November 12, 2024 • 36 mins
This week on On The Front Foot, Bryan Waddle and Jeremy Coney were joined by special guest Jonathan “Aggers” Agnew, who’s been a commentator on the BBC’s Test Match Special programme for over 30 years.
They discussed his extensive career covering the game, and dug into what the England team will be bringing to the three test series coming up in a couple of weeks.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
Take it on the pad Now, it's your trick. It
is out, The test is over.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Goodness makes a beauty. It is out and hearing.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
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Speaker 4 (00:33):
With Bold.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
On the Front Foot with Brian Waddell and Jeremy Coney,
powered by News Talks dead B at iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello, back on the front foot again. Another week of
celebration for our top teams. This week a different celebration
for one of the games celebrities and characters. TMS commentator
my household name for cricket followers the world over Eggers.
Jonathan egg You has of the partial retirement. Sadly we
don't hear enough of him as England Test cricket doesn't
(01:08):
get the exposure many of us would like through the
winter months, but Eggers will still be heard. Clearly, he
can't walk away all together. He's giving away the cricket
correspondent role, which is the journalist side of the job,
and Eggers has time to join on the front four
this week soon brought on the decisions.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
It's very nice to be with you both again, I
must say that, well, it was kind of a mutual thing,
I think. I mean that there are two parts for
the job that I've been doing all these years, and
that the first part is obviously presenting and commentating on
Test Match Special, which is the you know, the program
that goes on for days covering test matches predominantly but
all the other stuff.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
So I you know, I present that.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
But the second part of the job is what they
rather pompously called BBC Cricket Correspondent, and that is the
person who is on call all of the time basically
to respond to well from from deaths down to groin strings.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
And you know, it's it's it's look, it's it's it's.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Not an arduous job as such, but it does you know,
being on call that does does take its toll. I mean,
you know, when I was younger, number of school runs
I had to abandon my kids, stopping trolleys left in
test goes.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
You've got to go dashing up.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Because it's a media you know, it's like on the radio,
it's immedia and you've got to respond immediately to things.
And so that plus the fact that if I'm honest,
a lot of modern cricket doesn't have a huge amount
of interest for me. I'm talking about the franchise cricket.
I'm talking about you know, all the all the leagues
coming up. I think our generation, I'll do what Jeremy thinks.
(02:41):
I think our generation was brought up on your domestic structure,
but also international cricket as being what really mattered and
what drove the sport. And I've I've got nothing against
T twenty cricket at all. When it first came in,
I thought, Wow, this is going to be the savior
of the game. This will this will finance test cricket,
you know, right into the future. But like most things,
(03:04):
they're flogging it to death. And I don't get a
huge amount of pleasure, if I'm honest, watching putting a
telly on, watching a game of cricket that looked a
bit familiar to one I might have watched two or
three days ago, except hang on that blue. He was
wearing blue last week, he's wearing green today.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
I just don't get you know, the players, and good
luck to them, you know, they got they got year
round employment and that's really good for them. But I
just think people will get sick of I think people
will get sick of it and fed up with it
and bordered it, and then the games in a real
games and a real mess then, so you know, if
you could sort of throw all those things in together.
And I'm not quite as old as you was, but
I'm getting towards that stage now where it's time to
(03:42):
try to go and dig the allotment, and so all
all those things goodbye.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
I think answers the question.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Jerry, that sounds a bit like you, well, pretty much
the same ones.
Speaker 7 (03:53):
I don't have an allotment just to sort of a
three meter square garden down the steps by the road.
But look I found I found sport by playing it.
My childhood comprised of Bolington my brothers, older brothers, and
I wasn't enough to.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Control their heavy bats, and.
Speaker 7 (04:10):
When they tried to give it me and I hit
up a gentle cats to them. But look when they
were off playing, I'd spend time with the ball of
mum stocking, you know, suspended from the clothesline like lots
of kids. I'm sure I recall watching my first test
in New Zealand playing England, catching the train from Rua
(04:31):
Street and to town, and then a tram rattled through Wellington,
you know, and people the names like Paul Barton and
the diminutive Berry Sinclea and the power of John Reid,
all from the same area. I was walking close by
me as I sat on those concrete steps, you know,
and then I watched white figures criss crossing the basin turf,
(04:54):
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And I had a packed lunch and a.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
Score book, and I bought an ice cream at a
little shop at the corner of the of the grandstand
and occasionally, you know, I still make a sign pilgrimage
to those steps, and somehow all that gave meaning to
me hitting that ball at home, and I still see
b D. Morrison sending Ted Dexter's stumps into the green turf,
(05:22):
you know, and Bob Blair hitting an unlikely sixty four.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Even the sandwiches were perfect, you know.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
International sport had a big meaning for me, and I
could see from the crowd that sport can unite and
the basin became alive with that shared experienced and that
affected everybody, and I could imagine the shared delight when
a national team won, and it became a bit of
(05:52):
a dream for me. I suppose, and those visits were
the beginnings of a love affair with the game. So yes,
of course I prefer international sport to club matches. I
like the concept of representing all those who strive on
a home represent them in your own spot in the world.
So it's very different from a group thrown together for
(06:15):
cash and for a new colored uniform. That doesn't kind
of hold the same level of meaning for me. I
don't mind twenty twenty as a format. It's brevity. I
agree with you both. That clouds the memories you turn
on the telly. There's always another twenty twenty on somewhere,
(06:36):
but make it New Zealand Australia. I'm sitting up a
bit straighter, you know. That's the international aspect of it.
So yeah, Test cricket too. I mean, that's my preference
for me, But you know, I don't think that'll surprise
too many of our listeners.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Well, Test met Specials is a institution, isn't it when
it comes to the cricket and the English people generally English,
isn't it. I mean I foolishly thought i'd earn acceptance
when I Aukland to lords and Brian Johnson johnn has
called me waters and I thought, ah, I've made it
(07:14):
to join taughers and eggers and blowers and beards, etc.
But there was no such thing for Jeremy Coney as owners.
But that was basically how everything developed as a presentation
of the program.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Well it became, yes, I mean, it became more than
just a cricket program. And it was is in mainly
in the seventies, the early seventies, when Brian Johnston joined
that program full time, that that really developed.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
It became rather like a soap opro really.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
You know, Trevor Bailey, Fred Truman, people like that involved
in it. You've mentioned some of the others, of course,
and so Test Match Special did gain this reputation of
being something that you could listen to whether you like
cricket or not. And I like to think that it's
still that case today. I mean the program changes. Sadly,
most of those people who listened off no longer with us,
(08:05):
So therefore the program evolves. You get new voices, do
you back grounds, new characters in it? I think, I think,
you know, without I think I think my main role
has been like the bridge, if you like. Between that
time and I joined in nineteen ninety one, so you know,
Brown was eighty then a Christopher Martin Jenkins. People like that,
you know, but I think I think my job is
(08:25):
to or has been, a sort of bridget over.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
From that time to the new time and try and maintain.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
That that sort of continuity, if you like, in the
way that the game is is described and the way
that the program works, because it is easy. I mean,
you can unless it's done well, it can become frivolous,
and you you know, the constant reminder really, I mean,
(08:55):
I give it as frivolous as anybody. But but but
the structure of the program is that the cricket is
the most important thing. And there are times where you
cannot talk about things other than the cricket because the
cricket's too good, the trick it's too important, the crick
is too engrossing. There are other times that frankly, the
crickets totally dull, and therefore you go off in other directions.
