“As a presenter, David Gower is excellent,” says David Lloyd, who worked alongside him at Sky for two decades. “I have every confidence in him. I’m at ease. I know where we’re going.” Gower gave the same impression to viewers as the anchor of Sky’s coverage: a comforting, familiar presence who was always there but never intrusive. Sky, though, decided to take a different path, announcing earlier this year that they would not be offering him or Ian Botham a new contract.

“There’s no point hiding it,” says Gower. “I’d like to be carrying on for all sorts of good reasons, the main one being I love doing it.” As he re-enters the job market at the age of 62, Gower insists “there is plenty of ambition there – plenty of life”. He (semi) jokingly mulls over becoming master of a Cambridge or Oxford college (“largely for access to the wine cellar”) or a “geriatric” reboot of panel show They Think It’s All Over. He made a surprise appearance on the Today programme before the Ashes Test at Old Trafford, reading the sports bulletin, but he would love to stay in the game. “Cricket has been in my blood all my life,” he says. “And it makes sense to stick to one’s strengths.”

Gower’s departure feels like the end of an era, the former England captain a casualty of the rapidly shifting sands of cricket’s media landscape. More than ever, cricket finds itself reliant on broadcasters, not just for their pots of gold – the most recent broadcast deal worth £1.1bn, kicking in from next year, smashed through the previous ceiling – but as conduits to bring the game to life. Cricket’s future relevance, not to mention its financial security, hinges on the ongoing commitment and presentational excellence of the TV and radio companies that bring it to us. And while cricket must move with the times, there are also proud traditions to uphold.

Gower draws parallels between being part of Sky’s commentary team and his playing days. “Each person has their role and understands their role,” he says. “Very much like a cricket team, you have your specialities, your own ways of doing things. The worst thing would be a homogenised, one-size-fits-all approach, where everyone conforms to this template of talking about cricket.”

David Gower, Michael Atherton and Ian Botham in the Sky studio at Edgbaston in 2017. Photograph: Corbis via Getty Images

That diversity has been in helped in recent years by a range of female voices. “I do think all outlets, certainly across England and Australia, are making a concerted effort in probably the last two years to make sure their teams have the right look and feel about them,” says Alison Mitchell, who in 2007 became the first woman to be a regular part of Test Match Special’s commentary team and for many years was the only female journalist on England tours.

She was always warmly welcomed and describes Geoffrey Boycott in particular as a “big champion” of her work, but says: “It’s nice not to be the only one anymore. The world isn’t made up of all blokes and one woman, so it makes for a more normal workplace. That’s not to say a team should be made up of anybody who hasn’t worked their way through and deserves to be there. We’re lucky in cricket that a lot of effort has gone in to giving opportunities to allow people to show that they’re more than capable of commentating on top-level cricket.”

“It’s ridiculously overdue but it’s nice that it’s finally happening,” says Australian writer and broadcaster Geoff Lemon, who was part of TMS’s World Cup coverage this summer. “We’re only just getting to the point of it being unremarkable when women commentate on men’s Test cricket. If all you hear is the same kind of voice, then that’s probably fine if you’re a 22-year-old white bloke – because you hear people who sound like you and that’s reassuring and comforting – but it doesn’t work for anyone else. It inherently tells other people that the game is not for you. There’s a huge difference in being able to hear someone who you can identify with and have that not be unusual.”

Lemon and Mitchell are also two of the relatively few voices commentating on international cricket who have not played the game professionally, but this is beginning to change. Eleven of the 34 broadcasters on TMS during the World Cup were not ex-pros, while Daniel Norcross has joined fellow “non player” Simon Mann as an established member of the regular line-up.

“The tension you have in commentary is about reputation and the size of reputation,” says Lemon. “Particularly the idea that only former players who are really famous should be allowed to commentate because they have the biggest name and the biggest presence. We have seen a bit of swing back towards the other direction in the last two or three years. There’s suddenly more of a willingness to use professional broadcasters.”

Mitchell believes broadcasters who did not play professionally can help make the game more relatable to the viewer. “I see that role for me as adding narrative and context, to provide the storyline,” she says. “I really enjoying researching and I take pride in being able to come up with something that tells a bit of backstory about a player, adding value in a way the ex-player summariser might not offer so much because they’re there to analyse the action. I’m never really going to go through the minutiae of somebody’s forward defence – that’s not my role.”

While the range of voices has expanded and the production values have changed almost beyond recognition, Gower believes that the basic tenets of TV commentary haven’t really shifted. “When I first started at Channel Nine in Australia, they had an executive producer called David Hill – Benaud, Chappell, Lawry, all these guys worked under him – and he wrote a commentary handbook. It’s about the rhythm of commentary, about not talking over each other, about allowing space, remembering that on TV you don’t need to describe the picture, the Benaudism of trying to add something to what is already on the screen.

