Jonathan Agnew who has been the BBC’s cricket correspondent for some decades is stepping down from the role at the end of the 2024 home season. He will continue to present Test Match Special.
He has given a brief interview to the Sunday Times which has started another culture war.
I’ve known Agnew, Aggers, slightly for some years. Clearly our world views do not coincide but like Brian Johnston, also a TMS man, he has a genuine interest in people,why they do what they do and so on. In other words a basic humanity not always a characteristic of those in public life in 2024.
Agnew is now 64 and reasonably finds the relentless demands of being cricket correspondent a bit much. Not least because the demands are much greater than they were. 30 years ago the domestic cricket season ended in September. There was usually an England overseas tour around Christmas and that was it for cricket coverage until April.
Not now.There is televised cricket being played somewhere in the world most days through the year.
Agnew doesnt like the IPL preferring Test cricket. I’m partly with him but the IPL and franchise cricket is a big part of the future. It is huge of course in India,getting the biggest audiences for any sport anywhere.And its designed to be watched on smartphones and tablets. Indeed if the ECB could manage to harness the interest of South Asian communities in the UK to cricket based around the IPL English cricket would be in a better place.
Agnew is also far too dismissive of women’s cricket, again something that is becoming a big part of the game. He dislikes the term Men’s Ashes but as Raf Nicholson and Hypocaust have pointed out on X the Women’s Ashes have a lot more history than he thinks.
He dislikes the term batters which is also (The Times) annoying a certain kind of suit wearer in the City of London who see it as analogous to replacing chairman with chair. Actually batter just fits in well with other terms like bowler and fielder which have always been gender neutral.
Anyway I’m sure Aggers will survive the mini-culture war, suitably admonished. We can reflect that there are some well known cricket commentators with arguably rather worse prejudices about which they are not even vaguely apologetic. Aggers admits he might be a bit of a dinosaur.
I’ll enjoy listening to him again when the English Test summer finally starts. On July 10th….
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