Inside The Box

Inside the box

My life with Test Match Special

Peter Baxter

Quiller

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Contents Copyright ©  Peter Baxter First published in the UK in 

by Quiller, an imprint of Quiller Publishing Ltd British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library       The right of Peter Baxter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge.

All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the Publisher, who also disclaims any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Printed in

Quiller An imprint of Quiller Publishing Ltd Wykey House, Wykey, Shrewsbury,         - info@quillerbooks.com  www.countrybooksdirect.com

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Foreword by Jonathan Agnew



T E F E O  I A  J T P   A   N B T E F P D U  B F F



M O  O N  M   A T T R   A C M Index Acknowledgements

               

Contents Copyright ©  Peter Baxter First published in the UK in 

by Quiller, an imprint of Quiller Publishing Ltd British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library       The right of Peter Baxter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 

Quiller An imprint of Quiller Publishing Ltd Wykey House, Wykey, Shrewsbury,         - info@quillerbooks.com  www.countrybooksdirect.com

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge.

All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the Publisher, who also disclaims any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Printed in

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Foreword by Jonathan Agnew



T E F E O  I A  J T P   A   N B T E F P D U  B F F



M O  O N  M   A T T R   A C M Index Acknowledgements

               

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I N S I D E T H E B OX

Aggers and the New Boys L      I   ‒ although he did not tell me – that Christopher Martin-Jenkins was in negotiation with the Daily Telegraph with a view to becoming their cricket correspondent. This was not a huge surprise to me, as I could well imagine that E. W. Swanton, with his ongoing influence at the paper, would be recommending him. It was more of a disappointment that it was not until mid-October, shortly before England were to depart on tour to Australia, that Christopher did ring to tell me that he was going to the Telegraph straight after the tour.

With only one of the five Test matches due to be played before Christmas, we had agreed to split the tour. I would cover the first half with one Test and several one-day internationals, with CMJ arriving on Christmas Day, ready for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.

I had already started giving the task of filling the post of BBC cricket correspondent a great deal of thought. Brian Johnston had suggested to me that I should give it a go myself, while Don Mosey, still a member of the TMS team since his retirement from the BBC staff, was pushing the claims of Pat Murphy, the Birmingham-based producer/reporter.

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I N S I D E T H E B OX

Aggers and the New Boys L      I   ‒ although he did not tell me – that Christopher Martin-Jenkins was in negotiation with the Daily Telegraph with a view to becoming their cricket correspondent. This was not a huge surprise to me, as I could well imagine that E. W. Swanton, with his ongoing influence at the paper, would be recommending him. It was more of a disappointment that it was not until mid-October, shortly before England were to depart on tour to Australia, that Christopher did ring to tell me that he was going to the Telegraph straight after the tour.

With only one of the five Test matches due to be played before Christmas, we had agreed to split the tour. I would cover the first half with one Test and several one-day internationals, with CMJ arriving on Christmas Day, ready for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.

I had already started giving the task of filling the post of BBC cricket correspondent a great deal of thought. Brian Johnston had suggested to me that I should give it a go myself, while Don Mosey, still a member of the TMS team since his retirement from the BBC staff, was pushing the claims of Pat Murphy, the Birmingham-based producer/reporter.

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I N S I D E T H E B OX

A G G E R S A N D T H E N E W B OY S

Flying out to Perth at the same time as the team, I gathered in the departure lounge at Heathrow one October evening with the rest of the press corps. Amongst them was a cheery soul on his first tour as a journalist but known to all of us. He had played his last first class match the previous month and now Jonathan Agnew was the correspondent of the Today newspaper.

It was in India that I had first met Jonathan Agnew. He was flown out to Calcutta a couple of days before Christmas in  as a replacement for the injured Paul Allott. In that most approachable of all the England cricket teams with which I have toured – thanks to the tone set by the captain, David Gower – he fitted in well with the atmosphere of what was a very successful tour. (He will, however, talk wryly of the way it fell apart when they moved on to Australia to take part in an international one-day tournament to launch the floodlights at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.) Since then I had used him on occasions as a neutral expert summariser for county quarter-finals and semi-finals when we were doing commentaries.

