David Leggat: Debbie Hockley more knowledgeable than all her haters combined

Time to have a stab here. Chris Higgens, of Hamilton, didn't really understand what he was getting into when he started his cheerful petition to have a woman removed from the Sky cricket commentary team.

I'm not totally convinced on that, but you'd like to think so anyway.

I've no idea but let's also assume Higgens is male. By late yesterday, he had 477 signatures supporting his call for Debbie Hockley, the former top international batswoman, one of only three New Zealanders in cricket's Hall of Fame — two men called Hadlee and Crowe are the others — and now president of New Zealand Cricket, to be red-carded from the commentary team.

The sole reason for the petition is to have Hockley "removed from the commentary box because she has no idea what she's talking about". Back to that in a moment.

This season, Sky decided to dilute its all-male commentary team for the international summer. In came Hockley and another former New Zealand captain, Maia Lewis, while broadcaster Rikki Swannell stepped in for domestic short-form games and women's internationals.

Good on them — Sky, that is — and you'll not often hear that phrase from this quarter seeing as how they won't budge in removing rubbish channels from my screen while keeping up the charge, a policy I've never understood in terms of keeping the customer happy, but that's digressing.

It was a smart move reflective of an overdue changing of the times. But unfortunately out came the haters, those troubled individuals who need something on which to vent, who clearly lead shallow lives.

There's a variety of messages on the petition, many of them using vile language and physical threats. There are milder ones directed at Hockley, such as "stupid bimbo" and "shut the f**k up". Then there are the most florid offerings.

Nice work. This corner would be prepared to wager Hockley, steeped in the game for decades and a total enthusiast for it, would know more about its intricacies than all Higgens' 477 supporters combined.

She acknowledged an error over an ill-judged Serena Williams remark this season. Name me a commentator who hasn't misspoken and I'll call them/you a liar.

Commentary isn't easy. Once the words are out, just like the toothpaste escaping the tube, there's no shoving them back or, worse still, adding more words to change the intent. That's called the shovel principle — invariably the more the commentator tries to refill the hole, the deeper it's dug.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on the merits or otherwise of commentators. Free world and all that. As it happens, there are a couple of prominent rugby and cricket names these ears would happily never hear from again. Call it issues over sycophancy and cheerleading, but there you go. Each to their own.

Those joining this rabble — calling it a petition is a bit rich — will predominantly include the witless, the misogynists, the lonely, the sad, the pathetic. And the vindictive, bitter types with throats loaded with bile.

Back into your hole.

• Good to see the International Cricket Council have done away with the Champions Trophy. Again. Just joking. They have clearly forgotten, or ignored, the success of its format — eight teams, two pools, every game matters, no lightweights. It has become a plaything down the years of its eight editions since 1998. New Zealand's sole success in ICC tournaments came in Kenya in 2000. Instead, guess what: another T20 tournament, making it two of them in two years, 2020 and 2021. Beautiful.

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