Commentator rattled by smashing shot

The veteran BBC Wales commentator Edward Bevan felt the full force of Peter Trego’s 59-ball century for Somerset against Glamorgan at Taunton on Monday, when one of the batsman’s six sixes smashed through the commentary box window and struck him in the small of the back.

Bevan, who was on air at the time, had just enough time to say: “It’s coming up towards us, is it going to hit us?” before the sound of smashing glass confirmed his fears. There followed several seconds of silence before Bevan’s co-commentator, Steve James, took over the microphone.

It was the third time in his long career that Bevan’s commentary stint had been interrupted in such a manner, but the first time outside of Cardiff. "It hit me on the back and I was quite shaken for a while," he told the BBC, after briefly losing sight of the ball. "There's a bruise there this morning - in fact I couldn't carry on.”

"Steve next to me turned round and the thing came through the window," he added. “As I turned so it wouldn't hit my face or head, it hit me in the small of the back, which wasn't nice. Had I stayed where I was the consequences would have been much worse.”

Trego’s innings proved to be the difference between the teams in the rain-affected match, but that one shot was a personal highlight, as Bevan noted. "Apparently when the ball went through the window, he [Trego] stood down and put his fist through the air as if to say 'I've been trying to do that for years and I've done it at last'!"