The future of commentary must work harder to get there

When there is enough action on the field in an IPL match, we don’t need more thumping and colour off it to underline that, or compete with it

Running commentary, the craft of bringing the game to the listener and viewer at home (or anywhere else), has undergone many changes from radio to television to IPL.

The IPL rates a category of its own because like the tournament itself, the commentary has become a generic term for oversell. But that is not the main reason. It is possible that the Dugout might be the future of commentary.

The tournament has, to a certain extent ironed out some of its excesses and moved closer to the sport side of the spectrum from the purely entertainment side when it began. Not so the commentary, which has been a work in progress for over a decade now, and continues to exist somewhere in between, neither fish nor fowl.