For the armchair sports fan, there is some reassurance as the sun sets on another fabulous Ashes contest: the football Premier League season will soon begin. But while the football is certain to be a match for the breakneck cricket we’ve enjoyed over recent weeks, the commentary that runs alongside it won’t be.
Cricket fans enjoy analysis from the erudite, intelligent and calmly explained voices of test match commentators. Football supporters must put up with the frenetic, confrontational and frankly banal screeching of the sport’s equivalent.
The change from Bazball to football on our screens is most noticeable not for what goes on pitchside but how it is described in the commentary box and the studio. Where the former has maintained the air of measured observation that has worked since the days of Blofeld, Bailey and Benaud, football has moved on from Moore, Motson and Davies to something very different indeed.
Failed manager and Sky pundit Gary Neville tells us why the coach has got it all wrong
Cricket has gentle humour mixed in with intelligent insight; it is also able to do so without bias.
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