about the people behind the irc nicks to visit Rohan's most
excellent collection at:
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rohanc/people/hallofshame/
Mind-numbingly, there's nothing on badri in there. Ha! Maybe I can remedy
that. Dig out some stuff from my archives ...
Soam "RSC's #1 fan of badri" A.
http://www.ee.cornell.edu/~soam/
"I don't like cricket ah
oh no
I love it ah"
- 10CC, "Dreadlock Holiday"
--
--------------------------
Soam A. [ Soam_A...@cornell.edu ]
Rohan Chandran
so...@ee.Kornell.edu (Soam Acharya) said
>
>why. Shirking work perhaps? Such dedication! Anyway, I urge those of you
>who've wondered about the people behind the irc nicks to visit Rohan's most
>excellent collection at:
>
>http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rohanc/people/hallofshame/
WOW!!!! An unpaid advert! Thank you muchly :-) I do encourage people
to send me photos (or links to their photos to save my disk space :)
). Of course as some people know, it takes anywhere from days to years
for me to update!
>Mind-numbingly, there's nothing on badri in there. Ha! Maybe I can remedy
>that. Dig out some stuff from my archives ...
Hahaha. My first complaint too! This is superb!! I used to have badri
in there, but his pic disappeared :-0
cheers,
Rohan
--
--
Stand Up, for the Champions!