Aggers: The true voice of English cricket

English cricket is in the news for all the wrong reasons thanks to the fall-out of the Stanford deal with the ECB involving a not-so-funny US$100 million. What the country needs in these difficult times is a sane voice; somebody with a sense of the game's history as well as its present; a sense of doing the right thing, as opposed to what may be commercially expedient; a sense of decency. Jonathan Agnew, the cricket correspondent of the BBC, is that person, writes Michael Henderson in the Guardian.

Listening to Agnew last week, as the Stanford story broke, was to hear a master broadcaster at work, capable of providing a full commentary on events in the middle while pushing Clarke, his studio guest, for answers. Not pushing too hard. That would have gone against the spirit of the programme. But pushing hard enough to leave listeners in no doubt that Clarke was squirming. It made for compelling radio.