13-01-2024, 05:22 PM
(13-01-2024, 03:52 PM)NI92 Wrote: As for snooker pundits the BBC is damned if they do or don't, they got complaints a few years ago from Judd Trump himself they had no current players then they got the likes of Trump himself, Kyren Wilson & Jack Lisowski involved in the World Championship. Most of those names are still involved but they don't commentate until they go out of the tournament. Mark Allen did some matches early in the week on the Masters but he wasn't due to start until Wednesday and as for Murphy he seems to be the only one involved the whole way through and he seemed to replace Alan McManus when he went exclusively to Eurosport. Hendry has said on his excellent cue tips channel he doesn't know how Murphy does it where he can commentate in the morning at the Crucible and play in the evening. He made the point Murphys recent TV tournament wins were on ITV when he hasn't been commentating.
It is difficult with such a small pool of recent talent in snooker to get a team of good pundits with up-to-date and relevant knowledge etc. Even Stephen Hendry is over a decade since he was competing for major titles, and he is probably the youngest A-team figure on BBC's and ITV's rosters.
It reminds of a sexist complaint last year of Naomi Schiff being on the Sky F1 team, with the complainant saying they should only have world champions. The amount of eorld champions that are well enough and heve not been on Sky must be in single figures, and even the available ex-F1 drivers who are English first-language must been very small (hence their first choice co-comm has been retired for 35ish years for example).