Poor Aggers in a spin

WITH a tender battle going on with big-spending talk SPORT for the UK radio rights for the Ashes, it wasn’t the best time for BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew to be trending on Twitter after declaring on air he thought Bangladesh seamer Mustafizur Rahman, one of the emerging stars of world cricket, was a spin bowler.

And with the ECB desperate for BBC to bid for a terrestrial package of T20 matches in their rights portfolio from 2020, it wasn’t much of a show of faith by the BBC in scheduling England’s Champions Trophy highlights in the graveyard slot of 11.20pm last night. IT wasn’t as bad as the infamous opening ceremony at Lord’s for the 1999 World Cup, but Prince Charles — Oval landlord through his Duchy of Cornwall — declaring the tournament open via a recorded video link from Highgrove, when the dates of the event were set over a year ago, was pretty bizarre. An ICC spokeswoman said he had other commitments, but had attended the main pre-competition event at The Kia Oval.

FORMER ECB chairman Giles Clarke, who still has presidential status but fortunately no longer any power in English cricket, is keen to become the next chairman of world ruling body, the ICC. His term of office would include the crowning glory of presenting the 2019 World Cup at Lord’s.

AN anthology of Wisden at The Oval, written by Surrey communications chief Jon Surtees and published by Bloomsbury, includes cricket’s unlikely role in the 1943 Dambusters raids. Former Surrey president George Edwards advised designer Barnes Wallis to include leg-break style spin rotation in his bouncing bombs.