Aside from an old-fashioned display of swing bowling by Jimmy Anderson and Graham Onions which decimated Australia’s first innings the most notable confrontation in the first three rain-affected days of the Third Test took place on the other side of the boundary rope up in the ‘potting shed’. Not just any old potting shed but the affectionate name of the commentary box perched on top of the pavilion and home to Test Match Special at Edgbaston.
In this age of media bombardment there are a multitude of options available for those who want to follow live cricket ranging from Sky’s generally excellent but hyperbolic television coverage to various ‘ball-by-ball’ and ‘over-by-over’ statistical and text commentaries of dubious quality. However it is the radio commentary provided by the BBC’s Test Match Special team that continues to set the standard for the serious cricket fan and has done for over half a century.
TMS has been home to some of sport’s greatest wordsmiths-cum-commentators over the years in John Arlott, Don Mosey and Brian Johnston but rarely can the venerable institution have witnessed such a confrontation between two of its own summarisers. Geoffrey Boycott, the irascible representative from the people’s republic of Yorkshire, and the barrel-chested Queenslander making his debut, Matthew Hayden. Boycott took offence to Hayden’s comment that his dour and frequently self-centred batting style had “emptied cricket grounds”. Boycott stormed from the potting shed and responded, “I don't need comments like that at my stage. I felt it was totally inappropriate.” With Hayden’s offer of making up over a beer rejected by the tee-total Boycott it was a rambunctious start to the Test.
Boycott had no doubt erased from his selective memory long ago a comment from another Yorkshire and England great, Fred Trueman, who recalled “If Geoffrey had played cricket the way he talked he would have had people queuing up to get into the ground instead of queuing up to leave.”
Some of my fondest memories of cricket have not been from attending games but listening to overseas editions of TMS. As I grew to appreciate cricket in my early teenage years I would lie curled up under the duvet with headphones on listening through the night convinced that if I remained absolutely still then Bruce Reid’s body may fall apart before he reached the popping crease. It didn’t and he destroyed England in 1991. I recall also a talented twin scoring an effortless century on debut at Adelaide that year; Mark Waugh was his name.
Of course it’s not just the expertly described action on the cricket field that endears TMS to its legions of followers but the irreverence of the conversation in the commentary box. Armed with anecdotes from Test to village cricket matches, supplemented by interviews with renowned cricket lovers from other fields and fuelled by chocolate cake sent in by the listeners TMS is in rude health. Senior commentators Jonathan Agnew and Christopher Martin-Jenkins command respect in the manner that the Speaker of the House could only yearn for.
Recent criticism of TMS from some sections of a self-serving media for ‘dumbing-down’ coverage and daring to reach out to new listeners by embracing new technology is churlish and mis-placed. A voice of calm, reasoned opinion in an increasingly fractured game, TMS remains, like the sight of strawberries and cream at Wimbledon and bacon and egg at Lords one of the sounds of a quintessentially English summer.
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