A Beautiful Game

by Mark Nicholas

  Not until 2005, that is, when Franses, a long-time admirer of Greig, convinced Karen Brown that his association with both England and Australia, and the insight that brought, would be the icing on the cake of our commentary team. Franses was proved dead right. Greigy was tremendous value, throwing himself at that summer and proclaiming, with typical abandon, that it was the best production of cricket he had ever worked on.

  Maybe, maybe not. Greig had been a central figure in the development of the Channel Nine cricket story, one that set a new standard for sport in general. The man from whom Greigy had learnt pretty much everything was David Hill, the original executive producer of WSC and a part of Packer’s inner sanctum. Hill founded Nine’s Wide World of Sports in Australia, went with Rupert Murdoch and Sam Chisholm to BSkyB in the UK and on to Fox in the US. He was the first great innovator in global sports broadcasting and a master of narrative. (‘Sport as drama and sport as soap opera—that’s what people want to watch on television,’ Hill said when he teamed up with Chisholm at Sky.) Murdoch described him as ‘a dynamic and imaginative leader who changed the experience of nearly all major sports on three continents’. If I had a television wish left, it would be to work with Hill.

  It was watching Channel 4’s coverage of the 2005 Ashes (the first Ashes series in the UK that the Nine Network had not bought since Packer began foraging in the global sports-rights market) beamed live into Australian homes on the SBS Network, that Kerry Packer realised his own coverage needed a spring clean. He told Sam Chisholm, whom he had dragged out of retirement for a brief second period as CEO of Nine, that Channel 4 was ‘doing it better than us’ and then told him to sort it out.

  There is no doubt that in 2005 we were at the top of our game. The coverage of that summer won us our third BAFTA, and the channel generously asked me to receive it on behalf of the team. I did so on the day my daughter, Leila, was born—Sunday, 7 May 2006—so ‘quite a day’, as Richie used to say when the cricket had sparkled.

  I had met Kirsten, Leila’s mother, four years earlier. Her marvellous looks, wise counsel and splendid humour had utterly captured my heart. Now we had something even more spectacular than a BAFTA to share. On the stage, with the glitterati of British television scattered across the dining tables on the ballroom floor of the Grosvenor House Hotel, I said: ‘I’d like to be able to tell you that this is the most wonderful thing that has happened today, but I can’t, because at half past two this afternoon my daughter was born!’ Whereupon, enthusiastic applause and a cheer or two broke out. The BAFTA sits proudly at home, a bookmark to the unpredictable story of life. Leila tells people about the day it was awarded and Kirsten smiles.

  The first BAFTA had come in 2000, as much perhaps for the novelty and imagination in our work as anything else. Franses was the glue that held together a talented group of career television folk. Nobody has taught me more about the values of the business and the detail that makes every moment of live television seem so splendidly undetailed. For me, and I would guess for him, too, the Channel 4 years were both the pinnacle and the happiest of a working life. I had not thought that anything could match playing the game but I was wrong. Showing it off on television matched it absolutely, maybe even pipped it at the post.

  In the middle of December 2004, our world came tumbling down. I was in a hotel room in Adelaide after a day on air for Channel Nine when the telephone rang. Channel 4’s director of sport, David Kerr, told me that all the rights for live coverage of English cricket had gone to Sky. I stood, rooted to the spot, digesting the news I feared most. There had been two clues.

  The first came in the Caribbean nine months earlier, when I was working for TalkSport radio and the London Daily Telegraph on the England tour. Mark Sibley, then commercial director of the ECB, was genuinely concerned about Channel 4’s ability to withstand the financial pressure of the existing cricket deal, never mind another, more expensive one. In fact, he could not see the channel bidding a remotely competitive number, and he was proved right. As we talked, he looked across to the other side of the bar, where key figures in Sky’s rights acquisition team were buying drinks for their commentators, who had just finished broadcasting the day’s play live into English homes. They were in the Caribbean as guests of the ECB, said Sibley, and they had a lot of money to play with.