(09:17):
And that's where you're challenge a bit more as an
entertainer to try and keep people listening and make them interested.
And you're talking mainly about cricket topics. But what I
like is that you know where we go around the
world and once when you were doing it, you know,
your program very much reflected test much special, the ABC
with Jim Maxwell, very much the same, the Caribbean Networks
SABC before it blew up, you know, all very much
(09:41):
trying to copy that blueprint of what Brian and co.
Set up back in those early seventies. And Peter bax
Let's mentioned him to the producer of it. So you know,
that's that's it, and that's why I'm glad I'm still
staying on the program to present it because I just think,
I just think that's important. You need a mix, you
need a mix of voices, a mix of ages. You know,
(10:02):
there's a temptation these days that everything's the greatest, this
the most amazing, that the most incredible. They will hang
on of it. But actually, in nineteen eighty seven, so
and so happened. You know, you need context. You can't
you can't just shout off about everything being the greatest,
There is the greatest catch you'll ever see, all those
sort of superlatives. It seemed to come in quite easily
(10:22):
to to sports commentary these days. You know, you do
need context, and that's where I'm afraid that comes with age.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And as you had those lunchtime gifts that would come
along celebrities, not always cricket people. You did the View
from the Boundary, all those sorts of extra parts of
your program.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Yeah, and that continues, and in some ways that's going
from strength to strength as well. You know, it's people
actually want to come on the program on those Saturday
lunches and it's part of the program that I enjoy
the most, if I'm honest, because it's it's the most
challenging part of my test match week preparing to do
a forty minute live interview with somebody you've never met,
(11:05):
somebody you might never have heard of that. Frankly, if
it's a modern mop star or actor or whatever, you know,
I've probably never heard of them. And so yeah, there's
nowhere else to go, certainly here in the UK. It's
the longest live radio interview that there's broadcast these days,
because they normally get traffic news or travel news or
(11:27):
something to interrupt at all. You know, this is just
forty minutes straight with that person. And some have been well,
I think most of them are good. I mean, we've
had one or two tricky ones where well, for two reasons. A.
I think sometimes people are quite nervous. You forget, actually
again going back to what we're talking about in the program,
and it's tradition and what people think about that program.
(11:50):
You forget actually that while we're just sitting here chatting away,
broadcasting very easily because it's what we do for other people,
it's actually quite a nerve wracking experience. And I've turned around,
having read a bit of an introduction off a page
and said, well, then here we go, looked at the
person and to say welcome along, and they are shaking
like a leaf.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Think, oh, blve me.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
I've got forty minutes, you know.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
So some some do come on. Who are who are nervous?
Actors I find to be particularly nervous, you know, because
I suppose they used to not really being being themselves.
But we get a lot of comedians on a lot
of comedians like like cricket. But then again there are
people like their man actors who actually love cricket because
they actually learn their lines. To politicians we have, I
(12:35):
mean we have most of the prime ministers who who
we've had during our time come on. You know, it's
it's it's a it's a it's a brilliant mix and
as long as the audience is satisfied, as long as
that guest obviously genuinely likes cricket, and they get very
cross if they think somebody is a fraud and they're
(12:56):
on there just to just to have some limelight or
plug a book or whatever it may be. So you've
got to make sure that these people do know something
about cricket, not very much.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
They haven't got to be walking wisdoms.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
And that's probably the first thing that you do to
try and reassure them when they come on. You know, you,
I'm not going to challenge you on Graham Hick's batting
average in nineteen ninety one. You know that is not
what this is about. It is just talking about why
you like cricket, and we take it from there.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Well, Leggas, you talk about comedians and humorous moments, and
that's been part of the program as well. I mean,
there was a legover, wasn't there.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Tragic thing about it. He knew exactly what was going
to happen. He tried to step over the stumps and
just flicked a bail with his with his right.
Speaker 8 (13:37):
Monis and tried to do the splits ridden Unfortunately the
inner part of his side must.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
Have just removed the bail.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
He just this thing quite got his leg over.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
Anyhow, he did very well, indeed about one hundred and
thirty one minutes and hit three fours. And then we
had Lewis play extremely well for his forty seven lot
outs do stop him. And he was joined by the
fratus who was in for forty minutes, who used for
little partnership. There they put on thirty five in forty minutes,
(14:05):
and then he was caught by deuje En forche Lawrence, always.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Entertaining for thirty five.
Speaker 8 (14:17):
Thirty five minutes, hit a four over the week keepers.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Was freaking his sake, sobbed.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
There's Lawrence who suit me well, hit the four of
the week keeper's head and he was out from the.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
Tough kid.
Speaker 8 (14:46):
It's them as called by hands on pats and for
two and there were fifty four extras and the labarre
all out for four hundred and nineteen.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
I've stopped laughing now.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You pulling the leg of Jeffrey Boycott over his Andrews,
Was that right?
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:02):
I mean that there are opportunities that arise out there
for for for that sort of thing. I mean, the
best one I think actually are the impromptu ones. So
the legover was impromptu where a classic old friend fucker Zaman,
which again was impromptu. But you just kind of your
your brain is going, you know, it all sounds very's
(15:23):
laid back and relaxed and chatty, but actually under the
water as you know, you know, you're you're like a duck.
Your your legs are paddling away, your things are going,
you know, and so your brain is kind of going
like this, and I find that you know, you're trying
to find a finds something out of a situation.
Speaker 6 (15:39):
It's all unscripted.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
So it's a question of just using i know, the
speed of thought if you like to try and create
something which hopefully will stitch up the person sitting next
to you. That's that's kind of my employer. And we
go right back to our early days with with with you,
with you, you know that. But when I first started
working with you and Jeremy and co you know, John Wright,
(16:04):
and you know, it was that was there was always
that really lovely atmosphere. It felt like like you know,
your friends watching the game and actually that first two
for me, which is way back in nineteen ninety one,
wasn't it ninety two? That was a huge learning experience
for me because it was my first, my first series
going away as the visiting commentator, and I remember turning
(16:25):
up in New Zealand not knowing any of you. I
think I think I might have played against Jerry may
Coup oft times, but he was fast through senior.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
For me, I wouldn't have dad speaking to mister Coney.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
And so I actually I was actually very nervous when
I turned up working for you fellas the first time
and that series, you know, as the BBC commentator and stuff.
I felt very anxious. But that was what's so great,
and that you all put me at my ease so
so quickly that actually began to feel like this is
(16:55):
rather good fun. As soon as you get into that
that frame of mind, it becomes much easier, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Well, of course it does.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
I mean I can remember a time actually when there
three of us were involved England were touring in New Zealand.
I was on radio of course, but I also did
a TV spot with U Wards at tea time where
we used to chat to a guest called the Dil
Martee Party.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Now my u wads. And we did it for some clothes,
didn't we.
Speaker 7 (17:24):
We thought that me might you know, wear them out
to a nightclub or something to do a few Sherbet's
on the floor.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
But it wasn't really a very popular show.
Speaker 8 (17:35):
It was, you know, the.
Speaker 7 (17:36):
Ratings were somewhere between in the Inner City Sumo and
Cooking in Prison.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
The producer this day said, our guest was John Snow.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
That's not the Channel four news anchor, but the former
England fast bowler.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Now I had faced him.
