Prost Columnist Annie Chave writes about her debut

The Editor of County Matters Magazine Annie Chave was recruited by the BBC to be an on air commentator. In her fourth column on Prost International, she writes about her debut on the national stage.

See: Annie Chave joins Prost International

The 2023 county season has begun at last, and the long warm days of championship cricket stretch ahead of us. But the first round, at the beginning of April, saw a weak sun battling bravely with a frosty wind, and only the hardened supporter was up for the four-day challenge; blanket, thermos, woolly hat and coat as their county armour.

Somerset’s first game was at home to Warwickshire, and, as a result of the lingering effect on the outfield of a rain-drenched March, the first day was abandoned. The ground was not just wet, more beach-like with its generous spread of sand attracting the gulls.

It looked unlikely to go ahead at all, but, thanks to the hard work of the ground staff and the open-mindedness of the umpires, who agreed to a 40-yard boundary in front of the Trescothick Pavilion, the game got underway on the second day.

And so my first BBC assignment – to commentate on days three and four of the game – changed to coverage of days two and three of an old-fashioned three-day match.

It’s impossible to count the number of times I’ve paced my well-trodden lawn as I’ve listened to Anthony Gibson describe, in escalating agitation, a Somerset collapse, a nail-biting victory or a perilous draw. It’s part of the summer. No, it IS summer. To join that voice and become the anxiety-provider, well, that was and is unbelievable to me.

The BBC County commentary has echoed through my home for many years, and I’ve always cherished the emotions and delight it brings.

In the changing world, this much-loved service has had to move with the rapidly evolving times. Adaptation has included the employment of a more diverse group of commentators. Thanks to my experience of commentating with Guerilla Cricket, I was lucky enough to be one of the people invited to take on the role of ‘third voice’.

The role, as described to me, would ‘allow the fellow commentators to have a break but also to provide a neutral voice’. I managed the first just by being there, but the second was tricky. It is, I discovered, incredibly hard to change your mindset from ‘we’ to ‘Somerset’.

On my first day I joined Anthony and his well-established dialogue with Warwickshire’s Clive Eakin.

“I’ve never done ball-by-ball”, I say, but then I’m on and, before I know it, it’s my voice that’s heard describing Josh Davey bowling from the River End.

In my head I’m juggling with good-length balls, hook shots, fielders’ names, fielding positions, the weather, the scoreboard, the score, the local knowledge, the key facts in a player’s stats, the comment I heard on the train, the seagull in a box as I passed on the way to the ground, the fact that Brian the Cat is back. It’s trickier than you think to get them all out in a coherent order, and to decide whether or how to fit them in at all.

Warwickshire were ahead for most of the game, but at the start of the final day a 5 o’clock handshake looked likely. But then, starting off 108 behind in their second innings, Somerset fell to 127 for 6, making hard work of building a big enough lead. For a Somerset fan, it was a tense last session (it’s lucky I’m a neutral!).

It was thanks to a mixture of bad light forcing Warwickshire to use slow bowlers only and a mature not-out innings of 66 from an impressive Tom Lammonby, assisted by a belligerent Craig Overton, that the chance of a win was lost. So yes, a handshake ended what was my first ever game ‘on comms’.

And for me? Yes, errors a-plenty, but learning and growing in confidence through the two days. As I joined the hardy, satisfied homeward crowd, I went back over the game in my head, practising commentary, feeling a bit like a batter rehearsing the shot they had wanted to play on the way back to the pavilion with their middle stump knocked back.

In a thoughtful daze I got to the station, where I joined Vic Marks, ex-England and Somerset all-rounder, who had been summarising the game as the newest employee of the Somerset Live Stream.

“It’s a lot easier on Test Match Special”, he says. “They’ve a lot more commentators and summarisers, so you get more time off.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better companion to voice my concerns and discuss the day’s play with. My first experience of braving the BBC bandwagon and of being the mouthpiece for the many listeners to know what it’s like, in the moment, to be at my beloved county ground.

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