Readers' polls, mindless trolls

After a month's hiatus, Talking to Myself returns- to lament two "readers' polls" conducted by prominent websites that amount to little more than nonsense.

The first is a poll conducted by Cricinfo, the world's best sports website, purportedly to find the world's best commentators from a master list prepared by the website. There was nothing wrong with the pool that Cricinfo had selected- they included every internationally known commentator. I thought the poll interesting enough that I participated- they asked respondents to name their top five commentators, and also to vote for the "most entertaining", "most insightful" and "most unbiased" commentators. Finally, there was an "additional information" section, which I turned into virtually a blog post, containing a summary of my thoughts on cricket commentators in seven countries. I was somewhat put out, therefore, when the results of the poll were not accompanied by any excerpts from reader comments.

The results themselves bear little relation to reality. Harsha Bhogle and Ravi Shastri are, on any parameter, poor-to-mediocre commentators, but they were ranked one and two because a)they were Indian and b)they are somewhat superior to the execrable Gavaskar and Sivaramakrishnan. This was understandable, if inaccurate, but what was truly mind-boggling was Bhogle's rating as the second most unbiased commentator. Anyone who has ever listened to him do a match involving India knows that the man, quite apart from his other defects (such as verbosity and overexcitement), is hopelessly biased in favour of his home nation. Commentators are not supposed to be fans, but all Indian commentators break this rule and Bhogle is no exception.

For reference, my votes in the poll were as follows:
Top 5 Commentators:
1. Ian Chappell
2. Geoff Boycott
3. Barry Richards
4. Waqar Younis
5. Ian Bishop

Other commentators I like are Bob Willis, Michael Holding, Robin Jackman, Richie Benaud and Michael Atherton. I voted Ian Chappell as "Most Insightful", Geoff Boycott as "Most Entertaining" (an easy one) and Waqar Younis as "Most Unbiased", although the great fast bowler is unusually insightful as well, and hampered only by his poor command of English (which is why he is rarely popular with viewers).

The second poll deals with a somewhat more weighty subject than cricket commentary- a listing of the world's top 100 "public intellectuals", as chosen by the readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines, once again from a master list. The poll received over 500,000 votes, and as the results reveal, block voting was used, with the result that the top ten are all Muslims. Yes, the logic of internet democracy means that Fethullah Gülen is the most important and influential public intellectual in the world today, far greater a figure than Amartya Sen (16), Mario Vargas Llosa (20), Vaclav Havel (26), or most ludicrously of all, Wole Soyinka (a scarcely believable 55). These lists are meaningless.