Undoubtedly the greatest thrill I have had in my role as commentator for BBC Radio Cumbria was when I was part of a team sent to cover Cumberland at Lord’s.
Keith Richardson, Graham Moss, Olly Ollcock and myself travelled down for the Trophy final against Bedfordhsire in 1999, just weeks after I had gone freelance.
I’d been doing some rugby league for them and when there was vacancy in the reporting team I readily volunteered.
We did a ball by ball commentary from the Media Centre in the ground, where all the greats and strutted their stuff – Benaud, Arlott and Johnson. It was a goose-bump moment.
Now when I used to travel annually to Lord’s to watch Middlesex the Media Centre didn’t exist but it’s certainly become part of the scene at headquarters.
It was the first time the three of us had worked together at a cricket match and we all had our individual styles.
Olly provided the light-hearted banter; Keith and I tried to be serious and Graham made sure everything was going to plan.
I’ve covered football, rugby league and rugby union for the station but this was up there as my proudest moment – at the home of cricket telling the folks back home how it was going.
Not very well was the short answer as we were bowled out for 153 in 47 overs and Bedfordshire knocked them off for the loss of just two wickets in 36.1 win overs.
Wayne Larkins, the former Northants and England batsman was the star of the show and I remember having a chat to him later off air about his career.
In fact he was more disappointed that his football career hadn’t taken off with Notts County it seemed, and he was restricted to non-league football after that.
The general consensus was that the commentary team had done a good all-round job on the day and one or two people still ask me if anyone sent in cakes!