Speaker 7 (17:52):
He was very sharp and he won the ashes in Australia,
didn't He was rayilling with and he also wrote poetry,
and so we had a sensitive fast bowler we're going
to speak to. And he was introverted and he had
a very soft voice and I knew that, and so
I did some research on him and I approached everybody. Nothing,
(18:17):
not a thing. Ten minutes to go on air. I
saw agnew and I thought to myself, a useful snitch,
and Agers gave me something on John Snow and it
was gold, okay, he said, leaning back, ask him about
(18:39):
his charity work and his bungee jumping from a helicopter.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Now, I ah, this is good stuff.
Speaker 7 (18:49):
I thought, you know, at ten thousand feet a poet
upside down brilliantly, and Aggers said, Then he added in
a very calm voice and nude joking, I said, no,
He said, he raised heaps the money. So well, I
(19:12):
was suspicious, but I wanted to believe it. And poets,
you know, they see the world from a different angle.
We're better to find your muse, but from ten thousand
feet upside down. So on we went and snow he
(19:33):
was doing his thing, voice so quiet, and waddle kicked me.
Was resorted to kicking me under the table. And I said, John,
you do quite a lot of charity work.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
A bit.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Now, and then the odd appearance excellent.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
I said, well, what about the bungee jumping from the helicopter. No, no,
don't be modest, John, And I pressed, I pressed on,
you know, and I should have stopped, but I carried on,
I said, and nude.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
I chirped, and what he said the loudest he had been.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
On tour, and the subtext was kind of like, I
don't even remove my trousers to go to bed. And
the credits rolled, and I apologized and all I could
hear was this high pitched wailing laughter from the TMS box.
(20:49):
It took me a couple of days before I found
man and he gave him a knuckle sandwich.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
It was brilliant, you know that that sort of thing though,
But you know, either you're meet to enough good enough
to cover from something like that, but there is It's
just it's just funn isn't it. I think if if
listeners hear us having fun and know that we're enjoying
what we're doing, then that's that's half the battle, and
so it's half the reason they turn the radio on,
(21:17):
isn't it. You know, these are these these people going
to have a bit of a laugh, but it's a
good time. They have a good company. You know, they
all love each other, although perhaps you don't love everybody,
but you know, you all get on like a house
on fast.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
And that's just part of the atmosphere, isn't it.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And I think that that's what people appreciate from from
basically what you do, because it's still having the game
of cricket, but it's an entertainment medium as well, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Yeah, And that's that's the key all I've always thought, certainly,
I mean from my commentary and it'd be yours as well,
ones and and gyms. Is that if people listen to
us on the radio and think, oh, this cricket sounds
like rather good fun, I might I might give it
a go, you know, I might get involved in it.
I might listen again next week. I might go and
(22:00):
learn what scoring is about. Or I might go and
try and find an old baton, go and play in
the Golden If if, if, if what we do helps
to sell cricket to people, then I think that's that's
the main the main object of our job.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
Isn't it.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, well, you're not going to be out here for
the England tool. Let's just have a quick look at
where England cricket is at at the moment. Brendan McCallum
has now taken control of everything. Is the white cricket,
red ball cricket as well? Where is the England game
at and how much of an input is things like
the one hundred and the the T twenty competition impacting
(22:38):
on the overall love of the game for the Brits.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Well, you know, it's I think English trick. It's a
bit of flux at the moment. You haven't mentioned that
all conquering Kiwi's there. What a lovely literation that is
was I thought you might have thrown that at me.
I think I think we are we are going, We're
going to New Zealand. I would think of second favorites
and that that's not often the case, I don't think.
(23:04):
But I think English cricket's got a lot of questions
to answer and Brenda McCullum and Ben Stokes have done
a huge amount in injecting enthusiasm, fun entertainment into Test cricket,
but they haven't got the results.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
And I watched them.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I was in Pakistan two or three weeks ago. I
watched a really pathetic performance there in the last Test
match of that series on a pitch that well. They
it lasted two and a half days the game, but
they got in their heads. They were being stitched up.
They didn't knuckle down. There was no effort to play
a different game other than the one. They go out
(23:42):
and try and thrash the ball all over the place,
and they've got they've got to knuckle down. You cannot
play Test cricket at that pace and be consistent. You
could win some games and you can have some really
exciting defeats, but that doesn't help you win series. And
(24:02):
so I'll be very easy to see because actually it
looks like New Zealand actually playing because you were the
first fellows actually just to come up against bas Ball
when England but really were in them a couple of
years ago and came out fighting and Johnny Bearstow and
all that, and you know New Zealand copped it. So
whether they've taken a bit of it on board and
actually implemented it rather more sensibly than England have done.
(24:25):
England one trick pony and you cannot win Test series.
We're not going to go to Australia this time next
year and win the Ashes by being one trick ponies
Who've got India at home next summer again a very
tough series. They've got to learn to adapt and they've
got to be less stubborn. And for all that McCullum
and Ben Stokes are very putting the right words here,
(24:48):
I mean there are naturally free spirits. I think it's
fair to say about Brendan we've got a very easy
way with people. He's incredibly relaxed with people. He puts
players at ease. He's also incredibly stubborn, and so is
Ben Stokes. So you've got two people there who will
not take a step back. They will not even if
(25:10):
you if you show them every defeat. You look at
that game in multi in Islamabad that I watched two
weeks ago and say that was pathetic for a Test
team to capitulate like that.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
What are you going to do about it? Oh, that's
the way we play, you know.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
They shut up, shut up, because if that's the way
you play, you're not going to win, you know it,
just you know.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
So that's that. I'll be very interesting once and I
wish I was coming over to see this series. I
think it'll be a very interesting one.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
But they they have got to sort their minds out
and got to get much more clarity and frankly a
bit more maturity about the way they go about playing
Test cricket.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
Surely Eggers that the people, the fans, if you like,
of Tiste cricket, they're not fools. They they understand that
there will be times when it's going to be difficult
to score the run rate they might like to be scoring.
And it seems to me after watching the Indians, they
(26:11):
now trust their attack more than they do their defense.
So simply put, they prefer a reverse suite than they
do to a forward defense.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
And so you lose.
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Wickets quite quickly and in clumps at times. And there's
never a time when you could see a bowler off
because a he's bowling well or the ball is getting softer,
or whatever the reason might be. That never enters their
thought process, it seems now and patience might be another word.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
So all those twenty twenty players who commit to it.
Speaker 7 (26:58):
Are putting their defensive skills that they are going to
be required in a Test match format basically in the
spare bedroom with the old furniture and so. And it
is so obvious they all they want to do is
a tech and they keep getting out, especially when you
get on a pitch that's doing something. If New Zealand
(27:19):
want to beat England, make the pitchers do something. It's
quite obvious that if you want to play on a
road they get eight hundred, as they did in the
first Test match. But as soon as the ball starts
doing something and you've got a reasonable bowl who's tight,
that's when they start changing the game. But then they
revert to their philosophy.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's possible in
New Zealand, but if you could create some pictures of spin,
given how well your spinner's bowl in India and how
badly English match and play against spin, and English spinners
aren't great either, to be honest, there we've got Basha
who's learning Jack Leech's very steady. That would be my
(28:02):
formula for beating England in New Zealand. I don't think
it's that easy, especially that time of year, to produce
those sort of pictures there. But but you're right in
that the defense is seen as boring and it's all
about seizing the initiative, putting a putting a opponent on
the back foot. Well, you can put your opponent on
the back foot by playing a really tight, solid, defensive,
(28:23):
count counter counter defensive game, can't you. You suddenly what
where the wicket's going from? Now they're five down a
minute ago, but now they put on they put one
hundred and twenty in three hours.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
You know where the next week it goes that that
game's gone.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
And what worries me, Jerry, we're heading, we're hurtling towards
four day Test cricket because the games simply aren't lasting
five days anymore. And the great news about that we
can we can squeeze in. We can the series can
be shorter, we can squeeze in some more t twenties.