“When I was first working at Channel Nine and the BBC, I was working next to a man acknowledged as probably the finest commentator ever. Richie was very generous with advice and it was almost as succinct as his commentary. You learnt by listening and watching and talking to him. It all still applies today.”

Richie Benaud and Michael Atherton commentating on the Ashes in 2005. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Lloyd highlights three golden rules of TV commentary. “In radio commentary you look out of the window and describe what you see. That’s a complete no-no in TV. You watch the monitor. You may look out the window and pick up something and ask the director or producer to give you a shot of it. Then it comes on the screen and you describe it.

“Another absolute golden rule, and sadly there are a number that don’t adhere to it, is if you’ve got nothing to say, put the microphone down. I’m old school, it’s been drummed into me. If anybody has got a mic in their hand, I won’t attempt to speak. If you want to say something you quite leisurely go for your microphone, pick it up and the other person can come to the end of what they’re saying. It’s continually up and down, up and down.

“And rule number three: shut up when the bowler’s running in. If there’s an event on that delivery then you’re cutting one conversation short and jumping into a wicket or a great shot or whatever it might be, and it also makes it very difficult for the editors to find an in-point. The discipline of TV is far greater than radio. I’m not saying it’s scripted but it’s structured.”

Lloyd is better than most at finding room for a detour within that structure but there are other times when “you just let the game take over”. “I’ve always wanted to have a bit of entertainment,” he says. “I don’t take myself seriously really. And it’s a game of cricket. But you’ve also got sections of play that are absolutely riveting and that is a time when less is more.

“I didn’t work on the Headingley Test but I was watching. The penultimate commentary was Atherton and Warne and the end commentary team was Hussain and Ponting. After the finish I just got on the phone and sent a private message: ‘That was absolutely awesome.’ They were in the zone. There’s a great respect in the commentary box for each other. There are a number of egos and everybody’s got an opinion – it can get heated. At social times, there are certain lads who you don’t see, they’re doing their own thing. It’s almost two sections: there’s a couple of pints and a curry or a bit of fine dining. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide who’s in which category, but there is that respect.”

Lloyd says radio commentary has evolved since his time on TMS, with the summariser, who would previously only usually speak at the end of an over, in more fluid dialogue with the lead commentator. “I don’t think that would suit everybody,” he says.

Lemon believes radio poses more challenges than television. “The fundamental responsibility if you’re doing ball-by-ball on radio is you’re the only way that anyone in the audience knows what’s happening,” he says. “You have to describe the action in the most compelling possible way and in the way that conveys the biggest sense of the moment as it feels at the ground. On TV, people can still be amazed by watching a shot being played even if you don’t describe it very well. They can’t be amazed on radio if you don’t describe it properly. I think it’s easier to get away with being a less skilled broadcaster in television.”

During the World Cup this summer, Michael Holding received a reprimand from Huw Bevan, production head at the ICC’s rights partner Sunset & Vine, after describing the standard of umpiring in the match between Australia and West Indies as “atrocious”. In an email, Bevan wrote: “In live television, there are occasions when on-field decisions cause reason for discussion or debate but, as ICC TV host broadcasters, our duty is not to judge or highlight mistakes.”

The directive raised serious questions about whether commentators are being filtered or muted and Holding said as much in his reply, arguing “commentators are being more and more compromised by controlling organisations to the point of censorship”.

“It’s not a case of being worried about censorship coming in, censorship is already there,” says Lemon. “If you’re working on a televised broadcast in India under BCCI rules, there are all of these things you can’t say, or you wouldn’t say because you might piss someone off. In the last IPL when MS Dhoni came storming on to the field to yell at the umpires after a no-ball wasn’t given, he was interviewed on the ground during the TV presentation and the interviewer didn’t even mention it. It was like it didn’t happen.”

Gower says such interference would not happen under Sky’s control. “We’re expected to give our opinions and our opinions are our own. There’s no direction. Every now and again there might be a slap on the wrists for something that’s not very clever – my views on Brexit aren’t welcomed in the middle of a Test match – but the World Cup was controlled by different people. If it means you don’t criticise umpires who are ICC employees, I think that’s wrong because any well considered and well formed opinion should be allowed.”

The old guard of the commentary box – Boycott, Gower, Lloyd, Marks, Agnew and Botham – have spent more years talking about the game than playing it. It’s easy to see why it might be hard to let go. Another team to depart, another chapter of their life over. But the wheel keeps on spinning and the art of commentary keeps evolving.

Mitchell, who interviewed Gower 19 years ago for her university dissertation, says it’s a job that will never grow old. “I remember John Murray, the BBC football correspondent, saying that you will never tire of being a commentator because you will never go away feeling like you’ve done the perfect commentary. There are so many variables. And your commentary will never be the same because you have this incredible freedom, on radio in particular, to go the way you want. You’ll never feel that you’ve completely mastered it.”

• This article was published first in Wisden Cricket Monthly

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