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Great stuff...my mouth is watering with anticipation. I think we will see a different performance from the SA attack this time andt will be very interesting to see how England get on with a five man attack.

Go on Freddie...set em alight!!!!!

Disappointed that Fraser has the nod over Tufnell for this test. However, I'm looking forward immensely to the Hoggard section.

How about an interview with Yorks Chief Exec Stewart Regan about the difficulties of administration and player registration in teh modern game?

Good to hear that Mathew Hoggard will be joining you to answer listeners' questions. If you would like a truly transparent and efficient way of harvesting questions for Mathew, you could use our platform www.yoosk.com we would be very happy to help out.

I agree that Phil Tufnell has been a great addition to the summarisers. Hope he's back soon!

re. comment 2,
I think that Tufnell is OK in small doses but is more in line with R5L ambience.

Can I just say how fantastic it was to have Mark Pougatch commentating during the Lords test.
Please can we have more of him. I have nothing against Simon Mann as a person, but in comparison to Pougatch he is unspeakably dull.

Great to hear that Blowers is back, i do wish that he was allowed 4 or 5 tests a summer. Tuffers was also very good in the last test i thought. Surprisingly informative as well as Mark Pougatch who is equally as good!

TMS is a treasure long may it continue!

With England, nobody seems to have mentioned the positves of Paul Collingwood being dropped. Remember Andrew Strauss? He was dropped for Sri Lanka and came back a refreshed, better player. Maybe some times away from the game will do him the world of good?

Luke.

Have to agree about Tuffers. Informative as well as being naturally funny. Career journalists make a big fuss about the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ being obsessed with using ex players but, as a view/listener, I much favour the greater insight that they can bring.

Since there's a positive comment about Henry Blofeld on here already, I must add a negative one. I enjoy matches much more when he's not present.

Too slow in conveying the action: the crowd roars well in advance of any commentary from him. Too predictable ("he's up to the wicket, he bowls") and given to the self-cliche ("kicking horse"). Often seemingly unable to accept the expert's point of view, clinging to his own, and repeating it.

And, worst of all, prone to going off on one of his oh-so-endearing rambles when the cricket is at its most exciting. He would have been fine on Monday at Lords, but at the business end of a Test Match, or one of those crunch sessions, that's not on.

I'm missing the SA regular commentator from previous series, whose name escapes me. Alison Mitchell seems to still be learning the game, and while this is a positive introduction, a couple of the interviews (about the declaration, for instance) have been naive.

Adam I am dissapointed to hear that Blowers is part of the commentary team for this test.

Not a negataive comment though, its because I won't hear too much of it! On Friday I am at Birkdale for the Open Golf then I go away for a week starting Saturday! How bad timing is that!

I'll try and squeeze some Blowers stints in if I can.

Pleased to hear the Durham Twenty20 match will be on also, not that I'll hear it!

One question for you though, why is Neil Manthorp not part of the commentary team this series?

He was excellent on the last tour and at the world cup last year. It was good to hear him previewing the days play a couple of times but he is missed from commentary.

I'm chuffed to here that Blowers is back - a Test match is always better when he is on TMS. Welcome back Henry!

And can't wait to see Freddie back in action - really missed him with the ball - who cares if he doesn't perform with the bat - colly wasn't so it can't get any worse! (Touch-wood!)

Glad Blowers is back - but I'll miss Tufnell, he's ACE!!

All I'm asking is that, this test, we don't get a draw...........I'm hoping Freddie will be inspired, along with the rest of the team, at his return. Collingwood will probably come back later, stronger for a rest.

All this talk of the excellent Blowers misses the point (or my point, at least). There have been three summarisers over the years that have put their ego over their job. Trevor Bailey and Fred Trueman are now mercifully no longer employable, but the execrable Geoff Boycott is still there, still shouting through the commentary, still trying to prove what we know anyway; that he was a master batsman, but clueless strategist. Let's give him a nice long rest, shall we TMS?