That would be good to the fans will love that.
But it's a shame because people do get frustrated and
(28:59):
sometimes out doing this job, you do gain a little
bit of smug satisfaction when at the start of all
this I undersand others this is great, but it can't continue.
This is great, but we're losing games.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
This is great, but.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
They've got to sharpen up. They go, this is great,
but they've got to play with some common sense. And
you get slagged off on social media. You're old fashioned,
you don't know what you're talking about. You know, go
back to you whatever, you know, go back to your
nineteen seventies. And then two years later people saying on
social media, god, this is hopeless. How they lose in
two and half days. They can't keep playing like this.
(29:33):
And then and you sit there and say, yeah, well
we told you that two years ago. But unfortunately those
England teams still they've got this mantra. They've determined that
they're going to play this way. And I say because
Brendan and Ben are so stubborn and they've got all
the power. They've got all the power. You know, there's
there's no real checks and balances there to say, hang
(29:54):
on a minute, this ain't working. You know, what happened
there in Islamabad was a disgrace.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
There's no one there to do it. And so.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Well, we'll see, I mean Brendan's work mirror at the
start of this to see if he works miracles with
the white ball, because they need a bit of that
as well with the Champions trophie coming up. But you know,
I'm not going to criticize McCallum because I think when
he came in at exactly the right moment, he did
exactly the right thing.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
He came in.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
He's a breath of fresh air. It's a lovely bloke, isn't.
Let's be honest. But they they've just got to be
they've got to settle down and just to try and
try and play a more responsible, more common sense sort
of the game. They've got the skills, they've got the shots,
they've got all of that. In their mind they can
play that way, and the Opotents know they can take
(30:43):
them apart. But for goodness sake, when the need requires,
just just play a different game.
Speaker 7 (30:48):
M just a quick one. Following it would be how
much is the mithard of the selection of players? You
know they are effectively, it seems from here to be
bypassing the County Championship performances. Yes, so they search, they
itch for characteristics of a player. He's tall, he bolts vast,
(31:12):
he's left arm or whatever it is, rather than performance,
and so you get the Bushiers who don't he's not
selected for the account. You get the Josh Hulls who's
only played a handful of matches but he's tall and
left arm and might swing it. You get folks keeping
wicket for Surrey. But Smith is the England keeper. Now
(31:34):
it's going to be Jordan Cox. You know, it's the
County Championship. Is its relationship just losing a relationship with
the English English side?
Speaker 5 (31:48):
It isn't the moment, You're absolutely right, So they are.
They are plucking people out, and you know, I think
I think that it's it's sad on a number of fronts.
I think it's sad for those one or two of
those players when Jamie Smith had a success. I think overall,
I think he's coming and done well, but he wasn't
the first choice we could keeper in his own county.
Basher is learning. I think I think he'll be all right.
I think you're like the look of bust Year. I
(32:09):
think I think you're thinking can bowl. But he's hardly
played and of course he couldn't get in the county
side because of Jack Leech, who was in the spin.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
I mean the politics aside is daft.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Josh Hull bless him, twenty years old, left arm seemer
from Leicestershire. I saw James Taylor the other day. He
might remember a little titch who played for England and
had his heart problems. He's now coach at Leicestershire. I
saw him out in about a week or so ago
and I said, what's going on? He said, mate, he said,
it's a joke that lad con in getting our first team.
He average is sixty five in first class cricket. Next
(32:40):
thing is lumbering in playing in a Test match at
the Oval. He's got He hasn't got his own game
sorted out at all. He's got no idea what to
do when he's under a bit of pressure. It's on
his fold.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
I just thought that was a really really bad selection.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
And an unkind selection, and a selection that's trying to
prove actually, we're a bit clever, you know, we can,
we can, we can, we can pick these people.
Speaker 7 (33:01):
You know.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Well, that was a bad one. That was a dud.
And I hope, I hope he hasn't finished him.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
He probably has got a bit of talent, but it's
not good enough to be playing in a Test match
at the moment. So but the integrity of County crig
is important, isn't it. I mean, if you're a professional
cricketer and I felt this during the eighties, didn't have
central contracts and everything, your goal was to play for England.
That was your driving ambition was to play for England.
And that drove you on on a Wednesday afternoon in
(33:28):
Cardiff when you thought, hang on if I gets a
wicket so that I could be playing for England in
a couple of weeks. You know, it's that motivator and
people being selected on merit, because if you're not selected
on merit, what is the point of selection?
Speaker 6 (33:42):
You know, you have to have integrity of selection.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
And that again is something that you know always has
always burnt fiercely with me because when I was playing there.
Speaker 6 (33:52):
There were a lot of fast bowlers.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
We're all the same sort of ability, really, and I
never minded if I wasn't picked, if someone who I
thought was at least as good as me, if not better,
was picked. But when they started picking people, you think, hang,
I'm better than him. You know, you just just lose
faith in the selection process. And therefore that that eats away,
doesn't it. And that's where ing's got to be really careful.
(34:16):
They've got it right with Janie Smith. He's a good cricketer. Yeah,
he dropped. He made a couple of mistakes at Pakistan,
but that's not the easiest place to keep wicket on
on the pictures that they gave us. In the end,
he will be okay, He'll go to Australia and he
will probably baut seven, I would think, and and he
will be very positive And yeah, I think he's a
(34:37):
good pick.
Speaker 6 (34:37):
I think Bashia will eventually be a good pick.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
At the moment, he's only what twenty one learning how
to bowl spin, so he's been put under a lot
of pressure in that very very short time.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
But you know, dear ol Hull bless him. I mean
that was just a totally random selection.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah. Well, we'll get a chance to have a look
at some of the suppliers when they get out here
to newdel and sadly we won't get a chance to
talk to you.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
You can always dial me up any time your life.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh look, we certainly will, but.
Speaker 6 (35:12):
Let's just look a time difference out first.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
That's fair enough. But we've always enjoyed your company out here.
I'll never see the drifters in the same life as
I saw them with you in Hamilton one night, but
it's a whole different story which we.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
Haven't got time to deal with.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
But thank you for what you've done in terms of
covering cricket in New Zealand, but also your time worth TMS.
It's not over it. You've still got a bit of
work ahead of you. You'll be in Australia for the Ashes,
won't you.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
Yes, I will, Yes, definitely, that's good.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Well, you might get a chance to come out to
New Zealand. But thanks for your time this week and
we will take the opportunity to talk to you again.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Let us speak to you both, take care of summer.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Do for more from News Talks at b listen live
on air or online, and keep our shows with you
wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sat B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Take it on the pad Now, it's your trick. It
is out, The test is over.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Goodness makes a beauty. It is out and hearing.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Guys, This delivery has any users.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
With Bold.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
On the Front Foot with Brian Waddell and Jeremy Coney,
powered by News Talks dead B at iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello, back on the front foot again. Another week of
celebration for our top teams. This week a different celebration
for one of the games celebrities and characters. TMS commentator
my household name for cricket followers the world over Eggers.
