July 14, 2008	Monday	Rajab 10, 1429

SINGAPORE, July 13: Users of cricket’s most popular website Cricinfo have voted ESPN-Star’s Harsha Bhogle their favourite TV cricket commentator.

A poll run on the site over May and June drew votes from thousands of users — a significant percentage of them Indians — who also voted for their top commentators in three other categories: Most Unbiased, Most Entertaining and Most Insightful.

Bhogle and second-placed Ravi Shastri between them were the top choice for nearly a quarter of respondents. Channel Nine’s Richie Benaud was third. Tony Greig and Geoff Boycott were the others in the top five.

The “Most Entertaining” category saw the closest finish: Greig pipped Boycott by just three votes. David Lloyd — who is with Sky - came in third, Bhogle fourth, and Channel Nine’s Bill Lawry at No 5.

Benaud was the clear winner in the “Most Unbiased” category, with Bhogle following and Shastri narrowly taking third place from Michael Holding.

As may have been expected, the “Most Insightful” title was a race between Ian Chappell and Benaud. Chappell won — though not by a large margin. Bhogle was a distant third.

Bhogle, though, was the only commentator who made the top fives in all three secondary categories.

The list of nominees: Aamir Sohail, Danny Morrison, Ian Smith, Michael Holding, Richie Benaud, Alan Wilkins, David Gower, Jeff Dujon, Michael Slater, Robin Jackman, Allan Donald, David Lloyd, Jeremy Coney, Nasser Hussain, Sanjay Manjrekar, Arun Lal, Geoff Boycott, Kepler Wessels, Nick Knight, Simon O’Donnell, Barry Richards, Graham Gooch, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Pat Symcox, Sunil Gavaskar, Bill Lawry, Harsha Bhogle, Mark Nicholas, Paul Allott, Tony Cozier, Bob Willis, Ian Bishop, Mark Richardson, Pommie Mbangwa, Tony Greig, Bruce Yardley, Ian Botham, Mark Taylor, Ramiz Raja, Waqar Younis, Charles Colville, Ian Chappell, Martin Crowe, Ranjit Fernando, Wasim Akram, Damien Fleming, Ian Healy, Michael Atherton, Ravi Shastri, Zaheer Abbas.—Agencies