Posts Tagged: TMS

0Pitch Perfect England Need a Sterner Test

Published by & filed under England, Test Cricket. Last updated .

So the first test of the sum­mer is at an end. Well done Eng­land for a vic­tory for what was really a match of men against boys.

Sri Lanka are, to use that oft touted sound-bite, a team in “trans­ition” and boy did it show. It must be remembered, how­ever, that they kept a strong Eng­land bat­ting line up to a tad under the 300 mark – and half of those runs came from the excel­lent Jonny Bair­stow. Alex Hales did well too with a decent knock and must be kick­ing him­self he didn’t con­vert it into a ton. Had it not been for those two it might have been a closer run thing. We will nev­er know.… Read Full Article

0Blofeld & BaxterBlofeld & Baxter — Memories Of Test Match Special

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A couple of nights back I went to Shef­field City Hall with a few of the fam­ily to see Henry Blofeld and Peter Bax­ter doing what they do best — telling stor­ies and reveal­ing some of what goes on in the TMS box.  Unlike many “per­formers” they star­ted on time at 7:30 and car­ried on (with a short inter­val) until past 10pm.  If they’re com­ing to a place near you and you have a free even­ing I really recom­mend get­ting a tick­et and going down — it was one of the best even­ings of enter­tain­ment a crick­et fan could ask for… Read Full Article

1Cricket BoxThe Bowler’s Holding… innuendo still going strong

Published by & filed under Uncategorised. Last updated .

Almost every crick­et fan will have heard the fam­ous quote, attrib­uted to Bri­an John­ston, “The Bowl­er­’s Hold­ing, the Bats­man’s Wil­ley”.  Wheth­er or not this really was said live on air no longer mat­ters a great deal, it is bril­liantly rep­res­ent­at­ive of the many double entendres that have fea­tured in crick­et com­ment­ary before and since.  That latest in this fine tra­di­tion was offered up yes­ter­day by Charles Dag­nall in his com­ment­ary on the Cham­pi­ons Trophy match between Pakistan and South Africa, when, in describ­ing the 7ft1 Mohammed Irfan of Pakistan, he announced “He’s just got a monu­ment­ally big handle… so to speak”.  After a good chuckle I set about com­pil­ing a list of some of my favour­ites, which I present below.
… Read Full Article

0TMSBroadcasting brilliance by TMS — The England Cricket Sermon

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What ori­gin­ally got me fol­low­ing inter­na­tion­al crick­et was an early expos­ure to Test Match Spe­cial.  As we all know, test crick­et isn’t always the most break­neck paced sport, and filling in the time between overs, the drinks breaks, lunch, tea, and “Brit­ish-sum­mer” inspired inter­rup­tions is not an easy chal­lenge.  TMS has done this so well it pretty much jus­ti­fies the license fee on it’s own.  In the most recent 2‑match series I’ve enjoyed “ask the umpire”, I’ve learned about bulbs that repel moles from your garden, and prob­ably the high­light of TMS in 2013, I heard a won­der­ful “ser­mon”, writ­ten for a crick­et lov­ing groom who was get­ting mar­ried whilst the 2nd test was being played.  Thank you to TMS for broad­cast­ing this, and thank you to the Revd Stew­art Fyfe for writ­ing and shar­ing it with the nation via TMS.… Read Full Article