Test Match Special, Twenty20 and the future of cricket

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the contribution of Test Match Special (TMS) to the discourses of cricket. TMS is more than a sporting radio broadcast: it is a cricketing institution, indeed for many people TMS is cricket. Since its launch on the BBC in 1957 TMS has developed a unique relationship with cricket, performatively mediating the changing discourses that surround the game. TMS is shaped by these discourses and in turn shapes perceptions of the game for its audience. It is this reciprocal relationship that makes an analysis of TMS relevant here. In this paper I make use of the relation between TMS and cricket to analyse changing discourses of cricket through an examination of commentary on two forms of the game: the Test match and Twenty20, taking as my case England's recent tour of Australia (2010/11) which comprised five Tests and two Twenty20 matches. In the paper I examine the narrative construction of both formats and draw out some implications for the future direction(s) of cricket.

Notes

¹ Martin Jenkins, Ball-by-ball, 14.

² Martin Jenkins, Ball-by-ball, 14.

³ Joly de Lotbinière, quoted Haynes, ‘Lobby and the Formative Years’, 34.

⁴ de Lotbinière, in ibid, 36.

⁵ See http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/tms/6672845.stm

⁶ Tadié, ‘The Fictions of (English) Cricket’, 693.

⁷ Malcolm, ‘Malign or Benign?’, 614.

⁸ The ‘Ashes’ is the name given to a Test series between England and Australia. It arose after England's first home defeat by an Australian side in 1882. The Sporting Times ran a mock obituary lamenting the death of English cricket and concluded: ‘The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia’.

⁹ In addition there were, as TMS commentator Simon Mann noted, with a nicely understated satirical touch, ‘47 or 48 one day internationals’. These did not form part of my analysis.

¹⁰ In TMS the commentators take 20-minute stints, during which time they are joined by an expert summarizer, a former Test cricketer. In this series the commentators were Jonathan Agnew (BBC cricket correspondent and TMS ‘head boy’), Christopher Martin Jenkins, Jim Maxwell (guest Australian commentator), Simon Hughes and Simon Mann. Expert summarizers were (the legendary) Geoffrey Boycott, Victor Marks, Michael Vaughan and various Australian summarizers including Justin Langer and Ian Chappell.

¹¹ Ryan, ‘Narrative in Real Time’, 140.

¹² Watson, ‘Test Match Special’.

¹³ Marylebone Cricket Club, the body which acts as guardians of the laws of cricket.

¹⁴ McDonnell, England, their England, 82.

¹⁵ Ricky Ponting, Australian captain.

¹⁶ Alan Coren, ‘Masters of Failure’, Punch, 20 Aug. 1975, 273–4.

¹⁷ Sandiford, Cricket and the Victorians.

¹⁸ Stoddart, ‘Sport, Cultural Imperialism’; Rumford, ‘More than a Game’; Tadié, ‘The Fictions of (English) Cricket’.

¹⁹ Buzard, ‘Out of Place’, 297.

²⁰ Ness, ‘Understanding Cultural Performance’. Cricket was introduced to the Trobriand Islanders by Christian missionaries. The islanders quickly appropriated it for their own purposes, turning it into symbolic cultural display. Trobriand Cricket: An Ingenious Response to Colonialism is a film made by anthropologists (a clip is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 0jTP7a9I0dU). But see Stuart Geiger for an alternative interpretation: http://www.stuartgeiger.com/portfolio/papers/trobriand.pdf.

²¹ Tadié, ‘The Fictions of (English) Cricket’, 694.

²² Cardus, Days in the Sun, 9. It is interesting to compare this, however, with interviews with leading cricketers and officials in The Strand Magazine of 1896, who, when asked whether the ‘class’ of cricket had declined over the past 20 years (i.e. since ‘the greatest Test of all’), were rather more upbeat – it is not that we have got so much worse, but the others have got better. Mr C.W. Alcock says: ‘We have profited considerably from the lessons taught us by the colonials’ (Anon, ‘Cricket and Cricketers’, 704).

²³ Henry Blofeld is a TMS commentator particularly noted for his interest in buses and pigeons.

²⁴ Hutcheon, Irony, 8.

²⁵ Boym, ‘Nostalgia and its Discontents’, 3.

²⁶ Bennett et al. , ‘Television Viewers' Motivations’.

²⁷ Watson, ‘Test Match Special’, 229.

²⁸ International Cricket Council.

²⁹ During the lunch interval on day one of the Perth Test, former Australian Test cricketer Steve Waugh, interviewed by Jonathan Agnew, even advocated the use of lie detector tests as part of the standard equipment of the umpire.

³⁰ Cardus, Days in the Sun, 135.

³¹ Pickering and Keightley, ‘The Modalities of Nostalgia’, 923.

³² Watson, ‘Accountability’, 13.

³³ See also Watson, ‘Test Match Special’, 236.

³⁴ Curiously, however, John Kay in Ashes to Hassett, the account of England's unexpected Ashes win in 1950–1, describes the ground as one that depresses and concludes a lengthy diatribe with the words, ‘this is no place for cricket as we in England know it’ (59).

³⁵ A summary of this controversial series is available on Cricinfo, http://www.espncricinfo.com/bodyline/content/story/148537.html

³⁶ ‘Colourful’ former Australian spinner.

³⁷ Watson, ‘Test Match Special’, 236. The relationship between commentator and summarizer frequently evokes an earlier era of the game when teams comprised gentlemen (amateurs, usually upper-class, with posh accents) and players (professionals, usually working-class, with regional accents).

³⁸ Bennett et al., ‘Television Viewers' Motivations’, 29.

³⁹ Scalmer, ‘Cricket, Imperialism and Class Domination’, 440.

⁴⁰ Declerq, ‘Lacan on the Capitalist Discourse’, 74.

⁴¹ Glenn McGrath, quoted in Mitra, ‘The IPL’, 1327.

⁴² Mani, ‘A Strong Sport’.

⁴³ Smith, ‘Beyond a Boundary’, 96.

⁴⁴ Mani, ‘A Strong Sport’, 687–90.

⁴⁵ Smith, ‘Beyond a Boundary’, 108, emphasis added.

⁴⁶ Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, xvi.

⁴⁷ Pickering and Keightley, ‘The Modalities of Nostalgia’, 923.

⁴⁸ Rumford, ‘More than a Game’.