The summer of Sky Cricket

NICK FRIEND: In an exceptional year, Sky Cricket's coverage of the Test summer was remarkable. Bryan Henderson, the broadcaster's head of cricket, opens up on Black Lives Matter, an outstanding commentary team, impartiality, credibility and Covid

As July 8 crept up on English cricket, Bryan Henderson found himself worrying: worrying about the week, worrying about how everything might work in a pandemic-led environment, worrying about what televised cricket would look like without a crowd. He talks a lot about the importance of “authenticity”, and we will come to that later.

But this piece begins just as Sky Cricket began the international summer, with the remarkable Black Lives Matter segment featuring Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent, the impact of which landed well beyond the sphere of its own sport.

Henderson, a genial Scot and Sky’s head of cricket, was the man behind it all. After hearing Rainford-Brent speak emotionally about the movement during a virtual meeting among colleagues, it was decided that the coverage should make a stand.

It was a bold call, he knew at the time. Leading into the first Test of such an unusual summer, there were other more straightforward storylines: Ben Stokes’ journey to captaincy, cricket behind closed doors, broadcasting while socially distanced.

But as Henderson strolled along a beach near St Andrews on a lockdown evening three weeks out from the first Test against West Indies, it was Michael Johnson who made up his mind; the great American sprinter was speaking on a podcast with Will Greenwood, and Henderson listened attentively.

“He was talking about BLM, saying: ‘If you don’t get it, just sit this one out,’” Henderson tells The Cricketer. “But he was also saying: ‘If you’ve got a voice, then you need to use that voice.’ Having a voice and not using it is, in his view, unacceptable. He spoke so eloquently, beautifully and passionately about it that it just clicked.

“I think the biggest learning for me was that not being racist isn’t good enough. You need to do more. And, if you’ve got a voice – and Sky Cricket has a voice, and I obviously have an element of control over that voice – then you need to use it.”

He recalls his focus switching quickly to the knowledge that his team didn’t go to air for almost a month. He worried that “another sport or another broadcaster would do something, and we’d look like we were copying them”.

Come the first morning of the international summer, all eyes were on Sky, who were providing the world with its first dose of top-level cricket since March. The quality of their coverage has never been in doubt. Rather, its enduring class has come to be taken for granted in recent years. So much so that in its absence, watching England feels noticeably different.

Over time, it has developed into far more than simply a vehicle for its pictures: a team of commentators and pundits increasingly unrivalled, backed up by a splendid fusion of insight and entertainment.

^{Sky Cricket were forced to innovate with their coverage during the summer. Joe Root (left) is interviewed remotely after the toss; Danny Reuben, England's head of communications, looks on (right)}

Never before this year had perfecting that blend been so essential to the success of a summer. Never had there been so little place for a broadcast to hide: restricted pitch access, no crowds, no face-to-face contact with players. And never before had so much global focus been centred on a single pre-match broadcast.

“The one thing that came to me later was the fact that the cricketing world’s eyes would be on us,” Henderson says.

“I hadn’t actually really considered that. I think broadcasters try to help each other out a little bit. I got messages from SuperSport, New Zealand, Fox in Australia, saying: ‘Can we take your build-up?’ Because normally they would either do their own or just join for the first ball. And you sort of think: ‘Yeah, of course. Why not? Let’s just try to help each other out a little bit in these difficult times.’

“I genuinely hadn’t really thought of the impact that would then have when we did what we did. It was a nervous morning, not helped by rain – every cricket producer’s nightmare - but actually it was a set of circumstances that enabled us to use our voice, given what we were planning on doing.”

Sky had developed two adaptations of the feature, the impact of which would soon shoot around the world: a five-minute clip to run in the morning ahead of play, followed by a fuller, 15-minute version to run at lunch. Only, the delayed start – perhaps the most significant rain break in cricket broadcasting history – changed Henderson’s mind: he ran the complete film with the world watching.

Could he have foreseen its subsequent crossover and resonance on a global scale? Not quite, though he knew his team had produced something special.

