Bill Law(e)ry

How many times have we woken up at 5 in the morning to watch the action from down under and heard the words "Welcome to the Adelaide Oval".Having been brought up on a diet of this guy s commentary i think i ought to dedicate a few lines to this man.Along with Richie Benaud,Ian Chappell and others, he has been the voice of Channel9 s excellent coverage of cricket in Australia.Few of his gems are -"he is hit that clean as a whistle","its all happening here".Even though his loyalty lies with Australia but i have never seen him biased in his opinion, which is the hallmark of a good cricket analyst.For me, one of the greatest moments in Cricket was when An 18 year old by the name of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was smashing the likes of Mcdermott, Alderman and Hughes to all parts of the ground on a minefield of a pitch at Perth.There was this one particular shot when he played Hughes down the ground with all the audacity in the world and the icing on the cake was when Lawry exclaimed over the microphone "What a shot. Stand up and applaud". Another instance where Lawry was seen at his best was during the 1999 semifinal between the aussies and the proteas.The last over of that game is itched in the memory of cricket lovers for ever.The last few overs of that match saw Bill Lawry and Mike Procter on air and they were almost at logger heads. When Klusener hit 2 boundaries of consecutive balls from fleming, Procter was ecstatic but after the last ball run out, Lawry came into his own and in his own "unorthodox" manner gave vent to all his emotions.That was 1 moment where we can forgive him for not being neutral.He does not have an accent of some1 educated at Oxford nor does he posess the world s most sweetest voice but the passion and sincerity that come through with his voice are indisputable and an absolute joy. His commentary is synonymous with action packed cricket and he is a treat to the ear.For once, i have to agree with Ted Corbett when he says that Bill Lawry is an international treasure.There is noone who calls cricket like him. May he keep all of us entertained like he has always done.