Jonathan egg You has of the partial retirement. Sadly we
don't hear enough of him as England Test cricket doesn't
(01:08):
get the exposure many of us would like through the
winter months, but Eggers will still be heard. Clearly, he
can't walk away all together. He's giving away the cricket
correspondent role, which is the journalist side of the job,
and Eggers has time to join on the front four
this week soon brought on the decisions.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
It's very nice to be with you both again, I
must say that, well, it was kind of a mutual thing,
I think. I mean that there are two parts for
the job that I've been doing all these years, and
that the first part is obviously presenting and commentating on
Test Match Special, which is the you know, the program
that goes on for days covering test matches predominantly but
all the other stuff.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
So I you know, I present that.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
But the second part of the job is what they
rather pompously called BBC Cricket Correspondent, and that is the
person who is on call all of the time basically
to respond to well from from deaths down to groin strings.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
And you know, it's it's it's look, it's it's it's.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
Not an arduous job as such, but it does you know,
being on call that does does take its toll. I mean,
you know, when I was younger, number of school runs
I had to abandon my kids, stopping trolleys left in
test goes.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
You've got to go dashing up.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Because it's a media you know, it's like on the radio,
it's immedia and you've got to respond immediately to things.
And so that plus the fact that if I'm honest,
a lot of modern cricket doesn't have a huge amount
of interest for me. I'm talking about the franchise cricket.
I'm talking about you know, all the all the leagues
coming up. I think our generation, I'll do what Jeremy thinks.
(02:41):
I think our generation was brought up on your domestic structure,
but also international cricket as being what really mattered and
what drove the sport. And I've I've got nothing against
T twenty cricket at all. When it first came in,
I thought, Wow, this is going to be the savior
of the game. This will this will finance test cricket,
you know, right into the future. But like most things,
(03:04):
they're flogging it to death. And I don't get a
huge amount of pleasure, if I'm honest, watching putting a
telly on, watching a game of cricket that looked a
bit familiar to one I might have watched two or
three days ago, except hang on that blue. He was
wearing blue last week, he's wearing green today.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:20):
I just don't get you know, the players, and good
luck to them, you know, they got they got year
round employment and that's really good for them. But I
just think people will get sick of I think people
will get sick of it and fed up with it
and bordered it, and then the games in a real
games and a real mess then, so you know, if
you could sort of throw all those things in together.
And I'm not quite as old as you was, but
I'm getting towards that stage now where it's time to
(03:42):
try to go and dig the allotment, and so all
all those things goodbye.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
I think answers the question.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Jerry, that sounds a bit like you, well, pretty much
the same ones.
Speaker 7 (03:53):
I don't have an allotment just to sort of a
three meter square garden down the steps by the road.
But look I found I found sport by playing it.
My childhood comprised of Bolington my brothers, older brothers, and
I wasn't enough to.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Control their heavy bats, and.
Speaker 7 (04:10):
When they tried to give it me and I hit
up a gentle cats to them. But look when they
were off playing, I'd spend time with the ball of
mum stocking, you know, suspended from the clothesline like lots
of kids. I'm sure I recall watching my first test
in New Zealand playing England, catching the train from Rua
(04:31):
Street and to town, and then a tram rattled through Wellington,
you know, and people the names like Paul Barton and
the diminutive Berry Sinclea and the power of John Reid,
all from the same area. I was walking close by
me as I sat on those concrete steps, you know,
and then I watched white figures criss crossing the basin turf,
(04:54):
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And I had a packed lunch and a.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
Score book, and I bought an ice cream at a
little shop at the corner of the of the grandstand
and occasionally, you know, I still make a sign pilgrimage
to those steps, and somehow all that gave meaning to
me hitting that ball at home, and I still see
b D. Morrison sending Ted Dexter's stumps into the green turf,
(05:22):
you know, and Bob Blair hitting an unlikely sixty four.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Even the sandwiches were perfect, you know.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
International sport had a big meaning for me, and I
could see from the crowd that sport can unite and
the basin became alive with that shared experienced and that
affected everybody, and I could imagine the shared delight when
a national team won, and it became a bit of
(05:52):
a dream for me. I suppose, and those visits were
the beginnings of a love affair with the game. So yes,
of course I prefer international sport to club matches. I
like the concept of representing all those who strive on
a home represent them in your own spot in the world.
So it's very different from a group thrown together for
(06:15):
cash and for a new colored uniform. That doesn't kind
of hold the same level of meaning for me. I
don't mind twenty twenty as a format. It's brevity. I
agree with you both. That clouds the memories you turn
on the telly. There's always another twenty twenty on somewhere,
(06:36):
but make it New Zealand Australia. I'm sitting up a
bit straighter, you know. That's the international aspect of it.
So yeah, Test cricket too. I mean, that's my preference
for me, But you know, I don't think that'll surprise
too many of our listeners.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Well, Test met Specials is a institution, isn't it when
it comes to the cricket and the English people generally English,
isn't it. I mean I foolishly thought i'd earn acceptance
when I Aukland to lords and Brian Johnson johnn has
called me waters and I thought, ah, I've made it
(07:14):
to join taughers and eggers and blowers and beards, etc.
But there was no such thing for Jeremy Coney as owners.
But that was basically how everything developed as a presentation
of the program.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Well it became, yes, I mean, it became more than
just a cricket program. And it was is in mainly
in the seventies, the early seventies, when Brian Johnston joined
that program full time, that that really developed.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
It became rather like a soap opro really.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
You know, Trevor Bailey, Fred Truman, people like that involved
in it. You've mentioned some of the others, of course,
and so Test Match Special did gain this reputation of
being something that you could listen to whether you like
cricket or not. And I like to think that it's
still that case today. I mean the program changes. Sadly,
most of those people who listened off no longer with us,
(08:05):
So therefore the program evolves. You get new voices, do
you back grounds, new characters in it? I think, I think,
you know, without I think I think my main role
has been like the bridge, if you like. Between that
time and I joined in nineteen ninety one, so you know,
Brown was eighty then a Christopher Martin Jenkins. People like that,
you know, but I think I think my job is
(08:25):
to or has been, a sort of bridget over.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
From that time to the new time and try and maintain.
Speaker 5 (08:35):
That that sort of continuity, if you like, in the
way that the game is is described and the way
that the program works, because it is easy. I mean,
you can unless it's done well, it can become frivolous,
and you you know, the constant reminder really, I mean,
(08:55):
I give it as frivolous as anybody. But but but
the structure of the program is that the cricket is
the most important thing. And there are times where you
cannot talk about things other than the cricket because the
cricket's too good, the trick it's too important, the crick
is too engrossing. There are other times that frankly, the
crickets totally dull, and therefore you go off in other directions.
(09:17):
And that's where you're challenge a bit more as an
entertainer to try and keep people listening and make them interested.