“It was an exhausting day and I remember getting back to the hotel room at night and just messages coming in from Australia,” he says. “Mark Waugh was texting, Dean Jones had texted Nasser Hussain to say it was amazing. People from all around the world were taking note of it.

“Mikey was being inundated with messages: Thierry Henry, Martina Navratilova. In no way did I predict that it was going to have as big an impact. As it was going out, my phone was going off and I was getting a lot of messages: ‘This is incredible, this is amazing.’

“Of course, I didn’t realise how emotionally Mikey was going to speak off the back of it.” Holding’s unscripted, impassioned follow-up has been viewed 6.8million times. “I didn’t realise at the time how nervous Ebony was. She couldn’t watch it, sitting in the commentary box.” She told The Cricketer last month how she had already set up a new Twitter account under a different name in anticipation of an abuse-laden backlash.

"If you've got a voice – and Sky Cricket has a voice, and I obviously have an element of control over that voice – then you need to use it"

Henderson continues: “But then, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. I think what I could then do was say to Ebony: ‘Switch on your phone – there’s a lot of love out there.’ And Nasser, who is always on social media, I think he was relieved too.

“Looking back, had we put the wheels in motion for something that would have caused further distress to Ebony, it would have been truly awful. I hadn’t considered it at the time. Thankfully, she’s emerged from this as an even stronger, more amazing person. I think it’s just helped give her that platform, which she’s using to do good things.”

Sky Cricket, too, emerged from it all not so much intact as even further elevated, the circumstances of the pandemic placing huge emphasis on live sport, which magnified their excellence. Amid the hyper-partisan land of social media, it is a rare case for the critics to come for Henderson and his team, whose product is founded on a straightforward premise: tell the story.

“And tell it fairly,” he adds. “Tell it with a balance of insight and entertainment, never forget your customer who you’re broadcasting to, and then make it look as cool, pretty, sexy as you possibly can, while not forgetting what you’re trying to achieve.

“I think it’s just about getting that balance right between shade and light. And then, clearly you need a talented, hardworking, capable production team.

“But the real stars and difference-makers, in my view, are your commentators – your line-up of on-screen talent. They’re the people who can bring whatever you can do alive. And they’re the people who I think most people at home really notice.

“You could have a wonderful broadcast with all the technical gizmos, all the camera angles, brilliant directors, brilliant replay operatives, brilliant producers and brilliant graphic ops. But if that story is not being delivered particularly well by your on-screen talent, you’ve got a problem.

“The flipside is if perhaps you’ve got an amazing setup of on-screen talent, then I think that can make up for a lot of potential deficiencies or budget constraints or whatever else behind the scenes. The on-screen talent are critical.

“I think the secret is a blend of good people who care passionately about the game, but they’re all different and they are themselves. When you’re putting together a commentary team, it’s really an evolution – not revolution. I think it’s my job or the job of the team to just try to stay ahead of the curve a little bit.

“Sometimes, that means making really difficult decisions. It’s recognising moments in time; it’s being diverse; it’s being inclusive – but not getting away from telling the story and making it look pretty. I think the blend of people is really important – different backgrounds, different abilities, different histories. Batters, bowlers, wicketkeepers, captains. Different ethnicity, different gender balance. I think we’ve got a good blend.”

He is describing his line-up, this summer made up principally of presenter Ian Ward, Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton, David Lloyd, Holding, Rob Key and Rainford-Brent. Others come and go depending on both series and opposition: Kumar Sangakkara, Shane Warne and Ian Smith have appeared in recent times. “We’ve got an eye on Stuart Broad coming through,” Henderson adds.

Hussain and Atherton “are as good as it gets in world broadcasting,” he says. “They are beyond outstanding.” Lloyd, 73, and Holding, 66, represent “the gravitas and experience” of the operation.

“Bumble is brilliant at shade and light,” Henderson explains, “recognising when there is perhaps a slightly quieter period of play and he can have some fun and talk about other things and entertain. Equally, when the cricket’s bang on, he recognises he has to be bang on the cricket, that it’s not a comedy routine.” And then, there is Ward, who “does a brilliant job in bringing the best out of others”. More on him later.

