The team of pundits who cover the myriad cricket matches on Sky are, for want of a better word, legendary. Ian “Beefy” Botham, David “Bumble” Lloyd, Nasser Hussain; all are household names, and all of them need Benedict Bermange. He is their historian, scorer, and guardian angel, and last week I got the chance to talk to him about life in and beyond the box.
Freddie Nathan: Let’s talk about beginnings. How did you get into cricket statistics? Did anyone inspire you, or did you have dreams to become the next England captain yourself?
Benedict Bermange: Back in 1984 my dad took me as a nine-year-old to Lord’s to see – in his words – ‘England beat the West Indies’. It didn’t happen of course as Gordon Greenidge scored the only match-winning fourth-innings double century in Test history. But I guess I was hooked. He used to go regularly back in the 1950s and he taught me how to score. I still have my original scorebook in which I kept the record of those early games. Perhaps I was my own worst enemy as I was picked as 12th man / scorer for my first three school cricket matches on the back of my ability to score.
I was never a world-beating player myself but managed to captain my college at Durham as well as my club side for a few years. I bowled military medium using the old adage ‘if they miss, I hit’ and I scored more than 1500 runs and took more that 100 wickets for my club first XI. However, with Test Matches generally taking place over weekends my playing career has somewhat stalled of late.
FN: How did you get the job at Sky, and by proxy, getting the privilege to intermingle with cricket luminaries as your day job? Was broadcasting something you always wanted to pursue?
BB: I started my working career as an accountant and then moved into Marketing, then helped set up a company in Bristol before returning to running finance projects and then onto SKY, so it has been a bit of a mixed bag really. However my career at SKY can be traced to a newspaper article in ‘The ‘Daily Telegraph’ back in 1987. Some cricket ratings had been launched and I was interested in cricket and interested in statistics and so I wrote off for more information. So began a correspondence with one of the inventors of the system which subsequently enabled me to spend my week’s work experience from school working for Ted Dexter – then Chairman of England’s cricket selectors. That was a definite step up from most of my friends who seemed to make a beeline for their father’s accountancy or solicitors firm!
I carried on working on various Ratings-related projects, including setting up the first Coopers & Lybrand (as they were then known) website while I was a student at Durham and then they offered me a job as an accountant once I had graduated. In early 1999 I received a phone call to ask whether I would be able to help out with the broadcast of the Cricket World Cup that year to be held in England. That involved sitting in the commentary box and scoring the game on a computer which fed all the graphics which appeared on screen. I was obviously reasonably adept at this as it led to trips to Pakistan, Bangladesh (three times!), the Netherlands, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
During this time I began to get to know some of the SKY staff and when they won the contract to televise all the home cricket from 2006 onwards I was asked to join them as a statistician. And that is where we are now!
FN: In terms of what you do, do you update the on screen scorecard on Sky and provide the commentators with nuggets of information?
BB: The on-screen scorecard is fed from the chap who normally sits next to me who works for Alston Elliot – the graphics company. During the match we work as a team. Depending on the layout of the commentary box there may be certain areas of the field I can’t see or he can’t see. And I’ve got the better binoculars!
During the match I feed the commentators various snippets of information. I like to think that there are two types. The first is something that backs up what they might have been discussing numerically. For instance, they may be discussing that spinners do better in the fourth innings of Tests at The Oval than in the first three. As soon as they mention it I will get my head down and try to find out the figures and – with a bit of luck – they agree with the commentators. The other kind of information is to volunteer something that they could perhaps explain. For instance, the last twenty captains at a certain venue may have chosen to bat first. They would be able to use their cricketing knowledge to explain why that is the case. A great deal of the work is preparation so that I have on hand what each player has done recently so the commentators can immediately refer to it.
FN: You consult statistics and records amazingly quickly when I’m watching. Do you have to be on your toes constantly and never switch off? Also, in this age of computerisation, do you have your stats at your fingertips, or numerous copies of Wisden?!
BB: Certainly in this job my breaks are governed by the breaks in play. And I cannot miss a delivery as I am scoring the game the old-fashioned way on paper the entire time. By doing this manually it is easier for me to scan back and offer things up like “no boundaries in the last eight overs” rather than having to scroll up a computer screen. Questions can be fired at me at any time from any direction. Not just the commentators, but the Producer, Director, presenter and floor manager who will be co-ordinating the interviews and may require some additional information.
