Bumble Appreciation Society

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

Being an old cynic, I admire the way he STILL does look at his cricket. His cancer hasnt made him think "you know what, they're all human beings, with hopes fears and feelings, and might be hurt by critisms, I just know they all try their bestist". No we get "Rubbish, my mum could'a hit that with a stick a rhubarb". Crackin !

[Zainub]

I detest that my mom could do that cacthphrase, I like it when he says Corridor Of Uncertainty though - but those arguments with fellow commentators that begin and end on the lines of 'Simon, how many tests did you play?' Zero zilch nana sounds very vain to me - he's just not my prefference.

[Vrock]

Boycott see's things how they are, he realises that the game has moved on and that it's not about protecting your wicket but that the game has moved on with one day cricket and over rates in tests are higher.

[Zainub]

He tends to be a bit predictable at times.

[Oliver]

Boycott is very predictable. He tends to speak the truth. Saying it how he sees it.

He doesn't sit on the fence: "That's owwwt!" Or "Not OWWWWT."

And: "Roobbish" or "Shotttt."

He is also fiercely partisan...

I think all his just-off microphone laughing at the Aussies during this last summer was splendid.

Was it McGrath who bowled Vaughan with a no-ball? Boycott cracked up laughing and tried to smother: "Couldn't happen to a nicer team." But it was just audible.

I think he's excellent. He doesn't live in the past, I disagree with that.

He is definitely not in the Fred Trueman: "isn't it funny how those black 'n' white pictures make your bowling look so slow" category. Trueman's past was a world of bluer skies, greener grounds, flatter and yellower pitches with obdurate and immovable batsmen, more golden sunlight and tastier bitter and pipe weed, and all for only seven and six. "He used to get up half an hour before he went to bed and lick t'road clean before breakfast. And you try telling the kids today... they'll never believe you..."

Boycott does not look at his own career with rose-tinted spectacles, he does not say aloud that the game was better in his youth. He does, quite reasonably believe that Thompson, Marshall and Holding were quicker than some (or most) of the guys today. He may or may not be right.

He acknowledges that his style was to grind the opposition into the dust... he would like to see an England team with one grinding batsman in his own mould. SO WOULD I.

It worries me that we go into the final day of the First Test in Pakistan needing 174 without a single recognised "grinder." Oh yes, we can score the runs fast, but we can lose the wickets fast too.

Boycott understood the need to hone one's technique... he likes to see current players doing that too. He advises (or has advised) many recent/current players.

Many pros have a high regard for him.

It is necessary, particularly in Tony Blair's Britain (eugh!) to have a wide range of vocal inflections in the commentary box. Just as well Arlo White is from Derbyshire, I thought there might be too many Yorkshireman in the box. It is very good to have those whining smarmily nasel Fitzwilliam, Yorkshire tones. He talks a very good fight... and I have as much time for him as I do for David Lloyd where I believe this thread started.

Lloyd is almost a comedic figure in the commentary box by comparison... certainly one feels he is there for light relief.
I haven't heard Bumble for a long time, but I was always taken with his entirely succinct method of commentary
As an "expert" on Radio 3 (showing my age) and then Radio 4, he appeared to make all his points in just two words: "top bowlin'" etc.,

Boycott, however, is the tragedian. He probably doesn't possess the ability to put across what most of us would regard as humour... patronising and braying about his own successes is his way.
I know other Yorkshiremen with similar attributes.

But Boycott talks sense. And however much it grates, he should always be applauded for that.

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

Well said that man.

[Zainub]

You contradict your self Ollie, you say Boycott doesn't live in the past, yet at the same time you admit that he would want to see a Boycott like player in the team, fact is, you don't get Boycott like players in MODERN day cricket, point me to a few, please. There is Dravid, and Langer, but I can't think of any one else. A while ago, there were some partial Boycotts (Kirsten, Richardson), whose mode of attack is a bit less brutal then the majority, but you still won't call them Boycottesque, and even they aren't playing now (retired).Players today , even the less attacking ones, have strike rates of about 45-50 odd runs per hundred balls, the postive ones have those rates upwards of 60. This is the 21st century and Boycott like players are extinct.

And no way you can say he doesn't live in the past when he him self has admitted (indirectly) that he does - his obsession with more practice matches (something that's a customary part of his pre-series bla bla bla) is a perfect example. In his latest column for the BBC he him self admits that he is someone from the 'old school'.

Originally Posted by Geoffry

My view is they don't have enough practice matches. I'm from the old school, a different generation, and we'd have at least four three-day games on tour. It's the modern way now, the players don't want to be away from home too long, but sooner or later they will get caught - and this might be the time.

[flanflinger]

You can add Kallis to Boycott like players..strike rate 42.93

Originally Posted by CricInfo

In an era of fast scoring and high-octane entertainment, Jacques Kallis is a throwback - and an astonishingly effective one at that - to Test cricket's more sedate age, when one's wicket was a commodity to be guarded with one's life, and runs were but an accidental by-product of crease occupation.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Zainub

You contradict your self Ollie, you say Boycott doesn't live in the past, yet at the same time you admit that he would want to see a Boycott like player in the team, fact is, you don't get Boycott like players in MODERN day cricket, point me to a few, please. There is Dravid, and Langer,

OK I haven't read all his articles... I thought this thread was about live commentary...

However each side tries to have a grinder... they have varying successes. Chanderpaul for the West Indies.
Hardly in Boycott's class as a technician. But certainly a grinder. Dravid sounds like a good choice... can't think of a better one. I have the terrible feeling at the moment that Flintoff as about as close as we get to a grinder. He grinds quickly to about 40 and then goes for a massive hoick to reach fifty and (goodness me this sounds like a Rachael critique of Trescothick) holes out to mid-on off the quick bowler's loosener.

There will always be the odd grinder... depending on their actual technique they will be more (or less) successful than their slap-bang peers, perhaps in the future if the boundary markers are ever pushed out to the actual fences, the grinders might come to the fore again.

But while cricket is trying to interest a younger and richer and not all that Commonwealthish society with its strange foibles, that's not going to be for a good while.

[Zainub]

I guess you're right. Thing is, despite however much I go on about not liking Boycott's lack of positivity, I just realised I am still eager to find out what he saws, for instance when Waqar today said Boycott once said regarding Kamran Akmal that he had enough potential to be in the Pakistani team as a batsman alone, you should have seen the shinning light in my eyes, ... and I read his columns too, so... I guess I dislike him but in a vaguely respectful kind of way. If he makes me want to know what he writes/says even though I keep disagreing with him, then I must be respecting him in some way....