Botham and Gower exits show world is changing
The reactions to the fortunes of senior pundits have been split along tribal lines, writes Alan Tyers
Three England cricket greats have been in the news over the last few days: Sir Ian Botham and David Gower for their departure from Sky Sports; Sir Geoffrey Boycott for his knighthood. Reaction to both of these stories has, as so much in Britain today, broken down along tribal lines.
Some people think that Sir Geoffrey’s gong is fitting reward for a lifetime of pre-eminence as a cricket commentator and player. Others feel that a conviction in a French court for domestic violence means that he should not have been knighted. Some people think that Gower and Botham have passed their sell-by date and that a new era of cricket needs younger, fresher faces on its screens;
others feel that their phasing-out by Sky is another instance of an unnecessary quest for diversity and needless change for change’s sake.
The retirements and the knighthood alike all touch on the inescapable issues of the day – privilege; who gets to eat the cake; can you separate the art from the artist? Who or what is an expert?
The gap left by Gower and Botham will be plugged by existing Sky men Ian Ward and Rob Key. By most reasonable measures, Ward and Key are better sports broadcasters in 2019 than Gower and Botham, but has Ward ever singlehandedly won an Ashes Test? Has Key buzzed a cricket outfield in a Tiger Moth? No, and (presumably) no. Should a sporting legend like Botham be held to the same standards as a mortal pundit? Should only people who have reached the pinnacle of men’s cricket be allowed to talk about men’s cricket on the telly?
Unfairly for the individuals, some have framed the debate as being a replacement of these two cricketing heroes by Isa Guha, the former England player who had become the first woman to commentate on Sky’s men’s matches. If Sky does want to offer Guha an increased role in the train of the departures, as has been floated, they apparently face competition from the BBC, which is keen to make her the frontwoman of its coverage of The Hundred.
Gower, in an interview with Telegraph Sport, noted: “I have had it explained that there are evolutionary trends in broadcasting and we’ve seen the change towards more diversity. Which is rampant at the moment, and will continue.
“Lots of things are changing very rapidly and evolving, which are beyond the control of people like me.”
People like David Gower OBE, 62 and well-off, feeling that things are changing very rapidly and moving beyond their control explains a lot about where British public life and politics are today.
His final weekend on Sky found him characteristically assured in the main, and uncharacteristically making a gaffe when he was picked up swearing by a microphone that, one can only assume, he did not realise was live.
Then again, Sir Beefy dressed down for his Sunday broadcasting with a pair of shorts, espadrilles and a patterned loose shirt over a tee. Both men gave off the air of the cool kids in the upper sixth after their final A-levels.
There was another sports broadcasting retirement this weekend, when Radio Five’s Garry Richardson hung up the mic after 20 years on
Sports Report, a career of measured and grown-up journalistic excellence.
The two cricketing knights, and Lord Gower, have had very different media careers, where it is not so much what you say but who you are, or what you have been.
Cricket’s decline in relevance means that there will never be former players with anything like the cultural, householdname heft of Botham, Gower or Boycott, figures we have loved and despaired at, heroes and sometimes villains.
As with all larger-thanlife touchstones, our impassioned reactions to news stories about them are axiomatic about how we feel about so much and, in an age of unreason, these reactions brook no debate.
Ultimately, the only conclusion we can reach is that the pensioning off of Gower and Botham is an outrageous/overdue admission that sport and the world in which it exists are changing for the worse/better.
Who gets to eat the cake? Can you separate art from the artist?