BUMBLE

David Lloyd, the former England batter and coach, has announced his retirement from Sky Sports after 22 years working as a commentator. Lloyd, 74, said that "the commentary box feels a little emptier" following the departure of three long-term colleagues in David Gower, Ian Botham and Michael Holding, and the passing of the late Bob Willis.

thanks hayden. big loss great commentator got a bit silly occasionaly but his love for the game was infectious

propbably watching his beloved accrington stanly and growing vegetables in his retirement.

maybe hell make a come back? hope so  -- real character in a era of boring commentators

Totally agree , he's a huge miss   

end of era

and now we put up with nob head nick knight

and some unknown women who know jack shute about international and test cricket.. hey ho wonderful era we live in hey

T.D. Bumble is very active on "X"

He told it how it is about Asian players not contributing to the costs of running a Cricket Club, ie spending behind the bar, paying membership and subs , raffles, social side etc. and got banjoed for it. They don't pull their weight and never have.

Made to resign by all accounts for speaking is mind.

Arlott, Trueman, Bailey, Johnston, Blofeld and E W Swanton.....Those were the days and apologies to those I missed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/entries/e166bd68-3101-3d83-babe-8160feb73c68

Mark Damazar

Test Match Special is a favourite programme. I first started listening more or less forty years ago. I remember not only the wonderful Arlott and Johnston - but Alan Gibson and Don Mosey and Alan McGilvray and EW Swanton. Like many others I turned down the TV commentary to listen to TMS - unless Richie Benaud was on TV duty.

That is a bit harder to do now as Sky (who do a very good job I rather think) and TMS are not in perfect sync. Alas.

Of course everyone with an interest in cricket and/or TMS knows of the Brian Johnston corpsing moment - or should that be corpsing minutes. I was listening live at the time. But I have other favourite moments. I do this next bit from memory - and someone out there correct me if this is wrong - but I recollect a New Zealand batsman in the 1970s (perhaps Bev Congdon?) making two successive huge hundreds. John Arlott asked Trevor Bailey what were Congdon's weaknesses. Trevor Bailey replied... "He loses concentration when he gets to 170." Very fine.

Why is TMS so good? Because it is about metaphor and simile - about literature and art, about weather and place - about food and drink - as well as about a great game (though not necessarily a better game than baseball - but that's another story). And we are always looking for the perfect balance between the sporting ingredients and the other delicacies that surround the cricket. Everyone has a different opinion about what that balance should be... and it is an art form. We must not miss a ball but it would be a mistake not to let the team go off piste.

We are in good nick at the moment. The programme of course is now online and on 5 Live Sports Extra but it will long stay a defining part of R4's culture. It will not be a sports commentary programme alone. I am going to see the TMS team on Saturday morning at the Oval. Let us hope the match is still alive at that point. I have an Australian wife and my children have Australian passports and some of them will be with me. I do not know whether I am impartial. I would not wish to fail the Tebbit test. So I shall pray for Freddie's knee.

Brian Johnson was absolutely delightful in the commentary box, my favourite from your list Sparrow.

I liked them all slippy, but mostly Arlott and Bailey and don't forget the cakes

Arlott was brilliant , every batsman coming to the crease was " One of the most promising young players in the country "   

days gone by never tobe relived

the is a red bus going down the stretford end

i think it a 46

classic

Bumble my fav commentator on the cricket, was just superb. He is sorely missed

One time showed him keeling over from getting hit in the groin and someone said i see you gave your self a bit of a rub, he said i wasn't rubbing them i was counting them!

or something like that.

Now its all driven by PC madness and quality commentators who dont tick enough boxes are shunted out.

As mentioned the new generation of commentors should look at some of the names mentioned on this thread on how to do it.

Holding, Botham, Gower, Johnstone, Agnew, Blofeld, Arlot, Bailey and the great Richie Benaud who had the perfect cricket voice.

Now we get women screeching, remember a bowler bowling a juicy half volley and the batsmen getting underneath it and holing out on the boundary, and she said what a great ball, then what a great shot, then what a great catch, that's great cricket all round

I genuinely thought after "the incident" he had retired. Still worked out well for SKY so they could ditch another oldie.

https://www.lords.org/mcc/the-club/mcc-young-female-broadcaster

..

Alex Hartley is great on tms.