BUMBLE’S WHIMSY WAS SORELY MISSED DURING LORD’S LULL

IT WAS, everyone agreed, an excellent Test. Joe Root in imperious second-innings nick, James Anderson and Stuart Broad back where they belong, a promising debut for Matt Potts — and an impressive start for Ben Stokes as captain. Yet to those of us watching from home there was one thing missing. David Lloyd. Bumble. He was at Lord’s, but not on the airwaves. He was present, but not heard; and English cricket was much the poorer for it. This is the first summer we will spend without him in Sky’s commentary box, and he was sorely missed. On Friday, in particular, when the match was becalmed and New Zealand set about building a middle-order partnership, the coverage was crying out for moments of fanciful distraction, for tickles of light relief, for the mischief and whimsy that Bumble would bring. Instead, Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell built their score. And built their score. And built their score again. One for the purists, as the saying goes. And that is why Bumble is such a loss. Sessions like that were where he came into his own. Bumble could deliver for the purists. He was as pure about cricket as they come, the enemy of slow over rates and constant water breaks and the pitch invasion of support staff that now takes place at every interval in play.

Yet, on the second session of day two, as a Test passed slowly as often Tests do, he was the man to transport the viewer to a village green in Oswaldtwistle, or to the north London pub he visited the night before. He could alight on an errant beer snake, or an eccentric corner of the crowd, and talk as if sitting in the next seat. Test cricket isn’t always fun. Yet Bumble ensured it was rarely dull, even when the play itself had gone to sleep. Sky still have brilliant broadcasters. Nasser Hussain, Mike Atherton and Kevin Pietersen

are men you could listen to all day, talking cricket. But a Test broadcast lasts from 10am to 7pm. That’s a lot of cricket talk. Which is why the game’s greatest broadcasters are those that allow you to leave the arena, have a stroll around the surrounding streets or the outfield, bump into a character or two. That was Bumble. An expert when the occasion demanded, who also knew when to divert to a tale of Freelance Fred, trying to locate knockoff Louis Vuitton handbags in Dubai, or Paul from his local, who tried to ram-raid a window display of video recorders in a Reliant Robin, and once got toothache in the only tooth he had. Like all of the truly gifted broadcasters, Bumble (right) brought the best out of his colleagues, too. It isn’t that Nasser or Athers are dry. They’re not. But Bumble’s occasional flights of fancy were the route into their lighter side. In Durban, when the host broadcaster became fixated on a woman in a bikini grappling with a large takeaway sausage, it is Atherton who points out that Lloyd appears to have lost his thread. He could do that, because he knew Lloyd would play along. And he did, before they both descended into childish giggles. Look, it’s a long day in the field sometimes. Every other network is trying to recreate what Bumble did, as not every Test is like this one. Some are just a lot of hard yakka, as the Australians have it. Bumble was brilliant at disguising that. So much can be forced. Camaraderie and banter charmlessly overplayed or knowingly staged for social media. Bumble’s fun never was. He was the same bloke off-air, that lovely mixture of expertise and whimsy, knowledge and fun. Sky won’t have him back, as they are moving on. Yet through all the tributes to the departed Shane Warne during this Test, to only fleetingly mention a first summer without Bumble seemed incongruous. Warne was the finest cricketer ever, and a stand named in his honour at Lord’s would not be out of place; but it is Bumble’s name that should grace the commentary box. That is where his genius resided, and where he will be most sorely missed.