It’s a rare mix that makes a good cricket commentator: erudite descriptions of action, comprehensive knowledge of great players, faultless recall of statistics, and needle-sharp sense of timing and judgment.
Zimbabwean-born Dean du Plessis, 32, has all these attributes and has been delivering commentaries on matches for nine years. But he has never seen a game in his life, because his green eyes are glass. He was born blind, with tumours on his retinas.
That has been no obstacle to him sharing the commentary box in Tests, one-day and Twenty20 tournaments involving all the Test-playing nations in worldwide radio broadcasts.
He has worked with the likes of Tony Cozier (who pronounced Dean’s delivery “very smooth”), Geoffrey Boycott (“the nastiest person I have ever met”), Ravi Shastri and Australia’s former spin bowler Bruce Yardley, who himself lost an eye. In 2004 the two became the first team to deliver a commentary with a single eye between them.
