Groundhoppers become channel hoppers

 Posted by Tony Hutton

Groundhopping is a generic term usually applied to football supporters who collect grounds, often of the non-league variety,  with all sorts of eccentric rituals involved in this often addictive hobby. The same can be said of certain cricket followers, of which I was one in what now seems a previous existence. However they do still exist with probably the supreme example Michael Latham, who still tours the entire North of England from both his home base in Lancashire and his caravan in Northumberland in search of more and more cricket grounds. The results can be seen with his wonderful photos which appear at regular intervals on the Cricket grounds of Britain site on Facebook.

Sedbergh School, Cumbria - top of any cricket groundhopper's list.

However recent events have no doubt limited the opportunities to explore further afield for many of us, but fortunately the advent of live streaming of county cricket on the internet has provided many people with an opportunity of watching cricket from the comfort of their own homes. Most counties seem to have taken up this format with varying degrees of success, but suffice to say that the opportunity to channel hop between counties during the Bob Willis Trophy has been a godsend for many.

The coverage does vary considerably with the few fixed cameras not covering the entire field in some cases, but things do seem to have improved as the season went on. The commentators, mainly recruited from BBC local radio stations are not always to everyone's liking, particularly the fact that they are doing a radio commentary rather than a television commentary. In addition many of them do not seem to have access to the streaming coverage and certain things which are obvious to the viewer pass them by. The most obvious case was in a match at Taunton where the opening bat was clearly clean bowled but the ball ended up with first slip. Both commentators were convinced for some time that he was caught at slip.

However, these are minor complaints and hopefully if the blanket coverage continues in the future the standard will continue to improve. The enjoyment of being able to switch from Taunton to Worcester to Radlett and back again was something very special. The end of season final between Essex and Somerset at Lord's which has just finished was a classic example of what can be achieved. Full marks to the BBC for showing the entire game on their sports website and to the small group of commentators and summarisers who kept things going admirably despite difficult conditions, with no access to the media centre.

If Jonathan Agnew is the voice of Test cricket on the BBC then surely Kevin Howells is the voice of county cricket. His commentary, together with Vic Marks as summariser, was a classic of it's kind and took one back to the great days of Test Match Special as it once used to be. I remember well being interviewed on Radio Leeds by Kevin Howells some twenty five years ago, in his early days on local radio. He was still learning about cricket at that time, but has come a very long way since then. His admirable commentary style and obvious deep feelings of the importance of championship cricket have been acquired over a long period of time and does him great credit.

All in all, despite the ongoing problems of ordinary life, we have been blessed by cricket with a difference when at one stage it looked as if there would be nothing at all. We have been able to watch live a variety of league cricket, womens' cricket and evening league cricket and as the season draws to a close we must be full of hope that 2021 may somehow restore normality to our much changed world.