They are the core, even more so following the departures in 2019 of Sir Ian Botham and David Gower, both English cricketing royalty but moved on as part of that “evolution”. Rainford-Brent joined on a more permanent basis this summer, having worked with Sky sporadically for several years beforehand, while Key is “a real talent coming through – he’s developing really well”.

Listening to Henderson is fascinating – scarcely more so than when he lays out the need for continual improvement from his team.

“Every year out of the game, you are a year less relevant, so you have to get better,” he stresses. “One thing to remember is that the job is broadcasting – not batting No.3 for England.

“When I look at a commentator, you’re looking at a combination of credibility and broadcasting ability. You can score each out of five or each out of ten, but broadcasting ability is the most important, and credibility is also important. Again, that’s part of the balance of your side.”

Take Atherton, for example: a former England captain and a veteran of 115 Tests, responsible for one of the most storied individual innings in his country’s history.

“But some people can’t help their credibility,” Henderson counters – not a criticism by any stretch, but an observation of the nuances at play. Key was a fine batsman in an era of fine batsmen: 15 caps, a solitary Test century – albeit a double hundred – and an autobiography whose self-deprecating title labels him ‘a journeyman cricketer’.

“Perhaps he was a bit unlucky,” says Henderson. “He can’t help that he only played X amount of Test matches. But what he can do is get better as a broadcaster – and I say that to him.”

"I think Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton are as good as it gets in world broadcasting. They are beyond outstanding"

Credibility against broadcasting ability, in a nutshell. As one wanes with the passing of time, the other becomes increasingly important. In essence, that was the journey taken by Hussain, who joined Sky Sports in 2004 – his arrival announced just three days after he played his final Test.

“Nasser has been doing it for 16 years now – that’s a long time,” Henderson adds. “He’s got better at it every year because he works hard and he cares about it, and that’s good. He has a lot of credibility still, but he’s not picked up a bat for 16 years.

“So, that’s what I say to them: ‘You’re relevant because you can tell me what’s going on in that dressing room but in five years’ time, it’ll be a different set of players in that dressing room, you’ll be less relevant and somebody else will be the star on the scene, so you just have to get better as a broadcaster.”

It brings him to the example of Broad, a magnificent talker on the game, who has already begun cutting his teeth as a pundit, even if retirement and life after cricket are far from the mind of the 34-year-old.

All the evidence would indicate that he lines up as a natural addition: tall, handsome, seventh on the all-time list of Test wicket-takers, destined to finish as an bona fide great. “But we’re asking him to commentate – not open the bowling for England,” Henderson laughs.

“He’s got bags of credibility, but I think he’s got to be passionate about broadcasting. He has to have the work ethic to want to get better and clearly, I think that he will do that. It’s about learning the variety of roles. They’re all good pundits because they’ve been used to being pundits all their careers. A lot of them were England captains – they’re all good talkers.

“The commentary side is very difficult. You’ve got lead commentary, you’ve got colour commentary, you’ve got the more technical analysis. I know he’s going to be pretty good at the technical analysis. He’s been doing that at the Sky Cart alongside Ian Ward for ages.

“So, with the colour commentary and lead commentary, initially you’re going to put him in the colour chair to be alongside a more experienced broadcaster. But he then has to get better and work harder, be able to do interviews, do tosses, hold demonstrations. He has to be able to do all sorts of stuff. But you’re not, of course, expecting them to be amazing instantly.”

^{Henderson (left) collects a Sports Journalism Association award for Sunset & Vine and Sky Sports' coverage of last year's World Cup final}

The value of “broadcasting ability” was perhaps more visible than ever this summer, with going to air from the heart of empty stadia in a socially distanced manner understandably creating several challenges – some predicted and others unforeseen.

One was an awareness that commentary without a crowd had to be different – only subtly so, but significantly enough that it quickly became apparent to those in the box.