Adam, I think I raised this before during the series in New Zealand, is there any chance that the lunchtime and tea interviews/debates can be put into a "Best of TMS" podcast, so that for those who are unable to listen to them live can hear them later?

Can you really see the Faroes from Bamburgh? They're a good few hundred miles NNW from John O'Groats...

Tuffers and Blowers would have been a fun pairing. Echo the call for PCR's swift return. Fraser is too dopey and dreary by comparison. Shaun Pollock has been doing well, though.

I'm with andpalm (Comment no.14) - so much so that I have taken to switching off the radio and turning on the TV commentary for a carefully measured half hour when I hear that dreaded hectoring voice come on. I've never had to do that before in 25 years of listening. (I did get lucky once or twice and coincide with a Michael Holding spell, so it wasn't all bad.)
I missed Henry too, but on the plus side we seem to be getting an extra helping of Vic Marks so well done for that. He is worth twenty Boycotts. (And a dozen Tufnells - that cheeky Cockney persona gets a bit wearing.)

Its great news that Henry is back! I cant wait to hear Blowers! Bring him on! :)

Thank goodness ! The TMS line-up for the 2nd Test is perfect in every way . Welcome back Henry !
I'm afraid I have to be negative about aspects of the coverage of the 1st Test. We simply have far too much of Phil Tufnell. Hopefully Darren Gough will get the 'television celebrity' role next year . Mark Pougatch is fine for general Radio 5 coverage . He is by far the least suitable of all those given a trial on TMS . When he and Phil Tufnell were on together I felt that I simply wasn't tuned in to TMS at all . It was the least appropriate pairing I have ever heard . TMS is the most unique and treasured programme in all of British sports broadcasting . Please do not spoil it in the name of ' popularism '.
Please give Alison Mitchell an opportunity in the TMS commentry role . Her contributions to the various 1 Day matches have been excellent and she does not let her ego get in the way of covering a game in an informative and entertaining style .

Many thanks !

Commentary should be styled in the manner of an informed spectator telling his friends what he sees.
All this "Buy 'eck! Call 'imself an openin' batter!" is a bore.
Remind me who was it said -
"What do they know of cricket who only cricket know"
Was it a West Indian writer?

re cricket premier league
bring it on.

re tms.
Tuffers is great value, definitely. but it've been really interesting to hear Fraser commentate on this match, especially as it's going to be dominated by fast bowling.

and yes, Alison Mitchell is great. and yeah [sigh] welcome back Blowers!

Personally, I would like to have seen Matthew bowling in this test, rather than being interviewed in the lunch break (and I suspect he would too!)

I just wonder if he and the rest of the team feel that the "spare" place in the team should have gone to a younger man than Pattinson, to give valuable experience?

Seeing Dickie Bird and Brian Close sitting together, and seeing Brian looking older than Dickie, brought to mind this - the second Test England v WI in 1976.

In the absence of a current Ask Bearders, I wonder whether there has been a Test match since then in which one of the participants has been older than one of the umpires...

"Variety of characters"? Bunch of London luvvies you mean. How about some people who actually care about cricket as opposed to 'hearing themselves talk about cricket'?
As for commentators, I haven't bothered since Arlott. Bailey, Johnston, Trueman and Blofeld were all unbearable and the idea of Tufnell turns my stomach. It's not as if he was a good player. The idea of Matthew Hoggard as a commentator when he should be at least 3rd name on the sheet every time is similarly grotesque. And don't get me starfted on the 'Barmy Army'. They're the reason I don't go to Test matches anymore.

It is dissapointing that the selectors chose Pattinson, come on, he is not in the loosest sense English. It makes a mockery of this being the England team, again games at this level are lost, not by the players but by the selectors and that has been so for years and years now. How sad

Where's Neil Manthorp this time around? The only impartial South African commentator i've ever heard. Very informative, knowledgable and good humoured.

I also take it Mr Withnell (post 25) doesn't like change. "Things were better in my day lad" i guess.