I think some of the stuff he is saying is for a wider audience that may not see as much cricket - due to it being shown on SS Mix.

Lol some people are reading too much into harsha boghle the guy not even in India, he in England watching premier league football and probably doing some work for the India vs England series.

Like the commentary lineup Sky have got on the CC game. If you put Atherton in there (and replaced Charlie with Ian Ward as presenter) you'd have a better lineup than the Test matches.

Surprised how much commentators were talking about Plunkett when he hasn't been a huge success in 4 day cricket

As for Charles and his commentary. Today he was annoying me with his questioning of Jason Gillespie, particularly his line of questioning about the prize money and his hinting that Middlesex may decide to play for second because it is so much more prize money than 3rd spot. Gillespie was getting narked by it. When Colville read out the prize money for first, second and third, Jason replied. “So ?” He then added, “I would rather we came third trying to win it than playing for second.” I like his Saturday Stories and he is good on The Verdict but should be left at that. Him and Cork seem to rub each other up the wrong way too.

Cant say I personally find Charles Colville or anybody totally annoying.

I must admit though I mainly just watch the Cricket, and not overly take in what the commentators say anyway.

Cant say I personally find Charles Colville or anybody totally annoying.

I must admit though I mainly just watch the Cricket, and not overly take in what the commentators say anyway.

Charles is far more capable than the likes of Nick Knight, when he presents, or Matt Floyd.

Cant say what he is like on the Saturday Story's as I tend i to not watch them, not really interested in Test Tours from 30 or 40 years ago, or Imran Khan.

When South Africa tour next summer I wouldnt mind a Saturday Story based around Kevin Peterson but wont happen.

Rather than the Saturday Storys involving Imran Khan, I would have petered the storys of the Past few series we have had against Pakistan, like The Ball Fixing, and the time when the England batsmen and the umpires came out, but not the Pakistani players.

The amount of times Sky show a cricket short, about Nasser Hussains England team winning that test in the dark, the VT must be warning thin

I could watch that on a loop. Best part is Steve Bucknor just refusing to take the players off for bad light because he knew what Pakistan had been doing all afternoon to slow the game now. Still to this day my favourite England win I've watched.

I do agree that would never happen these days

It can't happen now; back then it was the batsmen who would be 'offered the light' and they chose to come off or continue.
Now, once a reading has been made and the umpires believe it's too dark that's it; off they go. And on any day if a reading is below that initial reading they have to go off (as happened at Lords today when Yorks were 349-9).

It was even dark watching it on the radio
But bad light is still an infuriating issue. In the 70's when they were facing Holding, Marshall and co, and the only protection the batsman had were pads, a box and a prayer, fair enough.
But now they're as padded and helmeted up as Maddie Hinch, so even if the ball hits them - unless they are VERY unlucky like Phil Hughes, and he was hit in the best light possible - they will hardly feel it.
So unless it's gone sunset, let's get on with it. I've never seen a club game come off for bad light, and on some grounds the sightscreen is a towel hung up to dry.

We've come close a couple of times... and sightscreens? what sightscreens?

What annoys me most about bad light is the umpires deciding in the middle of an over that they need to have a conference about it. They should be barred from doing anything until the end of the over. if the light was good enough at the start of the over it isn't going to have deteriorated that much in three minutes. The over rates are bad enough as it is, without the umpires slowing the game down too! Half the time, by the time they've conferred about the light the over could have been finished anyway!

Well Well Well. Life in the old dog yet.

If that doesn't show there is a market for County cricket i don't know what will. According to the bbc guys it was the busiest page on the whole bbc website last few days!!!

I follow county cricket closely and we have quality, close games every week.
Now of course I'm not suggesting there should be a weekly game on TV. I'm not even suggesting there should be more than 2 or 3 fully live games on in a season.
But surely in the year 2016 there could better coverage of the competition? What that is I'm not sure.

Think im right in thinking aren't the county games which take place at Trent Bridge and the SWALEC shown on the Notts and Glamorgan websites.

Watching it this week was entertaining, but wouldnt the commentators have a job a County Championship game in the middle of the season entertaining, some of the cricket the last few days, has been more exicting than any Test this Summer. When Yorkshire were close to getting 350 runs on Thursday Afternoon it was like event TV.

The 2 County games, they have shown this year, the first one introduced most of the cricket viewers to Jake Ball. And this one was brilliant.

You do wonder where they will fit any in next summer, possibly they could do one very early. But with the Last International Match of the Summer being on 28 September if i remember correctly, Sky wont have a 4 day window for one at the back end

As you say I think it's very unlikely we'll get more than 2 or 3 Championship games a year, and (aside from India) that's more than what most countries see of domestic red ball cricket on tv. Given all the other international cricket that goes on it's hard to see a broadcaster putting all the effort to broadcast a Championship game up against a test match, or next summer the Champions Trophy

One area I think we could improve is with the live streaming, maybe there could be some monetary assistance from the ECB to help counties provide that. I can't imagine it would cost them a huge amount (in comparison to what they hope to sell T20 rights for)

Let's face it if the title wasn't on the line, or it had taken place in May, a game like today's would have petered out to a dull draw. At least with the live streaming you have a cheaper alternative, that can provide a useful service and an outlet for the 'hardcore' supporter

I do hope when the England series starts the indian commentators especially Shastri and Gavaskar stop going on about the lodha report.
it was so annoying to hear the commentators speak about the lodha report while the cricket was going on and both went on to say how the lodha report will destroy indian cricket.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/co...y/1059144.html
http://www.espncricinfo.com/india/co...y/1058674.html

Very poor finish to the Sky Sports coverage of the first test today. The match had literally just concluded with players walking off the field therefore I was looking forward to the post match presentation and interviews with the two captains and MOTM. Only for the voice-over guy ( the ex Kent player ) to abruptly bring things to and end only for sky to then show highlights of old matches to fill in time cos the match had ended early ?! I know they dont have studio guests to fill in now but surely they could have stayed on air a little longer and shown the interviews with Kohli/Williamson etc etc ?

They showed the post match interviews on the highlights. I agree poor not to show them on the live coverage.

Interesting decision by sky to shove India/NZ behind the red button in favour of a meaningless ODI between SA/AUS

I would have thought there were many more people interested in the test match.

There is nothing on mix either.

Really? As a casual fan i'd of thought being able to watch a full game more appealing

People may have been watching the first two days of the test. There are a lot of Indian fans in the UK after all.

And they still can by, as you say, pressing the red button. I'd sooner watch Aus v SA anyday.

In a meaningless one day international? Fair enough.

I prefer test cricket, especially an interesting test involving a team that England will be playing against in just a few weeks.