Kevin Pietersen comments on England's first Test against India for Talksport. The former batsman is particularly good at providing information about players. Minds Photo: Talksport/Twitter
Turning into Talksport on Sunday morning, it's not hard to see why some radio cricket fans are eagerly awaiting the Test Match Special. The first three minutes I listened to the radio broadcast on the website were commercials, followed by a long bookmaker commercial about the prices for India or England to win after tea. Not a promising start for a web offering that went on for several minutes before the Hyderabad test results were announced, by which time this listener was at least starting to get annoyed.
I'm not sure if we have a real radio at home, but you can watch Talksport coverage on YouTube and it works very well and you get it ad-free. There are cameras in their radio booth so you can, if you wish, get a close-up look at the faces of Steve Harmison, Neil Manthorpe, Kevin Pietersen, Harsha Bhogle and others while they commentate, or if it's a little before Sunday breakfast, just listen to them.< /p>
Talksport bid for and won the radio rights, but like TNT with its TV coverage of the series, it has to work within a budget. Darren Gough and Australian broadcaster Jarrod Kimber, who plays statistician, join us via link from London. Gough seemed particularly keen for England to wrap things up on day four to spare him the 1.10am wake-up call, and rightfully so.
Both productions give the feeling that all costs have been saved: TNT had no guests in London or boots in India for this one, and it is also keeping costs low for the next match by flying Sir Alastair Cook, Steve Finn and presenter Kate Mason. , rather than Stockholm, because its parent company has a studio there. One of the eyes of eco-warriors Greta Thunberg and Pat Cummins on the environmental side of things. Poor Pat, first Brisbane and now Finney's carbon footprint.
Ravi Shastri interviews Ben Stokes for India TV presenter . TNT Sports used local channel during coverage of the first Test
Talksport radio broadcasts are definitely different from TMS, but not necessarily in a bad way. It's a meat and potatoes offering, with Gough and Harmison sharing ideas here and there and chatting a lot about the atmosphere of the game. Harmison passes a surprising amount of ball after ball and plays with confidence; sometimes the team may need a gentle reminder that they are watching radio and not television to talk to pictures. Pietersen and Bhogle, from what I tried on Sunday, are used in small doses. In my opinion this is a very correct dosage for both of these people and I am happy to say that Bhogle did not represent the BCCI in this case and KP did not start talking about the plight of the white rhinoceros.
Harmison, Gough and Pietersen are at their best showing what players can feel and think and what it's like to be there, and there's none of the deep technical immersion you get with Sky, nor the blandly exciting ebbs and flows. Have a nice day at TMS. But the action in this match was so exciting that the team could hardly put a foot wrong, and while you might not want to spend three hours in this company if there was a rain delay, it all worked out fine. Joey Barton will be relieved that there were no female commentators or pundits at the event. And if you're just looking for cricket audio production that focuses on cricket rather than musings on the social issues of the day, as BBC Sport tends to do, then it's all fine.
Those of us who grew up with it will continue to appreciate TMS, but perhaps its old-fashionedness is becoming a little tiresome for some tastes. No one in the Talksport box was chatting about pigeons or Battenberg cake – presumably the production budget isn't being spent on snacks – and they're not interviewing any politicians during their lunch break, which is a definite plus. If you want lyricism and awakening, then TMS will be back soon; if you just want some guys talking about cricket then Talksport did what it promised.
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