Good call, Gaurav, but...

Gaurav Sabnis wrote a while back about DD cleaning up its act. Well almost.

While deciding to accept that overs in cricket consist of 6 legitimate deliveries is a step in the right direction, I still have a bone to pick with DD about they way they instantly cut to the ads after the last ball of an over has been bowled, in the process unceremoniously cutting off the commentator mid-sentence. [Whether Ranjith "never-disagree-with-fellow-commentator" Fernando or Ravi "left-the-bat-like-a-tracer-bullet" Shastri actually have anything of value to say is immaterial..]

However, what REALLY gets my goat is "Fourth Umpire". When I reached that point in Gaurav's post where he talks about that generally pointless exercise [haven't seen Anjum Chopra in action yet, but (sadly enough) my namesake Srikkanth and Wassan do say the same things over and over again], and noticed that he was picking on the opening sequence, I read on with bated breath to see if he would pick up the GLARING error in it. He did not :-(

A game of cricket already has 4 [FOUR] umpires. Charu "I-wish-I-had-Mandira-back" Sharma is not the 4th. The 4th umpire is the poor guy who trots out some time shortly after the 37th holding a box of balls [cricketing ones] in his hand and stands timidly to one side while the on-field umpires and batsmen and captain of the fielding team pull out their hair [from their heads] over which ball [again, cricket] to use as a suitable replacement for the one that's gone all green [not blue]. If only he'd added this little bit, Gaurav "insert-random-behavioural-statement-here" Sabnis' post would have been complete.

Incidentally, I was also going to comment on the umpire being Billy, and not Brent Bowden, but common sense prevailed and I Googled a bit to see that he is indeed Brent "Billy" [Fraser] Bowden. So much for deliberate nitpicking :-/