Michael Henderson has written a rather brave piece for this week’s Spectator in which he brands Test Match Special ‘Radio Halfwit’ and argues that it has lost its edge. This is braver even than admitting that you don’t #lovethenhs because TMS is an institution even more beloved and revered the world around. Perhaps Danny Boyle missed a trick in the Olympic opening ceremony by not projecting a giant light-up image of ‘Boycott Bingo’ onto the floor of the stadium.
Criticism is hard to take, especially when it is aimed at our most loved institution. I adore TMS, and during tests in different time zones, frequently go to sleep with the radio buzzing gently throughout the night. This makes for a fitful sleep if England are, as Blowers would say it, calypso collapso-ing, or if Monty Panesar is attempting to not get run out. I was woken early during the third test in New Zealand by Jonathan Agnew shouting ‘and he’s fallen over!’ as Panesar skidded over the line after a mis-judged run. The last Ashes series in Australia had the same effect, with a series of dramatic wickets around the witching hour in this country. It’s pretty hard to beat the sheer joy of listening to a group of cheery chaps talking non-stop, save for Shipping Forecast breaks, when the covers have been on for five hours and the rain doesn’t look like it fancies stopping any time soon.
But has its quality decreased? Certainly anyone who has been listening to the programme for a number of years will miss the charming Christopher Martin Jenkins, and listening back to the ‘Wit of Cricket’ the other day reminded me of Brian Johnston’s wonderful turn of phrase. But the wonderful thing about cricketing culture is that it continues to churn out new, young versions of these wonderful gentlemen. Henry Blofeld is one of the old guard, but he comes into his prime when Phil Tufnell enters the commentary box. One is a delightful old man with a collection of brightly-coloured trousers and the other a cheeky London boy, but both possess the same schoolboy humour and joy. Personally I’ve always thought Tufnell makes a better analyst than he ever was a cricketer.
Tufnell may not have much to say on the achievements of a cricketer who retired in the 1930s (Henderson takes issue with his apparent ignorance of Wilfred Rhodes). But the producers of TMS will be mindful of the different strengths of their commentary team: Blowers and Tuffers work well together not just because they have a habit of sniggering at the same jokes, but also because one brings knowledge and memory that the other cannot.
Even the old guard aren’t perfect. Blofeld brings institutional memory (and the producers will surely be considering the implications of him one day leaving the commentary box, although hopefully not for a long time), but beyond a very detailed description of the fielding, his commentary of the action has always been a little hopeless. He generally leaves listeners none the wiser as to who on earth is out, how they’ve gone, or whether they have indeed got out thanks to his excitable habit of bellowing ‘he’s gone, my goodness me!’ until a commentary box colleague steps in to explain which batsman has been run out. But he can tell you a great deal more about the buses and pigeons passing by. And no-one can say ‘and there is no run’ with quite the same flourish.
Geoffrey Boycott called Tufnell a ‘loveable idiot’ the other day. Loveable idiots have their place in the jolly jamboree of TMS. But they are being joined by superb technicians. Michael Vaughan may slip in asides about programmes that many cricket fans haven’t heard of, like Britain’s Got Talent, but he also brings a cricketing CV that most of the men from the glory days would have given an arm and a leg for. Ed Smith offers less in the bus and pigeon department, but you jolly well know exactly what’s going on in the game, from the ball bowled to the shot played to the name of the fielder who misses it, all in one fluent breath. And Jonathan Agnew is a superb journalist whose interviews always reveal and push the subject (listen to his lunchtime interview with Adam Gilchrist yesterday for an example).
Perhaps as the game changes, the commentators do need to become a bit more Radio Halfwit. I don’t think so, but that’s because I’m the sort of person who is still a little grumpy about one day kits. But not every cricket fan these days is a cheery chappy sitting in his conservatory and thumbing through his MCC tickets book and dusty Wisden tomes. Perhaps loveable idiots like Tufnell, sitting alongside young technical whizzes like Ed Smith, will keep a new generation of fans from bothering to turn on the TV, opting instead for the pleasant buzz of TMS in their ear all night.
This is in response to Michael Henderson’s piece on Test Match Special in this week’s magazine.
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