In  the general election campaign included a Saturday morning spot on Radio ’s Today programme with three MPs discussing how things were going, with a refreshing lack of partisanship and enormous good humour.

By a strange chain of thought, which is probably how all producers get what little inspiration might come their way, I imagined how a similar spot might work for cricket with three county players in conversation. Agnew was the first name I wrote down. When I spoke to him I tried the name of Graeme Fowler on him and I asked them both for a suggested third. They both, independently and unhesitatingly, came up with Vic Marks. Little did Julian Critchley, Austin Mitchell and Charles Kennedy know what they had inspired.

So Agnew, Fowler and Marks started off on ‘County Talk’ during the first day tea intervals of Test matches. We had to record the session at the close of play in their matches on the eve of Tests, with none of them currently in the England team. This entailed each of them being issued with a small set of broadcasting equipment and having to find the radio point on the ground at which they were playing. Amazingly, it mostly seemed to work, and we did not often have to resort to the telephone. However, it was quickly clear that Aggers was the most adept at the technical side, thanks, no doubt, to his winters spent working at BBC Radio Leicester.

Early in  I came into Broadcasting House one evening to man the TMS studio for the overnight broadcast of a day’s Test cricket from New Zealand. There on the sports news wires was the information that the Leicestershire fast bowler, Jonathan Agnew, had announced that he would make the coming season his last. I rang him up with the idea of recording a telephone interview which would help to fill the lunch interval at about midnight. He offered to go into Radio Leicester to use their studios and lines which would have the effect that, with better quality, we could run the interview longer. A publisher was driving home late that night, heard the interview, and conceived the idea for a book which would be the Agnew diary of his last season as a cricketer.

In the event, Aggers changed his mind mid-season and played on for another couple of years, but now at Heathrow I felt I could suggest to him that he might like to throw his hat in the ring to be BBC cricket correspondent.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got far too good a deal with Today.’

As it transpired, in the next few days I was approached by another former Leicestershire player who was interested in the job. At a practice game in a leafy and affluent suburb of Perth, I was joined on my ramble round the ground by David Gower, a somewhat disaffected player on the tour on which he was to exhaust the management’s patience with a flight in a Tiger Moth.

He enquired about the position in the sort of jocular fashion that would give him a get-out if necessary, but afterwards I came to the conclusion that he was serious. Later in the tour he was to confirm that when, on one of those fierce Perth days when you keep to the air conditioning of your hotel, we murdered a decent bottle of sauvignon together, while discussing the possibilities.

By that time, however, I had received another application.

Having just retired from the first class game, Aggers had packed his bowling boots and offered his services as a net bowler if the England team needed him. It had been made clear all round that if he picked up some team tittletattle as a result of being on the other side of the fence, he would not use it in his newspaper and even Today seemed happy with that. While he was bowling in the Perth nets he did become aware of some minor altercation, but adhered to his promise. Unfortunately it appeared in the Daily Star and the Today sports desk picked up the story and used it, unforgivably giving it the Jonathan Agnew by-line. Aggers was furious and, as we walked back together

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75

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I N S I D E T H E B OX

A G G E R S A N D T H E N E W B OY S

Flying out to Perth at the same time as the team, I gathered in the departure lounge at Heathrow one October evening with the rest of the press corps. Amongst them was a cheery soul on his first tour as a journalist but known to all of us. He had played his last first class match the previous month and now Jonathan Agnew was the correspondent of the Today newspaper.

It was in India that I had first met Jonathan Agnew. He was flown out to Calcutta a couple of days before Christmas in  as a replacement for the injured Paul Allott. In that most approachable of all the England cricket teams with which I have toured – thanks to the tone set by the captain, David Gower – he fitted in well with the atmosphere of what was a very successful tour. (He will, however, talk wryly of the way it fell apart when they moved on to Australia to take part in an international one-day tournament to launch the floodlights at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.) Since then I had used him on occasions as a neutral expert summariser for county quarter-finals and semi-finals when we were doing commentaries.

