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This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
Mowers, cicadas, and Bryan Waddle’s cricket commentary are synonymous with summer in New Zealand.
But there will be radio silence from Waddle this summer, as for the first time in nearly 40 years he will not be calling the Black Caps games.
Felicity Reid caught up with the ‘Voice of Cricket’ ahead of the Black Caps’ first international game of the summer against the West Indies.
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One of the highlights of New Zealand cricket barely aired in 1988 when radio host Bryan Waddle struggled to see the field and call in the action for fans waiting for news in New Zealand.
The near miss was New Zealand fast pitcher Sir Richard Hadlee’s 374th testing ground in Bangalore, the time he claimed the world record.
The incident occurred nearly a decade in Waddle’s commentary career and is an example of the hidden challenges of being “the voice of New Zealand cricket.”
“We had no comment, what was happening was that I was sitting there with Jeremy Coney commenting on a tape recorder because he was not going back to New Zealand,” Waddle said.
“There was a couple of Indian technicians standing on the table trying to get the cables working so that I could start the comment and I was looking between their legs and standing and sitting and moving around them and nothing was happening and of course, just as the comment was scheduled to join in New Zealand, Richard Hadlee took the wicket and I commented on it to the best of my ability. “
Joel Ford / Getty Images
Sir Richard Hadlee during a cricket match in the backyard.
Waddle played cricket for a high-level club in Wellington before taking the opportunity to get behind the microphone in 1975 by first covering domestic cricket and moving on to his first international match in 1981 between New Zealand and India at the Basin Reserve in your natal city.
New Zealand has played 296 test matches since Waddle first entered the comment box, of which he called 271.
He has also described the action in more than 400 New Zealand ODI games and estimates 50 or 60 T20 internationals.
But when New Zealand’s cricket summer kicks off against the West Indies on Friday in Auckland, Waddle will not be on the New Zealand airwaves after a cricket broadcast rights change.
“It’s pretty tough when you look back and you think I did 39 years of the same thing and enjoyed it and not being able to do that is disappointing, but you do what you can,” Waddle said.
“I will not let those little disappointments get in the way of the overall enjoyment that I have had in my entire life involved with cricket.”
He will continue to do radio reporting for the BBC and ABC in Australia.
Call the game differently
Waddle acknowledges that the streaming style of cricket is evolving.
“The way we used to call cricket matches, how they were broadcast ball for ball has changed dramatically from being a situation where you were commenting on deliveries as they came in and then someone else was making a comment, now it has become more conversational , I think it is much more entertaining than it was in those days.
“I like to think that I have been able to adapt to the many changes and I suppose that having lasted so long I have been able to do so.”
Waddle has brought the game to New Zealand fans around the world; his favorite spots include Lords, Melbourne Cricket Ground, and Sydney Cricket Ground.
Scott Barbour / Cricket Australia / Getty Images
Bryan Waddle watches the third game of the One Day International series between Australia and New Zealand at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“Sometimes I have had to work on my own in countries like India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka because they make a comment in their own language and now they don’t have a comment in English as such and I had to call the English speaking people to help me, but everything is fun.
“It’s a way of meeting people to communicate with people and get the message across to the people of New Zealand.
The gait of words is also known to put some people to sleep.
“A guy once told me that his wife thought I was a good commentator because he put her to sleep while he listened to the cricket in bed, so I took it as a compliment.”
Feedback isn’t an easy job, but Waddle is pleased with its overall performance.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but you can cover them, I don’t think I’ve made too many mistakes at the important moments, people can argue that I guess to some extent.
“I believe that you capture the moment the best you can and that you live forever, no matter how you did it.”
Memories through the ages
Waddle says the match he remembers most fondly is the Black Caps Test win over Australia in Hobart in 2011.
“I was able to go through hundreds of moments, the World Cup in England last year where New Zealand was beaten, apparently, by an anomaly in the rules, the World Cup in Auckland where New Zealand beat South Africa and Grant Elliott scored the six. in the stands to take them to the final and there are so many moments. “
Peter Meecham / Things
Grant Elliott hits the sixth winner of the penultimate ball in the ICC Cricket World Cup semi-final match played between South Africa and New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland on March 24, 2015.
But he considers himself lucky to have been close to the action when some legendary players from all over the cricket world entered the record books.
“From New Zealand’s point of view, commenting on Richard Hadlee, our best fast pitcher and one of the best fast pitchers in the world, our best hitter Martin Crowe, a great player in his own right, to comment on when Brendan McCullum became the first New Zealander to score a triple century in a test match and see the performances of not only the 1980s team, but also current players delivering for New Zealand. “
Other unforgettable moments have also happened outside the park, including bomb explosions.
“It happened to me three times, twice in Sri Lanka (1987, 1992) and once in Karachi (2002) and the one that had the most impact was in Karachi because my hotel room was destroyed by flying glass and that was on the fifth floor, that’s how strong the explosion was.
“It was a scare because one of the things I used to do when I was out on tour was to go for a walk in the morning before breakfast and this was around 8 in the morning and the explosion occurred in a place where we were going to have been. walking at that time.
“I became a television reporter, radio reporter, and newspaper reporter because everyone found my phone number and I was involved in the constant flow of phone calls and people came into my room with all the glass down, the cameras from TVs were placed in front of me without even asking if they could get in.
“You still remember those moments every time you see a terrorist attack somewhere or another, you think about how lucky you can be and I think to myself, three times, I wonder if they were trying to catch me, because I was the only one who had a crack in three times. “
Waddle hasn’t missed many New Zealand games, but one tour he was unable to attend was the infamous 1994 trip to South Africa in which some New Zealand players were involved in taking drugs off the field and failed to score an elusive victory. in the series of tests abroad. after winning the first test at the Wanderers and losing the next two.
However, with a busy summer of cricket ahead of him, Waddle won’t spend much time looking back.
“Hopefully, I will have very little free time because that will allow me to stop painting fences, painting houses and mowing lawns, but I will be watching and keeping up with what is happening with the New Zealand team and their tours.” You can’t disconnect from what you spend your whole life doing. “
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
