Source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article6831463.ece
>From The Times
September 12, 2009
Zimbabwe's blind cricket commentator Dean du Plessis bowls audiences for six
Jan Raath in Harare
Dean du Plessis
It's a rare mix that makes a good cricket commentator: erudite descriptions of
action, comprehensive knowledge of great players, faultless recall of
statistics,
and needle-sharp sense of timing and judgment.
Zimbabwean-born Dean du Plessis, 32, has all these attributes and has been
delivering commentaries on matches for nine years. But he has never seen a game
in his life, because his green eyes are glass. He was born blind, with tumours
on his retinas.
That has been no obstacle to him sharing the commentary box in Tests, one-day
and Twenty20 tournaments involving all the Test-playing nations in worldwide
radio broadcasts.
He has worked with the likes of Tony Cozier (who pronounced Dean's delivery
"very smooth"), Geoffrey Boycott ("the nastiest person I have ever met"), Ravi
Shastri and Australia's former spin bowler Bruce Yardley, who himself lost an
eye. In 2004 the two became the first team to deliver a commentary with a
single eye between them.
Mr du Plessis's accentuated sense of hearing makes up for being sightless.
Wired up to the stump microphones, he can tell who is bowling from the footfalls
and grunts, a medium or fast delivery by the length of time between the
bowler's foot coming down and the impact of the ball on the pitch. He picks up
a yorker from the sound of the bat ramming down on the ball, can tell if a ball
is on the off or on-side, and when it's hit a pad rather than bat. When
the wicketkeeper's voice goes flat, it tells him a draw is in the offing.
He can't play the role in the commentary box of the anchor - who delivers the
ball-by-ball passage, who can see the silently raised finger of the umpire
and the unspoken redeployment of fielders. Mr du Plessis can only tell from the
crowd noise whether a ball has been gathered in a fielder's hands, or spilled.
"I have to work with the anchor," he said. "I am the guy who supplies, well,
the colour."
Last month Bangladesh were playing a gradually improving Zimbabwe when Mr du
Plessis heard that the visitors' captain had sent a fielder far down to fine
leg after the Zimbabwe batsman Charles Coventry had smashed a four. "A sixth
sense told me it was a double bluff," Dean said.
"He wanted to give the impression that the next ball would be a bumper, to make
Coventry use a hook shot." As he suspected, the next Bangladeshi ball was
a sneaky yorker.
"The thing about Dean is the intuition," said Andy Pycroft, the Zimbabwean
opening batsman from 1979 to 2001. "The public love to listen to him. If he has
the right person at anchor to support him he is brilliant." Mr du Plessis hated
the "blind cricket" he was taught to play with a plastic-wrapped volleyball
at the blind school he attended. One day, 14 and bored, he tuned the radio in
to a station devoted to ball-by-ball commentaries. It was to change his life:
"There was a phenomenal noise in the background, 80,000 people in a stadium in
India, people roaring. I realised it was cricket. I was fascinated."
Dean pushed his way into the commentary box at Harare Sports Club in 2001 and
was allowed to try out with the microphone. He never looked back.
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