In  the general election campaign included a Saturday morning spot on Radio ’s Today programme with three MPs discussing how things were going, with a refreshing lack of partisanship and enormous good humour.

By a strange chain of thought, which is probably how all producers get what little inspiration might come their way, I imagined how a similar spot might work for cricket with three county players in conversation. Agnew was the first name I wrote down. When I spoke to him I tried the name of Graeme Fowler on him and I asked them both for a suggested third. They both, independently and unhesitatingly, came up with Vic Marks. Little did Julian Critchley, Austin Mitchell and Charles Kennedy know what they had inspired.

So Agnew, Fowler and Marks started off on ‘County Talk’ during the first day tea intervals of Test matches. We had to record the session at the close of play in their matches on the eve of Tests, with none of them currently in the England team. This entailed each of them being issued with a small set of broadcasting equipment and having to find the radio point on the ground at which they were playing. Amazingly, it mostly seemed to work, and we did not often have to resort to the telephone. However, it was quickly clear that Aggers was the most adept at the technical side, thanks, no doubt, to his winters spent working at BBC Radio Leicester.

Early in  I came into Broadcasting House one evening to man the TMS studio for the overnight broadcast of a day’s Test cricket from New Zealand. There on the sports news wires was the information that the Leicestershire fast bowler, Jonathan Agnew, had announced that he would make the coming season his last. I rang him up with the idea of recording a telephone interview which would help to fill the lunch interval at about midnight. He offered to go into Radio Leicester to use their studios and lines which would have the effect that, with better quality, we could run the interview longer. A publisher was driving home late that night, heard the interview, and conceived the idea for a book which would be the Agnew diary of his last season as a cricketer.

In the event, Aggers changed his mind mid-season and played on for another couple of years, but now at Heathrow I felt I could suggest to him that he might like to throw his hat in the ring to be BBC cricket correspondent.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got far too good a deal with Today.’

As it transpired, in the next few days I was approached by another former Leicestershire player who was interested in the job. At a practice game in a leafy and affluent suburb of Perth, I was joined on my ramble round the ground by David Gower, a somewhat disaffected player on the tour on which he was to exhaust the management’s patience with a flight in a Tiger Moth.

He enquired about the position in the sort of jocular fashion that would give him a get-out if necessary, but afterwards I came to the conclusion that he was serious. Later in the tour he was to confirm that when, on one of those fierce Perth days when you keep to the air conditioning of your hotel, we murdered a decent bottle of sauvignon together, while discussing the possibilities.

By that time, however, I had received another application.

Having just retired from the first class game, Aggers had packed his bowling boots and offered his services as a net bowler if the England team needed him. It had been made clear all round that if he picked up some team tittletattle as a result of being on the other side of the fence, he would not use it in his newspaper and even Today seemed happy with that. While he was bowling in the Perth nets he did become aware of some minor altercation, but adhered to his promise. Unfortunately it appeared in the Daily Star and the Today sports desk picked up the story and used it, unforgivably giving it the Jonathan Agnew by-line. Aggers was furious and, as we walked back together

74

75

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I N S I D E T H E B OX

2 ABOVE

3 OPPOSITE

Checking the commentary rota at Lord’s, while Johnners commentates.

(BBC Publicity)

John Arlott in the box at Lord’s on his final day with TMS in , with Bill Frindall in support. (Eagar)

This media remains property of Quiller Publishing Ltd

I N S I D E T H E B OX

2 ABOVE

3 OPPOSITE

Checking the commentary rota at Lord’s, while Johnners commentates.

(BBC Publicity)

John Arlott in the box at Lord’s on his final day with TMS in , with Bill Frindall in support. (Eagar)

This media remains property of Quiller Publishing Ltd