Afternoon everybody and welcome to the second T20 international of this so-called summer time. The 1st was, of course, ruined by the rain. There are two items you need to know suitable away: (1) the weather conditions forecast is 90-for each-cent dry, and (2) the match is heading out stay on the BBC. Not just the radio – the telly! And not even BBC2 – BBC1!!
It’s 21 many years given that this final transpired to an global cricket match, when the BBC shared protection of the 1999 Entire world Cup with Sky. The Beeb did not, alas, go out with a bang. England, the hosts, have been so hapless that they managed to tumble out of the match in advance of the formal concept tune was introduced. There was a classic semi-ultimate, which could not have been closer, but the ultimate, between Australia and Pakistan, was dismally one particular-sided.
It was a distinct earth in them days. Our most important stress was no matter whether the switch of the millennium would freak out our personal computers. 2020 hadn’t been invented, and there have been even now cricket fans who viewed as the 50-about recreation indecently rapid-going. Hell, Jimmy Anderson hadn’t performed for England, or even for Lancashire.
So today we’re going to social gathering like it’s 1999. With a bit of luck, the BBC will deliver a auto for Tony Lewis. (Observe to anybody locating that identify doesn’t ring a bell: he was an elegant Glamorgan batsman who captained England in 1972-73, when Ray Illingworth did not extravagant going to India and Pakistan, and then turned the Sunday Telegraph cricket correspondent as well as the Beeb’s entrance gentleman.) Interviewed in The Periods yesterday, Lewis claimed that his period experienced been all about “storytellers”, the place today’s broadcasters were “innovators”.
That seemed a subtle acknowledgement that the BBC protection, effectively-beloved nevertheless it was, tended to be pretty staid. One more way of placing it is that in Lewis’s day the commentators had been practically all center-aged white gentlemen (not that I can communicate about that), while now the BBC’s face of cricket is Isa Guha. Of all the former England cricketers who have moved into the commentary box, she is a person of the youngest, at 35, and in all probability the liveliest.
If there are any youthful people under your roof, do motivate them to enjoy – if vital, by telling them they’ll possibly despise it. And permit me know what they make of it all. Perform is due to start out at 2.15pm, for some rationale, so I’ll be again just soon after 1.45 with the toss and the teams.
