Over the past ten days there has been a noisy display of back-slapping and self-congratulation from the BBC's Test Match Special. The reason for the celebration is not obvious. TMS first got going 44 years ago. No matter. Any excuse is good enough for a party and there is much to celebrate. TMS has become not merely a symbol of the British summer - the smell of freshly mown grass, linseed oil, sunny days, the click of bat upon ball - it is somehow a symbol of Britain herself. It stands for eccentricity and a marvellous innocence. Test Match Special has created a magical world where the two things that matter are whether there are cream buns for tea and the timing of the next English batting collapse. It was proper that the Queen should turn up at Lord's last week and present the commentary team with a fruit-cake.
But there was one false note, and the Queen was not responsible. The programme that the nation was happy to celebrate hardly exists any more. Anyone listening to TMS recently can hardly fail to remark that it has lost the amiable inconsequence and the poetry that it used to possess. There is a reason for this. It has lost and not sought to replace the two men who gave the programme its greatness -and greatness is not too strong a word.
John Arlott and Brian Johnston were different: Arlott with his soft countryman's accent and incomparable gift for a phrase; Johnston with his sublime talent for sub-Wodehouse comedy. But it was these two, balanced by dry summarisers like Trevor Bailey, who made the programme so good.
The BBC seems not to have grasped that the key reason for Arlott and Johnston's appeal was not that they knew all about cricket - though they did - but that they were natural broadcasters. When they went, the corporation fell for a malign modern trend - one that has affected the reporting of all sports - and filled in the gaps with a professional cricketer. Jonathan Agnew, former opening bowler for Leicestershire, has become the dominant voice of the programme in the way that Brian Johnston was in the 1980s and John Arlott before him.
Agnew is hard-working and willing. In his playing days he was the sort of good-hearted bowler who could be relied on to try his hardest on a flat pitch on a hot afternoon when the batsmen were in full cry. But he has none of that gift with words which John Arlott, who described the wicket-keeper Alan Knott as crouching behind the stumps 'like a heraldic device', could conjure up. He has none of Brian Johnston's ability to produce word pictures and slapstick. During the short Pakistan series earlier this year, one of the Pakistan batsmen was suddenly sick on the wicket. Johnston would have turned the consternation that followed into five minutes of pure comedy. Agnew was at first struck speechless, then confined himself to two or three disapproving comments. He could not rise to the occasion.
Unable to conjure up excitement or atmosphere through the use of language, Agnew attempts to introduce vitality into his commentary by placing unexpected stress on random words, as in (these examples are all taken from earlier this year), 'I see Mark Butcher being interrogated at this moment', or 'England got a great early breakthrough and it was the valuable wicket of the Australian captain', or 'Gough comes in and bowls now'. With Agnew there is never any compelling reason for these abrupt changes in emphasis. It is not as if Mark Butcher needs to be distinguished from any other Butcher, and nobody is suggesting that the wicket of Steve Waugh, arguably the finest batsman in the world, comes cheap. Nor is Gough likely to do anything apart from bowl when he runs to the wicket.
Agnew's workmanlike performance is made even more irritating by the way that TMS constantly pretends that he stands in the tradition of Brian Johnston. He is universally called Aggers, the name Johnston bestowed upon him. At least once a Test match, and often rather more than that, the leg-over episode is brought up. This was the moment when the entire commentary box was reduced to helpless mirth by a misunderstanding after Ian Botham trod on - or, as Agnew put it, failed to get his leg over - the wicket. According to the extensive literature that surrounds TMS, it caused young Agnew to be accepted by the TMS team. Perhaps this talismanic occasion is referred to so often because of the present team's need to reassure themselves that they are the inheritors of Johnston, when palpably they are not.
Another myth about Test Match Special is the notion that it is at its best during the long periods when play is interrupted by rain. This proposition did indeed have much to be said for it in the days of Arlott and Johnston. Since then, TMS has become the victim of the myth that only professional sportsmen can communicate the sport under discussion. In fact the opposite is the case. The players themselves, though they understand the technical side of the game, are in most cases unable to evoke its romance. TMS studio discussions are in danger of being overtaken by a dreary, negative, professional attitude. This has become especially obvious now that Graham Gooch (the man who cut short David Gower's career) and squeaky-voiced Mike Gatting are being permitted to take a prominent role as summarisers.
There is still, of course, much to celebrate. TMS comes alive when Henry Blofeld - a survivor from the Johnston years - takes over. Blofeld can indeed conjure up that Johnstonian buffoonery. The odd phrase is not beyond him either. As the batsmen struggled on the opening morning of the first Test, Blowers pronounced that 'each England run was greeted by the crowd like the relief of Mafeking'. His gully fielders stand 'upright, hands behind their backs, like guardsmen' in-between deliveries. Christopher Martin-Jenkins is another survivor of the old days. His commentary is scholarly, fastidious and distinguished. He is the true inheritor from E.W. Swanton, who summed up a day's play on the programme so majestically. But CMJ and Blowers cannot last for ever: the programme suffered terribly when Blofeld had a heart attack two years back.
Of course Johnston and Arlott were unique. It is no use trying to look for carbon copies. But replacing them with ex-cricketers is no solution, either. The BBC has been negligent. It must go out and hunt for men or women who can end the linguistic poverty that is in danger of swamping the programme. Perhaps there is an obscure poet in the arts department with an inexhaustible passion for the game? Perhaps an amateur cricketer repines in the light-comedy section? Perhaps Rory Bremner, who loves cricket, harbours a secret yearning to present TMS? The BBC must find these people or nobody will want to celebrate its anniversary in 44 years' time.
