Graeme Smith utters unacceptable word on air, Sky Sports apologizes

While you are commentating on a cricket match on Live TV, you are prohibited to use certain words. The former South African captain Graeme Smith perhaps forgot that and got a bit carried away during the first session of the third day’s play of the ongoing second Test match between South Africa and Australia. The 37-year old ended up using the word “b******ing” twice in a space of few seconds.

Smith was on air when the 9^th wicket partnership between AB de Villiers and Keshav Maharaj was in progress. Maharaj went for an aggressive lofted hit and it seemed as if he was holed out in the deep and Smith was not happy about that approach by the left-arm spinner at all. His view was that when AB de Villiers was there at the crease and was batting so well, Maharaj didn’t need to take any undue risks and just had to remain there with the specialist batsman.

Maharaj’s decision to bat according to instinct

So he said, “Maharaj will be getting a b******ing for that from AB de Villiers”. However as it turned out later, the catch was not completed cleanly by Usman Khwaja who was the fielder on that occasion, as a result of which Maharaj was ruled not-out by the Television umpire. Just as the decision came, Smith went on his rant again saying “he’s got away with it but he’ll still be getting a b******ing”

The words of Smith actually didn’t come out of the Sky commentary box, but out of the feed of SuperSport TV which is the official broadcaster of the Cricket matches in South Africa, but since Smith is a Sky commentator, Sky put forward an apology on their behalf.

It was morning time in UK with the clock ticking just past 9 am and there was a high probability that the kids across the country would be sitting in front of the TV watching the game. It was only fitting that Sky took the responsibility of it.