Expert Comments - Cricket - anchoring !!

 Long ago ! – there would be commentators and one Expert commentator.  C: the ball has been hit to boundary and now the score is … .. .. – what do you think of that shot Sir ?  EC (Lala Amarnath, CD Gopinath .. … ) – it was a good shot, shot in length, went on backfoot, square cut for four ! – then came Mandira Bedi, Mayanti Langer and .. .. ..

A meadow  is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non-woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artificially created from cleared shrub or woodland. 

The subject matter of this post – was axed from Fox Sports, due to cost-cutting policies! but fortunate enough to find a newer role – in the cash rich  Indian Premier League (IPL). She is not new to Sporting arena – she had covered several high-profile sporting events, including  2020 Brisbane International and Australian Open.  She has had some Cricket experience too – having anchored   Big Bash League (BBL), 2018-19 India-Australia series, and the 2018 Magellan Ashes.

In the 41^st match at Wankhede, DC won against KKR with a good performance from Rovman Powell – seeing him tonk the ball for huge sixers, it sounded the 28 year old  could well be the Chris Gayle or Kieron Pollard sooner.  The match was not all about sixer hitting – it was some renaissance too – Kuldeep Yadav has  added new dimensions to his bowling, he has been more confident, and he has been producing match-winning spells. Kuldeep Yadav had wrecked his former team Kolkata Knight Riders earlier in the season, and on Thursday he did it again, finishing with superb figures of 4 for 14 in three overs to restrict them to 146.

When DC chased, the asking rate, was becoming tight,  Shreyas had to juggle the fifth bowler's quota between Russell and other part-timers.  Axar Patel  pulled and upper-cut the first two Russell deliveries for four and six, Knight Riders had massive problems. A run-out off the last ball of the over still left the door open. Powell and Shardul Thakur watchfully played out Narine's last over, but by now Harshit had walked off with an injury. So Shreyas had to bowl Venkatesh, and he did so in the 17th instead of keeping that over till the end. Powell hit him for a six and a four to bring it under a run a ball, and it took a six each off Tim Southee and Shreyas to end the game.

Those of us given to watching the whole match including the pre and post match analysis, would be querying on who it was standing tall between Sunil Gavaskar and Kevin Pietersen and reeling out some Cricket statistics too. It was Neroli Meadows..

Neroli Meadows is an Australian television presenter, sports journalist and sports commentator. Meadows has been a boundary rider for Triple M's Australian Football League (AFL) coverage, and was a presenter and commentator across the Fox Sports network for nine years, covering Australian rules football, cricket and basketball. She also co-hosted the short-lived revamp of the Nine Network program The Footy Show in 2019.

Meadows hails from Western Australia – one of her brothers, Ross,  played hockey for Australia,  and Ian, an actor best known for his role on Home and Away. Meadows studied journalism at Curtin University and completed a diploma in broadcasting at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. She also studied in the United States at the University of Tennessee on a student exchange program.

In Jan 2016, Meadows recorded an interview on the ABC program 7.30 regarding inappropriate comments made by Jamaican cricketer Chris Gayle towards her and fellow sports reporter Mel McLaughlin (who worked for Network Ten at the time).   In 2017, she joined Fox Footy's inaugural AFL Women's commentary team and did wide coverage for Fox.  She was about to anchor AFL footy show but that show was cancelled and later Fox parted ways. She is back speaking about Cricket now.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
30.4.2022