And you're talking mainly about cricket topics. But what I
like is that you know where we go around the
world and once when you were doing it, you know,
your program very much reflected test much special, the ABC
with Jim Maxwell, very much the same, the Caribbean Networks
SABC before it blew up, you know, all very much
(09:41):
trying to copy that blueprint of what Brian and co.
Set up back in those early seventies. And Peter bax
Let's mentioned him to the producer of it. So you know,
that's that's it, and that's why I'm glad I'm still
staying on the program to present it because I just think,
I just think that's important. You need a mix, you
need a mix of voices, a mix of ages. You know,
(10:02):
there's a temptation these days that everything's the greatest, this
the most amazing, that the most incredible. They will hang
on of it. But actually, in nineteen eighty seven, so
and so happened. You know, you need context. You can't
you can't just shout off about everything being the greatest,
There is the greatest catch you'll ever see, all those
sort of superlatives. It seemed to come in quite easily
(10:22):
to to sports commentary these days. You know, you do
need context, and that's where I'm afraid that comes with age.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
And as you had those lunchtime gifts that would come
along celebrities, not always cricket people. You did the View
from the Boundary, all those sorts of extra parts of
your program.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Yeah, and that continues, and in some ways that's going
from strength to strength as well. You know, it's people
actually want to come on the program on those Saturday
lunches and it's part of the program that I enjoy
the most, if I'm honest, because it's it's the most
challenging part of my test match week preparing to do
a forty minute live interview with somebody you've never met,
(11:05):
somebody you might never have heard of that. Frankly, if
it's a modern mop star or actor or whatever, you know,
I've probably never heard of them. And so yeah, there's
nowhere else to go, certainly here in the UK. It's
the longest live radio interview that there's broadcast these days,
because they normally get traffic news or travel news or
(11:27):
something to interrupt at all. You know, this is just
forty minutes straight with that person. And some have been well,
I think most of them are good. I mean, we've
had one or two tricky ones where well, for two reasons. A.
I think sometimes people are quite nervous. You forget, actually
again going back to what we're talking about in the program,
and it's tradition and what people think about that program.
(11:50):
You forget actually that while we're just sitting here chatting away,
broadcasting very easily because it's what we do for other people,
it's actually quite a nerve wracking experience. And I've turned around,
having read a bit of an introduction off a page
and said, well, then here we go, looked at the
person and to say welcome along, and they are shaking
like a leaf.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Think, oh, blve me.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
I've got forty minutes, you know.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
So some some do come on. Who are who are nervous?
Actors I find to be particularly nervous, you know, because
I suppose they used to not really being being themselves.
But we get a lot of comedians on a lot
of comedians like like cricket. But then again there are
people like their man actors who actually love cricket because
they actually learn their lines. To politicians we have, I
(12:35):
mean we have most of the prime ministers who who
we've had during our time come on. You know, it's
it's it's a it's a it's a brilliant mix and
as long as the audience is satisfied, as long as
that guest obviously genuinely likes cricket, and they get very
cross if they think somebody is a fraud and they're
(12:56):
on there just to just to have some limelight or
plug a book or whatever it may be. So you've
got to make sure that these people do know something
about cricket, not very much.
Speaker 6 (13:04):
They haven't got to be walking wisdoms.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
And that's probably the first thing that you do to
try and reassure them when they come on. You know, you,
I'm not going to challenge you on Graham Hick's batting
average in nineteen ninety one. You know that is not
what this is about. It is just talking about why
you like cricket, and we take it from there.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Well, Leggas, you talk about comedians and humorous moments, and
that's been part of the program as well. I mean,
there was a legover, wasn't there.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
Tragic thing about it. He knew exactly what was going
to happen. He tried to step over the stumps and
just flicked a bail with his with his right.
Speaker 8 (13:37):
Monis and tried to do the splits ridden Unfortunately the
inner part of his side must.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
Have just removed the bail.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
He just this thing quite got his leg over.
Speaker 8 (13:43):
Anyhow, he did very well, indeed about one hundred and
thirty one minutes and hit three fours. And then we
had Lewis play extremely well for his forty seven lot
outs do stop him. And he was joined by the
fratus who was in for forty minutes, who used for
little partnership. There they put on thirty five in forty minutes,
(14:05):
and then he was caught by deuje En forche Lawrence, always.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Entertaining for thirty five.
Speaker 8 (14:17):
Thirty five minutes, hit a four over the week keepers.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Was freaking his sake, sobbed.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
There's Lawrence who suit me well, hit the four of
the week keeper's head and he was out from the.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
Tough kid.
Speaker 8 (14:46):
It's them as called by hands on pats and for
two and there were fifty four extras and the labarre
all out for four hundred and nineteen.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
I've stopped laughing now.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
You pulling the leg of Jeffrey Boycott over his Andrews,
Was that right?
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:02):
I mean that there are opportunities that arise out there
for for for that sort of thing. I mean, the
best one I think actually are the impromptu ones. So
the legover was impromptu where a classic old friend fucker Zaman,
which again was impromptu. But you just kind of your
your brain is going, you know, it all sounds very's
(15:23):
laid back and relaxed and chatty, but actually under the
water as you know, you know, you're you're like a duck.
Your your legs are paddling away, your things are going,
you know, and so your brain is kind of going
like this, and I find that you know, you're trying
to find a finds something out of a situation.
Speaker 6 (15:39):
It's all unscripted.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
So it's a question of just using i know, the
speed of thought if you like to try and create
something which hopefully will stitch up the person sitting next
to you. That's that's kind of my employer. And we
go right back to our early days with with with you,
with you, you know that. But when I first started
working with you and Jeremy and co you know, John Wright,
(16:04):
and you know, it was that was there was always
that really lovely atmosphere. It felt like like you know,
your friends watching the game and actually that first two
for me, which is way back in nineteen ninety one,
wasn't it ninety two? That was a huge learning experience
for me because it was my first, my first series
going away as the visiting commentator, and I remember turning
(16:25):
up in New Zealand not knowing any of you. I
think I think I might have played against Jerry may
Coup oft times, but he was fast through senior.
Speaker 6 (16:31):
For me, I wouldn't have dad speaking to mister Coney.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
And so I actually I was actually very nervous when
I turned up working for you fellas the first time
and that series, you know, as the BBC commentator and stuff.
I felt very anxious. But that was what's so great,
and that you all put me at my ease so
so quickly that actually began to feel like this is
(16:55):
rather good fun. As soon as you get into that
that frame of mind, it becomes much easier, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Well, of course it does.
Speaker 7 (17:01):
I mean I can remember a time actually when there
three of us were involved England were touring in New Zealand.
I was on radio of course, but I also did
a TV spot with U Wards at tea time where
we used to chat to a guest called the Dil
Martee Party.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Now my u wads. And we did it for some clothes,
didn't we.
Speaker 7 (17:24):
We thought that me might you know, wear them out
to a nightclub or something to do a few Sherbet's
on the floor.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
But it wasn't really a very popular show.
Speaker 8 (17:35):
It was, you know, the.
Speaker 7 (17:36):
Ratings were somewhere between in the Inner City Sumo and
Cooking in Prison.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
The producer this day said, our guest was John Snow.
Speaker 7 (17:46):
That's not the Channel four news anchor, but the former
England fast bowler.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Now I had faced him.
