The children who grew up when Christopher Martin-Jenkins began to commentate on cricket (both in print and on the air) have got old. CMJ’s 40-odd year career has been brought to a premature end by cancer; and the cricket writing world has paid tribute to its companion. The pieces by Mike Selvey, Jonathan Agnew and Michael Atherton are very touching, and very, very funny.
CMJ’s innate unpunctuality and disorganisation conspired to make episodes of glorious farce. He arrived at Lords to commentate on a Test Match that was being played at the Oval. He stopped a car journey to make an urgent phone call, only to discover that he had mistaken the TV remote control in his hotel room for his mobile phone. He sped across Barbados in a Mini Moke scattering a set of hired golf clubs in his wake.
His chaotic progress through life might surprise those who read his ordered prose in numerous books and the pages of the Times, the Telegraph and the Cricketer, and those who listened to his precise broadcasts for Test Match Special; a role in which, I think, he will be unsurpassed because accurate spoken English is a rare gift.
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