  The second came a few months later at the drinks reception before the Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s. I was sharing a drink and a laugh with David Brook, who had by now left Channel 4, when the non-executive chairman of the ECB’s marketing committee, Giles Clarke, pushed his way into our conversation to say that he didn’t know what we found so amusing because within a year or so we were unlikely to be televising cricket. It was an odd moment. Or, as Brook called it later, a chilling moment.

  A great deal has been said and written on this subject. My belief has always been that cricket needs visibility on free-to-air television. The breadth and quality of Sky’s coverage is superb, but fewer people are watching cricket than ever before. Test cricket, in particular, is special in that the action unfolds over four or five days. It relies on viewers dipping in and out of the coverage in order to keep in touch with the story. Once you lose touch with the narrative, you lose the plot. Notwithstanding the rapid rollout of digital platforms, free-to-air channels have the ability to capture the casual viewer as well as the committed fan and, therefore, still have a place as broadcasters of national events. At the end of the summer of 2005, kids were out with bat and ball wherever you turned. It felt as if the game had become, like football, a part of the community. Eleven years on from Channel 4 cricket’s last day on air, there is barely a pick-up match to be found.

  The ECB had long done a deal with Sky: Channel 4 had no chance. The channel dithered and then missed the chance to make a formal, higher bid in the second round of the tender process because on that December morning in 2004, the ECB chairman telephoned the director of programming at Channel 4 to say that he was on his way to London to announce that the rights had been awarded to Sky. It is true that Channel 4 could not have come close to matching Sky’s huge offer—in effect, Sky doubled the existing joint agreement—but not necessarily true that the network had fallen out of love with cricket. The hope was to change the balance of the arrangement that had been in place for the previous seven years but Sky and the ECB had already moved on, together. Under pressure, Channel 4 could have offered a little more but Sky wanted the lot and money talked.

  In defence of the ECB, Sky has truly committed to cricket, both as wallpaper and drama. No Simpsons, no Hollyoaks, no news, weather forecasts or racing, just ball by ball—guaranteed. ‘It is a myth that football made Sky,’ said David Elstein, later Sky’s head of programming. ‘Football embedded Sky. The major increases in subscriptions came when the multichannel package was launched . . . The others came with cricket. Cricket is when Surrey [by this he meant the Home Counties and indeed most of provincial England] discovered Sky.’ The England team has been the clearest beneficiary of Sky’s monopoly. The money used to fund central contracts for the players, and all that goes with them, has led to greater professionalism in the best sense of the word. Elite coaching and training have improved, and investment into the level below international cricket is bearing fruit. Now the ECB must pay greater attention to participation, in both clubs and schools.

  In Australia, there is legislation to keep home Test matches on free-to-air television. Cricket Australia is happy with that, for it underpins the sport’s popularity. At the very moment I heard the Channel 4 news in my Adelaide hotel room, Cricket Australia released a statement: ‘We continue to support legislation because it ensures a maximum audience for the game, particularly in the vast, remote areas of Australia. Our view is that the promotion of the game is best served by as much access to it as possible. Our preference is for the 2005 Ashes series to be on free-to-air TV.’ Though, of course, that specific preference did not materialise.

  This milk is long spilt. The fact is that the move to down
grade cricket to sport’s B list left it open to raids from all avenues of a rapidly changing pay-TV business. British Telecom are now a force in the sports-rights market, along with other service providers. The BBC remains mute on the subject of televised cricket but continues to commit wholly to the game on radio and the internet.

  Test Match Special may have changed but its ethos remains as driven by that subtle balance between information, picture-painting and entertainment as it did when John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Fred Trueman and Trevor Bailey were the voices of reason, colour and laughter. The modern masters of the medium are Jonathan Agnew, who learnt from these fine men, and Jim Maxwell in Australia, who has long commanded the ear of cricket lovers around the world. Another favourite is Harsha Bogle, the Indian of many talents, whose wings have spread to television. Such skills are given to very few, which is why the language and tone provided by McGilvray and Arlott all those years was so important to the game and its audience.

