Test coverage

Once upon a time in the good old days of TMS, lengthy breaks in play were greeted with pleasure as the team could sustain a discussion on all matters cricket for hours on end.

The modern broadcaster cannot so they have to pad out with replays of interviews, of the match and/or any other match.

Indeed now there is no TMS but a thing on the internet called The Cricket Social. This is because the BBC do not have the radio rights – Talksport do.

So there is a discussion on The Cricket Social and as soon as something happens it’s over to Jonathan Agnew.

You have the ludicrous situation that the contributors know what’s happening but the listener does not.

The BBC sports department, in dispensing with the services of “old hands” Mark Pougatch, Cornelius Lysaght and Jonathan Overend, has explained and justified this by stating they are going for the under 30 audience.

 

Judging by a dreadful programme I tuned in to in which ‘yoof’ discuss football in inarticulate banter, not in factual analysis, this would lower their standards even more.

 

They have lost their normal audience in seeking a fresh one who have numerous other broadcasting resources and competitors.

I may be an old fogey but am relieved I grew up in a golden age of sporting broadcasting and commentary.