It is usually pretty straightforward to interview a commentator. A journalist sends them a WhatsApp message asking if they have time for a chat and they either say yes, no or completely ignore you. It was different with O’Brien. A sign of his stature and the size of the media market in the United States is that this interview is arranged through his PA and it takes a couple of attempts and weeks to nail him down because he is so busy switching from cricket to creating his baseball content. His website even has its own merchandise store. Ponting is yet to sell his own brand T-shirts.
O’Brien is a skilled lipreader, something he learned in childhood, and his media career took off in 2019 when he added subtitles to a row between a baseball coach and umpire. He built on that when he played a part in helping to expose a scandal in baseball when Houston Astros were using cameras to steal signs from opponents but he describes himself as “not a reporter. A Yankees fan”.
He fell for cricket as recently as 2021 when his son was born and he was on paternity leave and because of Covid there was little live sport other than the T20 World Cup in the UAE. He spent two years in Australia between the ages of eight and 10 so there was latent knowledge. “We played every recess and I just knew enough about stumps, can’t bend your arm and you run back and forth. It was enough to get curious when I got older.”
‘I enjoyed diving into the weeds of a sport that is all weeds’
He asked his Twitter audience to “teach me how to be a fan, don’t teach me the sport” of cricket. “I wanted to know where I should be emotionally if I am rooting for this team and my audience were very helpful.”
He was not interested in the deep complexities of cricket – that would come later – only enough to appreciate the game. “I enjoyed learning something new and diving into the weeds of a sport that is all weeds basically.”
It has been a remarkable rise in three years from watching cricket on his laptop to sitting in the commentary box at a World Cup commentating on India v Pakistan in New York. “The first game started and my first stint was with Nasser and Bish and I was like ‘I shouldn’t talk, you guys talk’. So it has been scary, nerve-wracking but I have been very grateful. They have been very encouraging to just be who I am, notice things and ask questions.
“It is very easy for them to bring me in by asking if baseball has an equivalent. I know some people out there are sick of the constant baseball talk but it is an easy way for them to bring me in to explain some of the differences and similarities between the sports. But I would like it not to be just comparisons with baseball.”
He says that but of course, asking about the similarities and differences is mandatory. “There are so many variables. Conditions play way more of a part in cricket. In baseball boundaries will change with every stadium but each stadium will stay the same whereas in cricket if the pitch is two strips across from on the square it can make a big difference to the size of the boundaries.
“Clearly we don’t have the ball changing condition over the course of an innings and the variable that creates, nor the pitch or surface. I wonder if we have sun versus overcast, dew on the grass, issues? Pitchers swing it in the air so if it is an overcast day they will get more movement on the ball, but that is not part of the rhetoric or thought process in baseball. It has to be true or similar but it is just not a thing.”