  Channel 5 was awarded highlights rights and asked me on board. We make a good program that goes out every evening at 7 pm for an hour looking to tell the story of the day through cleverly edited pictures and our appreciation of them. We are proud of the show and delighted by the viewing figures that frequently touch upon a million and, on days of high drama against Australia, have been double that. But they barely scratch the surface. On the final day of the Ashes in 2005, Channel 4 had the official figure of nine million people umbilically attached to a screen somewhere in Britain. Had the network been able to record numbers in offices and public places, that figure might have doubled.

  That golden summer of 2005 changed the lives of many people, not least the English players. It was to change my life, too. I had never done anything more stimulating or fulfilling. I understand that we did not win the heart of every cricket lover, but we won the respect of the vast majority. I miss it to this day.

  CHAPTER 11

  Australia again, and a call from Kerry

  Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer died at 10.40 pm on Monday, 26 December 2005. He achieved more in his 68 years than most other men dare to dream of. With him went a piece of the Australia the world knows best—a deal done hard, on a handshake.

  With days to live, he had delivered what was then the biggest deal in Australian sporting history, as Channel Nine and Foxtel came together to secure the television rights for the Australian Football League. They paid AU$780 million. He died peacefully three days later at his Bellevue Hill mansion in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. His system—his kidneys to be precise—finally gave in.

  I remember his passing vividly. Nine had covered the first day’s play of the 2005 Boxing Day Test without a hitch. At seven o’clock the next morning, my phone rang. It was Steve Crawley, head of sport. He said Kerry had died and that I would pick up on camera straight after the 9 am news bulletin, announce his death for those who did not already know and then host a show about him that would lead into our preview of the day ahead. That woke me up. I started to think about what I might say before falling back on John Woodcock’s advice from eleven years earlier: ‘If you can’t think of a good first paragraph, tell them what happened.’

  I was oddly emotional about a man I barely knew. We had met once, less than a year before.

  A CALL FROM KERRY

  There was once a red phone in the Channel Nine commentary box. It was a direct landline to the producer from the man who owned the network. When it rang, everyone froze. Well, nearly everyone. Richie Benaud simply raised an eyebrow. The stories of this phone are the stuff of a legend that relates sackings, schedule changes, commentary roster intervention, commercial instruction and run-of-the-mill bollockings in equal measure.

  My journey with Channel Nine began early in the Australian summer of 2003–04. I was in Sydney, doing very little for a week after watching England win the Rugby World Cup. I went to see Alan Jones, the popular—if sometimes controversial—radio broadcaster and celebrated speech writer for various prime ministers. Jones gets around. He has also coached in both rugby codes, worked in musical theatre and backed aspiring musicians, artists, and sportsmen and -women. Above all, perhaps, he owns and loves racehorses. Few people have covered such ground.

  Famously, he coached the 1984 Wallabies on their unbeaten tour of the UK and struck up a close friendship with the captain, Andrew Slack. Slack introduced us way back—February 1987—when I was travelling across this vast continent and staying wherever there was a bed and a beer. I had heard of the way Jones inspired many young people with his unique take on motivation and performance. Clearly, he had a brilliant mind and an ability to persuade young talent into justifying itself. I was treading water in county cricket and running out of time to play for England. Slacky thought I should meet Jones. His wife smiled and said: ‘Interesting idea. He’s different. Good luck.’ A date was set.

  A week later I pressed the buzzer of Jones’s urban-cool Newtown apartment. He would not let me up until I had satisfactorily answered the entry-level question: ‘How much do you want it, champion? How much do you want to play for England?’ ‘Er . . . a lot, I guess,’ I feebly answered. He pressed the buzzer and up I went.