Speaker 7 (17:52):
He was very sharp and he won the ashes in Australia,
didn't He was rayilling with and he also wrote poetry,
and so we had a sensitive fast bowler we're going
to speak to. And he was introverted and he had
a very soft voice and I knew that, and so
I did some research on him and I approached everybody. Nothing,
(18:17):
not a thing. Ten minutes to go on air. I
saw agnew and I thought to myself, a useful snitch,
and Agers gave me something on John Snow and it
was gold, okay, he said, leaning back, ask him about
(18:39):
his charity work and his bungee jumping from a helicopter.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Now, I ah, this is good stuff.
Speaker 7 (18:49):
I thought, you know, at ten thousand feet a poet
upside down brilliantly, and Aggers said, Then he added in
a very calm voice and nude joking, I said, no,
He said, he raised heaps the money. So well, I
(19:12):
was suspicious, but I wanted to believe it. And poets,
you know, they see the world from a different angle.
We're better to find your muse, but from ten thousand
feet upside down. So on we went and snow he
(19:33):
was doing his thing, voice so quiet, and waddle kicked me.
Was resorted to kicking me under the table. And I said, John,
you do quite a lot of charity work.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
A bit.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Now, and then the odd appearance excellent.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
I said, well, what about the bungee jumping from the helicopter. No, no,
don't be modest, John, And I pressed, I pressed on,
you know, and I should have stopped, but I carried on,
I said, and nude.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
I chirped, and what he said the loudest he had been.
Speaker 7 (20:27):
On tour, and the subtext was kind of like, I
don't even remove my trousers to go to bed. And
the credits rolled, and I apologized and all I could
hear was this high pitched wailing laughter from the TMS box.
(20:49):
It took me a couple of days before I found
man and he gave him a knuckle sandwich.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
It was brilliant, you know that that sort of thing though,
But you know, either you're meet to enough good enough
to cover from something like that, but there is It's
just it's just funn isn't it. I think if if
listeners hear us having fun and know that we're enjoying
what we're doing, then that's that's half the battle, and
so it's half the reason they turn the radio on,
(21:17):
isn't it. You know, these are these these people going
to have a bit of a laugh, but it's a
good time. They have a good company. You know, they
all love each other, although perhaps you don't love everybody,
but you know, you all get on like a house
on fast.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
And that's just part of the atmosphere, isn't it.
Speaker 7 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And I think that that's what people appreciate from from
basically what you do, because it's still having the game
of cricket, but it's an entertainment medium as well, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
Yeah, And that's that's the key all I've always thought, certainly,
I mean from my commentary and it'd be yours as well,
ones and and gyms. Is that if people listen to
us on the radio and think, oh, this cricket sounds
like rather good fun, I might I might give it
a go, you know, I might get involved in it.
I might listen again next week. I might go and
(22:00):
learn what scoring is about. Or I might go and
try and find an old baton, go and play in
the Golden If if, if, if what we do helps
to sell cricket to people, then I think that's that's
the main the main object of our job.
Speaker 6 (22:12):
Isn't it.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, well, you're not going to be out here for
the England tool. Let's just have a quick look at
where England cricket is at at the moment. Brendan McCallum
has now taken control of everything. Is the white cricket,
red ball cricket as well? Where is the England game
at and how much of an input is things like
the one hundred and the the T twenty competition impacting
(22:38):
on the overall love of the game for the Brits.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Well, you know, it's I think English trick. It's a
bit of flux at the moment. You haven't mentioned that
all conquering Kiwi's there. What a lovely literation that is
was I thought you might have thrown that at me.
I think I think we are we are going, We're
going to New Zealand. I would think of second favorites
and that that's not often the case, I don't think.
(23:04):
But I think English cricket's got a lot of questions
to answer and Brenda McCullum and Ben Stokes have done
a huge amount in injecting enthusiasm, fun entertainment into Test cricket,
but they haven't got the results.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
And I watched them.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
I was in Pakistan two or three weeks ago. I
watched a really pathetic performance there in the last Test
match of that series on a pitch that well. They
it lasted two and a half days the game, but
they got in their heads. They were being stitched up.
They didn't knuckle down. There was no effort to play
a different game other than the one. They go out
(23:42):
and try and thrash the ball all over the place,
and they've got they've got to knuckle down. You cannot
play Test cricket at that pace and be consistent. You
could win some games and you can have some really
exciting defeats, but that doesn't help you win series. And
(24:02):
so I'll be very easy to see because actually it
looks like New Zealand actually playing because you were the
first fellows actually just to come up against bas Ball
when England but really were in them a couple of
years ago and came out fighting and Johnny Bearstow and
all that, and you know New Zealand copped it. So
whether they've taken a bit of it on board and
actually implemented it rather more sensibly than England have done.
(24:25):
England one trick pony and you cannot win Test series.
We're not going to go to Australia this time next
year and win the Ashes by being one trick ponies
Who've got India at home next summer again a very
tough series. They've got to learn to adapt and they've
got to be less stubborn. And for all that McCullum
and Ben Stokes are very putting the right words here,
(24:48):
I mean there are naturally free spirits. I think it's
fair to say about Brendan we've got a very easy
way with people. He's incredibly relaxed with people. He puts
players at ease. He's also incredibly stubborn, and so is
Ben Stokes. So you've got two people there who will
not take a step back. They will not even if
(25:10):
you if you show them every defeat. You look at
that game in multi in Islamabad that I watched two
weeks ago and say that was pathetic for a Test
team to capitulate like that.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
What are you going to do about it? Oh, that's
the way we play, you know.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
They shut up, shut up, because if that's the way
you play, you're not going to win, you know it,
just you know.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
So that's that. I'll be very interesting once and I
wish I was coming over to see this series. I
think it'll be a very interesting one.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
But they they have got to sort their minds out
and got to get much more clarity and frankly a
bit more maturity about the way they go about playing
Test cricket.
Speaker 7 (25:47):
Surely Eggers that the people, the fans, if you like,
of Tiste cricket, they're not fools. They they understand that
there will be times when it's going to be difficult
to score the run rate they might like to be scoring.
And it seems to me after watching the Indians, they
(26:11):
now trust their attack more than they do their defense.
So simply put, they prefer a reverse suite than they
do to a forward defense.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
And so you lose.
Speaker 7 (26:25):
Wickets quite quickly and in clumps at times. And there's
never a time when you could see a bowler off
because a he's bowling well or the ball is getting softer,
or whatever the reason might be. That never enters their
thought process, it seems now and patience might be another word.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
So all those twenty twenty players who commit to it.
Speaker 7 (26:58):
Are putting their defensive skills that they are going to
be required in a Test match format basically in the
spare bedroom with the old furniture and so. And it
is so obvious they all they want to do is
a tech and they keep getting out, especially when you
get on a pitch that's doing something. If New Zealand
(27:19):
want to beat England, make the pitchers do something. It's
quite obvious that if you want to play on a
road they get eight hundred, as they did in the
first Test match. But as soon as the ball starts
doing something and you've got a reasonable bowl who's tight,
that's when they start changing the game. But then they
revert to their philosophy.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's possible in
New Zealand, but if you could create some pictures of spin,
given how well your spinner's bowl in India and how
badly English match and play against spin, and English spinners
aren't great either, to be honest, there we've got Basha
who's learning Jack Leech's very steady. That would be my
(28:02):
formula for beating England in New Zealand. I don't think
it's that easy, especially that time of year, to produce
those sort of pictures there. But but you're right in
that the defense is seen as boring and it's all
about seizing the initiative, putting a putting a opponent on
the back foot. Well, you can put your opponent on
the back foot by playing a really tight, solid, defensive,
(28:23):
count counter counter defensive game, can't you. You suddenly what
where the wicket's going from? Now they're five down a
minute ago, but now they put on they put one
hundred and twenty in three hours.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
You know where the next week it goes that that
game's gone.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
And what worries me, Jerry, we're heading, we're hurtling towards
four day Test cricket because the games simply aren't lasting
five days anymore. And the great news about that we
can we can squeeze in. We can the series can
be shorter, we can squeeze in some more t twenties.
