Sad, Sad day

[redgunamo]

I like listening to Atherton although he tends to stray from cricket too often. Alec Stewart isn't great, Tufnell is what you expect. Michael Vaughan and Nasser are perfectly acceptable. These mostly operate on TV coverage though, which is different.

Overall, I would happily listen to Boycott all day.

Vaughan is on the radio, isn't he, not television? A TMS legend, in fact. Just yesterday, he volunteered to do any and all test match coverage in Ireland.

[Burney]

I like listening to Atherton although he tends to stray from cricket too often. Alec Stewart isn't great, Tufnell is what you expect. Michael Vaughan and Nasser are perfectly acceptable. These mostly operate on TV coverage though, which is different.

Overall, I would happily listen to Boycott all day.

Atherton is thoughtful and insightful - which makes a pleasant change on Sky, which has a wearisome addiction to :shudder: 'banter'. I blame David Lloyd for this - a man who I would happily see fall off the commentary gantry to his doom.

Vaughan does have interesting things to say and is clearly reads the game very well. Bit too blokey sometimes, but there you go. Hussain is again too banterish - and his voice grates.

[Burney]

Stick another slip in is the pretty much the extent of his analysis. Botham's that is. I don't think any of the Sky team take him seriously anyway

He's basically become the modern-day equivalent of Fred Trueman on TMS, who used to spend most of his time fulminating that "Ah joost dern't oonderstand it!" about something (a fielding position, the failure to bowl a certain bowler, etc, etc), only to almost invariably be proved wrong by subsequent events. Botham is basically that now - always blustering Blimpishly about something perfectly sensible because it's not what he'd do. Wànker.

[redgunamo]

Exactly. He appealed to the ignorant masses as a parody of what cricket is supposedly all about. To people who actually understand the game and wanted to know what was happening, he was simply an irritant. Also, the fact is that he was simply doing a pïsspoor ripoff of Brian Johnston's on air persona - only without the charm, wit or seriousness about cricket.

That's just snobbery doe. It's the ignorant masses wot pays for the game, innit.

Still, I'll be at Glyndebourne soon, similarly sneering at those who are only there for the pretty frocks and the champagne. Principally my wife