Consider this for a moment: a TV commentator can get jaded quickly. You have to find something interesting to say for up to 3 hours a day, often five days in a row. And when you are done, you have to do it again after a few more days. Needless to say, you run out of things to say if you aren’t very creative. Or if you are as stylishly laid-back as Holding, you could just let your personae do the talking for you.

I enjoy the way he stretches his words and says “Proa-blim” or “boal-ing”. I love the way he makes shrewd observations but never pulls back from calling a spade a spade. And he’s never ever mean spirited – he’ll often try his damndest to understand why a bowler or batsman or fielder is underperforming before he’ll criticize them.
I remember watching a game between Paksitan and India in Karachi on TV a few years ago. The camera zoomed in on a woman in a hijab. It then closed in on her beautiful dark eyes, framed perfectly by the black satiny material. Holding was at the mike. He paused for a very long time. Then he said: “She is aaaaall eyes”. It is easily the most defining Michael Holding moment for me.
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