That would be good to the fans will love that.
But it's a shame because people do get frustrated and
(28:59):
sometimes out doing this job, you do gain a little
bit of smug satisfaction when at the start of all
this I undersand others this is great, but it can't continue.
This is great, but we're losing games.
Speaker 6 (29:12):
This is great, but.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
They've got to sharpen up. They go, this is great,
but they've got to play with some common sense. And
you get slagged off on social media. You're old fashioned,
you don't know what you're talking about. You know, go
back to you whatever, you know, go back to your
nineteen seventies. And then two years later people saying on
social media, god, this is hopeless. How they lose in
two and half days. They can't keep playing like this.
(29:33):
And then and you sit there and say, yeah, well
we told you that two years ago. But unfortunately those
England teams still they've got this mantra. They've determined that
they're going to play this way. And I say because
Brendan and Ben are so stubborn and they've got all
the power. They've got all the power. You know, there's
there's no real checks and balances there to say, hang
(29:54):
on a minute, this ain't working. You know, what happened
there in Islamabad was a disgrace.
Speaker 6 (30:03):
There's no one there to do it. And so.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Well, we'll see, I mean Brendan's work mirror at the
start of this to see if he works miracles with
the white ball, because they need a bit of that
as well with the Champions trophie coming up. But you know,
I'm not going to criticize McCallum because I think when
he came in at exactly the right moment, he did
exactly the right thing.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
He came in.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
He's a breath of fresh air. It's a lovely bloke, isn't.
Let's be honest. But they they've just got to be
they've got to settle down and just to try and
try and play a more responsible, more common sense sort
of the game. They've got the skills, they've got the shots,
they've got all of that. In their mind they can
play that way, and the Opotents know they can take
(30:43):
them apart. But for goodness sake, when the need requires,
just just play a different game.
Speaker 7 (30:48):
M just a quick one. Following it would be how
much is the mithard of the selection of players? You
know they are effectively, it seems from here to be
bypassing the County Championship performances. Yes, so they search, they
itch for characteristics of a player. He's tall, he bolts vast,
(31:12):
he's left arm or whatever it is, rather than performance,
and so you get the Bushiers who don't he's not
selected for the account. You get the Josh Hulls who's
only played a handful of matches but he's tall and
left arm and might swing it. You get folks keeping
wicket for Surrey. But Smith is the England keeper. Now
(31:34):
it's going to be Jordan Cox. You know, it's the
County Championship. Is its relationship just losing a relationship with
the English English side?
Speaker 5 (31:48):
It isn't the moment, You're absolutely right, So they are.
They are plucking people out, and you know, I think
I think that it's it's sad on a number of fronts.
I think it's sad for those one or two of
those players when Jamie Smith had a success. I think overall,
I think he's coming and done well, but he wasn't
the first choice we could keeper in his own county.
Basher is learning. I think I think he'll be all right.
I think you're like the look of bust Year. I
(32:09):
think I think you're thinking can bowl. But he's hardly
played and of course he couldn't get in the county
side because of Jack Leech, who was in the spin.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
I mean the politics aside is daft.
Speaker 5 (32:19):
Josh Hull bless him, twenty years old, left arm seemer
from Leicestershire. I saw James Taylor the other day. He
might remember a little titch who played for England and
had his heart problems. He's now coach at Leicestershire. I
saw him out in about a week or so ago
and I said, what's going on? He said, mate, he said,
it's a joke that lad con in getting our first team.
He average is sixty five in first class cricket. Next
(32:40):
thing is lumbering in playing in a Test match at
the Oval. He's got He hasn't got his own game
sorted out at all. He's got no idea what to
do when he's under a bit of pressure. It's on
his fold.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
I just thought that was a really really bad selection.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
And an unkind selection, and a selection that's trying to
prove actually, we're a bit clever, you know, we can,
we can, we can, we can pick these people.
Speaker 7 (33:01):
You know.
Speaker 6 (33:01):
Well, that was a bad one. That was a dud.
And I hope, I hope he hasn't finished him.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
He probably has got a bit of talent, but it's
not good enough to be playing in a Test match
at the moment. So but the integrity of County crig
is important, isn't it. I mean, if you're a professional
cricketer and I felt this during the eighties, didn't have
central contracts and everything, your goal was to play for England.
That was your driving ambition was to play for England.
And that drove you on on a Wednesday afternoon in
(33:28):
Cardiff when you thought, hang on if I gets a
wicket so that I could be playing for England in
a couple of weeks. You know, it's that motivator and
people being selected on merit, because if you're not selected
on merit, what is the point of selection?
Speaker 6 (33:42):
You know, you have to have integrity of selection.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
And that again is something that you know always has
always burnt fiercely with me because when I was playing there.
Speaker 6 (33:52):
There were a lot of fast bowlers.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
We're all the same sort of ability, really, and I
never minded if I wasn't picked, if someone who I
thought was at least as good as me, if not better,
was picked. But when they started picking people, you think, hang,
I'm better than him. You know, you just just lose
faith in the selection process. And therefore that that eats away,
doesn't it. And that's where ing's got to be really careful.
(34:16):
They've got it right with Janie Smith. He's a good cricketer. Yeah,
he dropped. He made a couple of mistakes at Pakistan,
but that's not the easiest place to keep wicket on
on the pictures that they gave us. In the end,
he will be okay, He'll go to Australia and he
will probably baut seven, I would think, and and he
will be very positive And yeah, I think he's a
(34:37):
good pick.
Speaker 6 (34:37):
I think Bashia will eventually be a good pick.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
At the moment, he's only what twenty one learning how
to bowl spin, so he's been put under a lot
of pressure in that very very short time.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
But you know, dear ol Hull bless him. I mean
that was just a totally random selection.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah. Well, we'll get a chance to have a look
at some of the suppliers when they get out here
to newdel and sadly we won't get a chance to
talk to you.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
You can always dial me up any time your life.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Oh look, we certainly will, but.
Speaker 6 (35:12):
Let's just look a time difference out first.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
That's fair enough. But we've always enjoyed your company out here.
I'll never see the drifters in the same life as
I saw them with you in Hamilton one night, but
it's a whole different story which we.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
Haven't got time to deal with.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
But thank you for what you've done in terms of
covering cricket in New Zealand, but also your time worth TMS.
It's not over it. You've still got a bit of
work ahead of you. You'll be in Australia for the Ashes,
won't you.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
Yes, I will, Yes, definitely, that's good.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Well, you might get a chance to come out to
New Zealand. But thanks for your time this week and
we will take the opportunity to talk to you again.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Let us speak to you both, take care of summer.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Do for more from News Talks at b listen live
on air or online, and keep our shows with you
wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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