Posted by If you’ve just arrived at work and you were planning on listening to the cricket, you could do a lot worse than listen to Test Match Sofa.
It’s not too difficult to explain what it is. Imagine Test Match Special broadcast from someone’s house and with absolutely no pretence of impartiality. “Mark Boucher’s gone. Piss off. Get back to the pavilion.”
It’s not just jingoistic cheering though. They get rightly carried away when there’s a wicket, but they know their stuff and the whole commentary’s full of the conversational tangents which are so much a part of watching cricket.
Even bad light’s enjoyable. “Cricket is the worst game. What sport develops into a position of supreme interest where the players then say ‘let’s go off’?”
When it was pointed out that cricket being ‘the worst game’ was somewhat off-message, that stance became: “Cricket is a wonderful game. I’m so enjoying this bad light.”
They should be on-air now and it’s totally free.
this is nice but not upto mst3k standards… or beavis and butthead standards for that matter.
It’s very lovely, but it would be improved immesurably if it were combined with TM Special, for example by having Christopher Martin Jenkins as the co-commentator.
I listened for a while today and thought it was far better than Test Match Special, especially now that the summarisers are Michael Vaughan, Duncan Fletcher and Geoff Boycott – what a depressing listen they’ve turned out to be.
It seems that Test Match Sofa has connections with my old school, which is a bit of a coincidence. Presumably I could get a job commentating on the sofa just on the back of that connection – I’m sure that is how such schools are supposed to work but I was always too much of a pleb to take advantage in the old days.
Whose was the female voice I heard? One of the KC regulars I’d warrant. I’m sure I heard Jrod and Sarah’s names taken in vain, as well as KC.
Test Match Special has a pretence of impartiality?
The socialist tendency needs a counterweight. Boycs would work well on that sofa.
Sarah was there today, as was the jrod.
Been meaning to listen to this. Keep forgetting. Tomorrow for sure!
BTW, that’s a mangled quote from the old Sheffield Shield T-Shirt from 1986 that said ‘Queensland – Next year for sure!’
Sort of stopped being fun when Queensland got better.
Our name was taken in vain? What did they say?
We were at our other job and not allowed to listen today.
We said lovely things about you, KC, don’t fret. We were discussing the fact that Rob Key is loved by people outside of Kent and oddly enough it made us think of you. This developed into a general hurrahing of your site and particularly the Greatest Post Of All Time.
Incidentally, I’m not referring to myself in the plural as I realise I’m not important enough to do that – I meant both JRod and me.
Ps @Ged – the very RP female voice wasn’t me. That was Sophie, one of the regulars. I don’t sound that posh.