THE GOOGLY: A lazy holiday listening to Jeremy Coney reminds me how good our cricket broadcasters really are

HUW TURBERVILL: The wonderful thing about this World Cup is hearing so many rich voices, so much collective knowledge broadcasting together - like an Avengers Assemble movie - if you like (Legends Liaise?)

"Jeremy, you are going to leave us for a while..."

Phew. I was facing a genuine dilemma.

I had been listening to Mr Coney for about half an hour on BBC Radio 5 Live Extra (India v Bangladesh, World Cup warm-up match).

He really is superb. Avuncular, knowledgable, a raconteur, cerebral, captivating. 

But I had just parked the car at Marloes beach in Pembrokeshire, and my family – and dog – were ready for a walk. 

Not to worry, Coney had finished now. It was OK to go.

Coney had been telling a story about Bruce Edgar, a name from my childhood, and my seminal period, the 1980s. Edgar was one of those stodgy openers that New Zealand bred back then (see also under F for Franklin, Trevor). Before they decommissioned those kilns and replaced them with ones churning out dashing T20 thumpers.

^{Jeremy Coney on broadcasting duty}

To be honest I missed the point of Coney’s tale. It was something about Edgar unstitching cricket balls in Australia, filling them with lead, and throwing them in a park with Coney. I assume Australian balls must have been harder, as it were. It didn’t matter.

The way Coney told the yarn was soothing in the summer sunshine as I spun my car around the winding narrow roads of the beautiful Welsh county. He told it in about eight parts, over three or four overs, and I never did hear the punchline (if there was one even – it was a bit like a Robbie Corbett tale). 

Coney was playing in the 1980s, of course, notably 1983, after the World Cup, but he has been a Test Match Special regular ever since. And I hope he remains so for a long time to come.

He is a consummate broadcaster.

"Times charge. Tastes evolve. I know there are lots of listeners who love hearing about the Spice Girls, and restaurants, and coloured leisure shirts, but we must not lose sight of what these shows are about – cricket"

I know he cannot have been talking in those commentaries I listened to while on holidays to my grandmother’s, but it felt like he was.

Jonners, Fred ‘I don’t know what’s going off out there’, the Boil, the Alderman – deviations to the Shipping Forecast (Cromarty, German Bight, the appropriately titled Fastnet)... from a different era, I know, but warm memories... of sandwiches crammed full of Pembrokeshire cheese and tomatoes, Golden Wonder crisps and flasks of tea.

Cricket in the background, the sounds snaking out of wound-down windows and up into cloudless, azure skies (when it was not teeming down, of course). 

But enough nostalgia!

It is wonderful we still have people like him, as part of the mix. Times charge. Tastes evolve. I know there are lots of listeners who love hearing about the Spice Girls, and restaurants, and coloured leisure shirts, but we must not lose sight of what these shows are about – cricket.

Michael Atherton of Sky Sports with Joe Root

That is also why it is so wonderful listening to Sky’s team. Time to insert usual caveats before the letters arrive. Yes I know not everyone can afford it, and people argue that its non-terrestrial status has diminished the recognisability of our stars – but hearing the holy trinity of Nasser Hussain, Mike Atherton and David Lloyd talk cricket takes some beating. 

The wonderful thing about this World Cup is hearing so many rich voices, so much collective knowledge broadcasting together – like the Avengers Assemble – if you like (Legends Liaise?) when normally we only hear them as regularly as a leap year comes round.

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Character is all important, and Coney was an interesting one all right.

He was a good batsman, with three hundreds and 16 half-centuries in 52 Tests. I seem to recall he was rather obdurate – patient is perhaps more diplomatic – himself. He was a fine captain, losing only one series, in Pakistan, and winning in England, a first for the Kiwis, in 1986. His slow-seam bowling – 27 Test wickets – was deliciously pedestrian. He made Gavin Larsen and Chris Harris look zippy.

He was a snaffler at slip: this – combined with his considerable height – earned him the delectable nickname, the Playing Mantis. Wonderfully Wikipedia also tells me he is a stage lighting designer to boot!

They don't make 'em like that any more.