Nicholas back on the mic for England Tests
Veteran cricket presenter Mark nicholas will anchor talkSPOrt’s ball-by-ball coverage of england’s winter tours to Sri Lanka and West Indies.
nicholas, 60, is available to work for talkSPOrt because his usual winter employees Channel 9 in australia have lost their test rights to Fox.
Former Hampshire captain nicholas has recently combined his test highlights pundit role with Channel 5 in england with his australian commitments as the face of Channel 9 cricket.
His appointment — although nicholas has still to sign the contract — gives talkSPOrt immediate authority when the network is faced with replacing BBC’s tried-and-trusted Test Match
Special. and it demonstrates that talkSPOrt are intent on playing safe with their rights rather than selecting a fresh cricket host who might alienate traditional listeners to TMS.
nicholas, who was part of the 2004 talkSPOrt team for their coverage of england’s winning series in West Indies, is expected to have former test stars Darren Gough, Steve Harmison and Matt Prior alongside him over the two tours.
IT’S not a good sign for Sky cricketer presenter Ian Ward (right) when even his own colleagues follow up Sports Agenda in referencing on air him being so pally with the England players. Sir Ian Botham said he was the only non-player invited to the players’ golf day last Monday, and Michael Atherton called him ‘a friend of the stars’.
THE MCC may have made the biggest blunder in the club’s history when they allowed property developer Charles rifkind to outbid them at auction in 1999 for the 999-year lease of the railway tunnels under the nursery end. But in contrast the £1.8million spent on the Lord’s drainage system three years later was money so well spent that it paid for itself on one day last Friday in allowing enough play to save £2m worth of refunded tickets.
THE RFU have an £80m refurbishment of the East Stand at Twickenham — currently £30m over budget — riding on attracting all the England international corporate hospitality trade inside the stadium to their new facilities. So it looks like a serious problem if a report from the chief financial officer Sue Day to the last board meeting mentions the RFU’s ‘disappointment’ at clubs still selling tickets to rival unofficial hospitality providers.