Don't worry, we know who he is

A decent piece on Reds Perreira by Dileep Premchandran. What is slightly amusing about this piece is that Premchandran talks about Reds' voice (as most cricket writers do in talking about commentators, and of course, the piece has the standard opening lines) and introduces him to readers as a complete stranger, but fails to note that there is a group of Indian cricket fans that have heard Red's voice and even seen him in action. During the 1983-84 West Indies tour of India, Reds did television coverage for a West Indian broadcasting group, and would, on most days stop by the Doordarshan box to do a stint of commentary/chat with whoever happened to be in the box. In those days, listening to a West Indian accent over the air was a rarity and we loved it, as those two lilting accents, the Indian and the West Indian, got together to describe the action out on the ground. What made it even more of a bonus for all of us, in those days before the Internet, was that Reds would bring us score updates on the Pakistan-Australia series also underway at the same time (I'm not quite sure what his source was). In fact, on more than one occasion, while watching those games, I would yell out to my friends, "Hey, Reds is here, the Pakistan-Australia scores should be on soon". Reds would either bring us the tea-time scores or the close of play scores and they were a godsend, ensuring we wouldn't have to mess around with short-wave radios looking for a Radio Australia update, or god forbid, wait for the newspapers the next day. Perhaps my most lasting memory of Reds is his commenting on the good camerawork (a rarity for Doordarshan in those days) that tracked a massive six by Andy Roberts into the stands at Eden Gardens (during a partnership with Clive Lloyd that effectively killed any chances that India had of making a game out that test at Calcutta). Nice to hear about you again, Reds. Been a long time.