  He came to the door with a kind smile and a glass of champagne. A piece from Wagner’s Ring Cycle was pumping through the sound system. He was different all right—thoroughly engaging, with a theory for everything and an answer to most things. I loved his enthusiasm and genuine interest in my career and future. I left after midnight, empowered.

  Intermittently, we stayed in touch. Some fifteen years later I was in his office for coffee. We talked mainly about Jonny Wilkinson and English rugby until he switched tack and said that Slack had told him I was looking to spend more time in Australia. True, I said, but only if there was work in the media somewhere. He suggested I call David Gyngell, the new Nine CEO, about a gig with the channel. I said no chance, either of me calling or of him being interested. Tony Greig had been down the same road on my behalf a year or so earlier but Gyngell had boned the idea almost before Greig had fired off the email. Both Jones and Greig indicated that Benaud was at the end of his hosting days and Nine were unsure about his replacement. Thus, Jones persisted and I resisted. Then he picked up the phone. ‘Put me through to David Gyngell,’ he said to his PA. ‘Christ, man, what are you doing?’ I protested.

  ‘G’day, Gyng . . . Now look, champion, I’ve got Mark Nicholas in my office, the host of Channel 4’s coverage of cricket in the UK. Yes, mate, Mark Nicholas. He’s your man to take over from Richie. No, mate, he’s in my office now . . . Yes, mate. He’s here for a day or two yet. Well, he’d better be . . . Yes, good . . . I’ll tell him. Bye, mate.’

  Down went the phone.

  Jones told me to give it fifteen minutes and then to call Gyngell’s PA immediately, which I did. She was charming and we agreed to a meeting at 10 am the next day at Channel Nine.

  Gyngell was surprisingly enthusiastic about me becoming part of the network. He wondered if I was thinking of moving to Australia full time. I repeated what I had said to Jones—it was a case of the work available. He was eager for me to stay and commentate on the First Test between Australia and India at the Gabba, which caught me completely off guard. He called the producer, Graeme Koos, and told him to set it up. I could sense Koos making a fuss, wondering how the heck he would justify this to his commentary team and the viewers. Gyngell told him to pull his head in, give me a proper go and let him deal with the spin-offs. Then Gyngell said he would pay me a thousand bucks a day.

  I shall never forget the look on the faces of the other commentators when I turned up at the Stamford Plaza Hotel in Brisbane. There was a room set aside for wardrobe fitting and I was told to head there for a blazer and tie. Mark Taylor and Ian Healy greeted me warmly and then asked what brought me to Brisbane. Greig came in full of the joys of late spring and dropped his jaw. Bill Lawry laughed. Benaud and Chappell barely blinked an eye. My guess is that Gyngell rang Benaud for endorsement. Thus Richie
was expecting to see me and had told Chappell en route. Simon O’Donnell, who was hosting the coverage alongside Richie, must have been as surprised as Taylor and Healy but hid it well.

  It rained most of the first day, so there was a lot of awkward hanging around. When I finally picked up the microphone, I did so on the back of an understated throw from Greigy, who said, ‘It’s 1 for 42 here at the Gabba, and to pick up commentary are Richie Benaud and Mark Nicholas.’ And I could hear Australia say, ‘Who?!’

  Michael Slater tells a nice story about sitting in the seat next to Richie for the first time. He was working for Channel 4 at the Lord’s Test against the West Indies in 2000. The first thing every commentator does when he arrives at the ground is look at the commentary roster. In those days, a slot alongside Benaud was the highest seat in the business. Slater sat nervously for seven or eight minutes, unsure of how to go about following the great man’s minimalism. Then Brian Lara under-edged a ball from Darren Gough that shot past leg stump and, instinctively, Slats grabbed the mic to say, ‘Ooh . . . that’s just snuck under Lara’s bat.’ Pause, long pause. ‘There is a word “snuck” in the English language, isn’t there, Richie?’ asked Slats. Longer pause. ‘I can think of one or two ’ucks, Michael,’ said Benaud, ‘but “snuh” isn’t one of them.’