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How ‘humble’ Bumble paved the way for Bishop’s iconic Brathwaite line

Ben Gardner by Ben Gardner
@Ben_Wisden 3 minute read

“Carlos Brathwaite, remember the name!”

The line, delivered by Ian Bishop, was instantly iconic, almost as much so as the performance it adorned, an astonishing onslaught that turned the 2016 World T20 final on its head in the space of four balls.

The innings was voted Wisden’s T20I innings of the 2010s, and it’s a mark of the greatness of Bishop’s succinct, compelling narration that it’s impossible to think of him, or Brathwaite, without reciting it.

However, as brilliant as Bishop was, another person deserves credit too. David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd was on lead commentary at the time, but seeing that the result was headed towards a magnificent West Indian win, sat back and handed duties for the final ball over to his colleague from the Caribbean.

Nasser Hussain, another pundit who knows a thing or two about the art, praised Bumble’s humility in conceding the mic for the denouement of the global final, something which could be a defining moment in the working life of a cricket commentator.

“He knows to moments to keep quiet and the moments to maybe hand over,” Hussain said on an episode of the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast dedicated to Bumble. “In that World T20 final in Kolkata when he realised Ian Bishop should be calling the final moment, even though he was on lead, he gave Bish a little bit of a nudge and said, ‘Over to you Bish’. And the rest is history. Bish called it perfectly with Carlos Brathwaite. He is humble, and he knows when to be serious and when not to be serious.”

For Bumble’s part, the decision was an easy one. “It was his job,” he explained, simply.

“When you get to that situation and I’m with Ian Bishop who I’ve worked with on a lot of occasions, and he’s a great guy for a start, he knows the business, he knows the job. It was his job. ‘He’s gonna win this, over to you mate’. And our lad [Ben Stokes] is giving it everything, and he’s going all round the park. Over to you Bish. And it’s one of the great lines! ‘Remember the name!’ One of the great lines.”

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