“The one thing we realised that perhaps we hadn’t thought about beforehand was the difference in the way that you call the moment,” Henderson explains.

“Let’s say there’s a wicket for James Anderson. You call the wicket and then, typically, you would pause a little bit to let the crowd have its affect: you shoot to the crowd and the players’ celebrations and you let the atmosphere take over.

“Because there was none of that, we realised that the commentators had to fill those airwaves a bit stronger and a bit more forcefully to fill those seconds and to really lift the moment.

“Even things like boundaries, when the ball runs away for four. If you’re not having the crowd shots to lift it, then the commentary really did need to lift it.”

And so, provisions were put in place. Camera shots were fixed more tightly on players than usual so as to avoid panning regularly to swathes of empty seats, while a wire-cam was built to fly at a low level, giving viewers at home a different angle – one that would be impossible to utilise in normal times without disrupting spectators.

The Player Zone was also born out of the complications – an innovation somewhere between the Mastermind hotseat and Big Brother’s diary room.

The most powerful piece of sports broadcasting I can recall

For Henderson, it represented an opportunity. Little secret was made in the build-up of the simple facts of the matter: a full summer of international cricket was worth a significant amount of capital to the ECB within a major broadcast deal it could scarcely do without.

“I wanted to use this summer as leverage really,” he says. “In many ways, the games were only being put on for the television money, sort of. We needed them too, but I thought this was a chance to actually get increased access and see how that goes.”

The result was a viewpoint rarely heard in elite sport – that of the protagonists during play. Henderson makes the point that for a society so demanding of the instantaneous, this development felt strangely overdue in Test cricket.

“It’s a bit crazy that Rory Burns gets out for 60 and we don’t hear from him until six hours later. People want this immediacy, these digital clips. And so, the Player Zone helped deliver that.”

He is wholesome in his praise of the ECB in all this, not to mention the players, whose on-field efforts – he emphasises – were fundamental to the success of the summer.

Played out for the most part in silent, empty bowls, they still maintained an elite intensity throughout. Had the tempo of the cricket mirrored its eerie surroundings, Henderson wonders how it might have displayed itself on television.

“We’re really just telling the story and we can’t fake it,” he adds. “People would realise pretty quickly if this wasn’t authentic, top-level sport. And so, it all starts with the players and it’s all about them.”

"Every year out of the game, you are a year less relevant, so you have to get better. One thing to remember is that the job is broadcasting – not batting No.3 for England"

Over the course of an hour, he namechecks several of those responsible for the manifestation of this relationship. Among them, he touches on Ashley Giles, managing director of England men’s cricket; Neil Fairbrother, once a player but now a prominent agent; and Danny Reuben, the team’s “amazing” head of communications.

The rapport between team and broadcaster is a fascinating element of Sky Cricket’s story, established on a lengthy build-up of trust between both parties.

That respect was typified during the first Test of the summer in a candid interview given by Broad from the Player Zone. It is better remembered for his frank assessment of the decision to leave him out of the side, though his first words were also pertinent. “Having watched your coverage over the last couple of days, it has been incredible,” he began.

It was also evident in the watchalongs that accompanied the lockdown period through Easter, with several England players – Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer and Joe Root among them – happy to talk openly of their recollections over the top of archive footage.

To a degree, the Player Zone had its roots in those productions. “It was pretty interesting to hear from players talking over action that had happened in the past,” Henderson says, recalling the initial logic behind the idea.

“So, why can’t they come in and talk over what’s happening now? They’re all really good with the media, they get it, I think they trust us that we weren’t going to put them in a difficult situation.

“To be able to talk to players when play was happening and to be able to do demonstrations during tea intervals, it was great.

“It’s built on trust. And we knew that if we messed it up once and a player went back into the dressing room and said it was a nightmare, we knew it wasn’t going to work. As ever, it’s about balance and common sense, but the players were great.

“We work really hard on these relationships – it’s not by chance, but it only works if the players are up for it. They get it. They’re well educated by the ECB on what their responsibilities are, and I think we act pretty responsibly in managing them.”

