The death of Christopher Martin-Jenkins has deprived cricket of one of its brightest media stars of recent years.
Having started his broadcasting career in the almost forgotten days when the likes of Peter West, Jim Laker, John Arlott and Brian Johnstone adorned the commentary box, Martin-Jenkins served through a time of horrible change in our once great national summer game. Sadly, he could do little as the county championship was reduced to an almost empty shell and he was also obliged to sit by as the standard of radio commetary declined to the level of banal chit-chat between a bunch of former players whose abilities as reporters were questionable to say the least.
This said, Christopher Martin-Jenkins himself always maintained a highly knowledgeable and professional approach to his role, perhaps because cricket was a game he loved without ever having been quite good enough to play at the highest level. Others sitting alongside him tended towards the arrogance of those who had played at that level and knew all there was to know, rarely a recipe for success.
Martin-Jenkins will be missed very much by those true cricket lovers who prefer to hear about the match in progress rather than what the commentators had for breakfast or where they ate the night before. A sad loss indeed.
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