Ebony Rainford-Brent: Trailblazer, influencer, game-changer

In addition, the power of digital media now means that a two-minute appearance in front of the cameras effectively represents a chance to develop a personal brand.

Henderson explains: “If you look at someone like Jonny Bairstow, I think he recognises it and he’s actually quite keen to go and do this to get himself out there.

“But it only works if it’s authentic and if we’re fair and balanced. It can’t just be: ‘You’re great, great, great.’ You have to ask the difficult questions too, but you can ask them nicely.”

With that in mind, where does the notion of impartiality fit into all this, and how difficult a consideration is it as a broadcast partner to a national governing body? “It’s a really good question,” Henderson smiles.

“I think it’s incredibly important. It’s incredibly important to be fair to both teams. Actually, because of your audience – at Sky, it’s drummed into you all the time to look after the customer, most of the customers are interested in England.

“That is naturally where the focus of our attention goes, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Most people that are watching are interested in England and how they do. But it is utterly critical that we tell it as it is. We cannot be ECB TV.

“We tell it how it is, but with a ‘glass half full’ attitude, with a huge degree of empathy for the players, with a very open window of communication so if any of the players or teams are unhappy, they can come and talk to us. We’ll discuss it and if the worst happens, we can agree to disagree.

“But we have to be able to tell it as it is. Otherwise, there’s no credibility for Sky and there’s no credibility for the sport or the teams. We’re going to be concentrating more on England and I make no apology for that, but we will be unequivocally fair to both sides.

“I often think if we’re covering a match and there are star players from around the world watching, you want them to think that we’re not cheerleaders.”

^{Two of Sky Cricket's heavyweights, Michael Holding and Michael Atherton, chat during a break in play}

Enter Ward. With Gower’s departure came speculation as to who might replace him as lead host.

Henderson, though, insists that Ward was the only choice – “the heir-apparent for a number of years”, having often shared presenting duties with Gower, while also working hard to spend time with the players. And through those efforts, the relationships he has forged have given way to the candour and chemistry on show between athletes and pundits.

It is often forgotten that Ward enjoyed a varied playing career; released by Surrey at the age of 20, he was without a county for five years and instead held jobs as a petrol station attendant, barman and aircraft cleaner, before he returned to The Oval in 1997.

He would go on to play five Tests in 2001, before ending his career with Sussex. By then, he had already spent two winters presenting and commentating for Sky Sports, whom he joined immediately on a full-time basis upon his retirement.

“Is he underrated? He’s not by me, but I think he perhaps is by the industry,” Henderson says. “I think that’s because he is one of those presenters who just doesn’t make it about him, which is typically the presenter that I personally prefer as a producer and I think I also prefer as a viewer. It’s not about him, and he believes that it’s his job to get the best out of others.”

"I often think if we're covering a match and there are star players from around the world watching, you want them to think that we're not cheerleaders"

That’s not a criticism of others, Henderson stresses. Gower and Gary Lineker were both “superstars” as players, existing as some of the best that their sports have seen. “So, there’s no point in David Gower sitting alongside Rob Key and asking him about batting and not being able to offer an opinion, because he’s a legend of the game with a superstar track record – same applies to Lineker,” he adds.

“But with Ian, it’s not about him; he works incredibly hard, he prepares incredibly well, he’s been doing it a long time now and, again, he’s got better every year.

“He’s a dream – and I’ve worked with a number of presenters over the years. He’s my favourite because of the collaborative effort that you both put in to make the product better. And he’s just a really nice guy.

“He’s like a grandmaster of chess, where he’s thinking three or four questions ahead. It’s amazing. He’ll go to this person on this subject because he knows that he wants to go to the bowler on the bowling subject in two questions’ time. He’s brilliant, and I think the best presenters are sometimes like the best umpires and the best referees: they just go under the radar a little bit. He’s not undervalued by me, that’s for sure.”

The same can be said for Sky Cricket, respected coming into this year, but perhaps now revered for their handling of a unique summer.

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