I like to think that I keep most of my stats in my head. I do have Wisden with me for matches in the UK along with Playfair and Who’s Who. But for overseas tours, baggage allowances are always a concern and I leave those at home. I do always have a copy of “Tom Smith’s Umpiring and Scoring” which is an invaluable source of the laws and commentary on them and gets regular use.
I do use two different databases on my computer. One runs on MS Access and the other has been around for the best part of twenty years and was originally run in DOS. Cricinfo’s Statsguru is also very useful. Of course, plenty of time is spent between matches ensuring these are all up-to-date. It’s just a case of knowing where to look for a particular query.
Sometimes it is just trying to be creative. How & Bell opened for New Zealand and only had seven letter in their combined surnames. This happened to equal the Test record. Some commentators love that kind of thing – Beefy just shakes his head!
FN: Do you get recognised? Is it strange being a cult figure, if only by name, as Nasser or Bumble references you on air?
BB: I am able to maintain a slight air of mystery, but I guess my name is fairly memorable. I have only been recognised outside a cricket ground twice and on both occasions in obscure places. The first was at Mount Cook, New Zealand and the other time was in Bangkok a couple of months ago. I think the original idea was that the commentators give the impression that they know all the things I come up with, but soon they started giving me more credit and now plenty of people email in with queries specifically for me. Of course, I have to ensure that I am correct as cricket statisticians are the kind of people who will delight in emailing in with any corrections. I am at the mercy of the commentators correctly interpreting what I tell them of course!
FN: One of the privileges of your job has been travelling all over the world with Sky doing your job. What’s the travelling like and how do you spend your relaxation time between matches or between days?
BB: I have been very fortunate. Before joining SKY fulltime in 2006 I had worked on two World Cups and also visited Pakistan and Bangladesh. Since 2006 I have been to India, the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia. It is an old saying that everyone moans about their job, but in general I don’t. Mind you, if I did, I wouldn’t get much sympathy.
Tours vary greatly. The Ashes was great as I was able to spend ten days in each of the five venues rather than flying in, working on a game and immediately flying out, as was the case back in 2003 when I had 18 flights in five weeks during the World Cup – most of them early morning flights. Mind you, there are worse ways to earn a living!
With each tour comes a different group of people. Some have been to these places before, but I try to treat any “off day” between matches as a chance to sight-see. Whether it is a flight to Kaieteur Falls in Guyana, a 5-hour train ride from Jaipur to the Taj Mahal, an all-day trip to the Zulu war battlefields in Natal or even a tour of the ‘Neighbours’ studio and Ramsay Street in Melbourne, I try to make the most of each place I visit. Obviously there is work to do between matches, but I try to sample some of the local culture and – occasionally – some of the commentators can be persuaded too! Michael Holding came wine-tasting in the Barossa Valley and Nasser and Bumble both accompanied me for a few days in Franschhoek last winter.
FN: What’s the atmosphere like in the studio and amongst the Sky team? Is Bumble always Bumble, who else is funny and who do you get along with the best?
BB: The crew are a fantastic lot. SKY is very fortunate in that they have incredibly talented Directors, Producers and everyone else who works on the crew puts in a superb effort to ensure that what the public watch at home is as high quality as we can possibly make it. It is still a tad surreal when my mobile rings and it might be Beefy, Nass, Bumble or Athers wanting something, but ultimately they are work colleagues and they ring me the same way that other people would ring their work colleagues.
Obviously a number of our commentators have known each other for a very long time. I think Beefy and David Gower first played together in the early 1970s so they have a great deal of history between them. The same goes for Nass and Athers – they played for England age-group teams long before they captained the senior team. It was incredibly daunting walking into the commentary box full of these legends and I had played significantly fewer Tests than all of them. It is a tough environment as there is plenty of teasing, but I have been welcomed with open arms. They seem to like me and respect me for the work I do for the production.
The hours are long – we are normally there at least two hours before the start of play and often up to an hour after play finishes, so you really need to get on as the commentary box is a pretty crowded place at the best of times!
FN: You must surely interact with players, perhaps to get opinions and figures, or maybe just by dint of being on a plane or in a hotel with them. Which current player is the best company or the most helpful?
BB: Generally, hotel-wise they try to keep the players and media apart. I am not really sure why, but that seems to be the way they do it. However, in Australia, we were all in the same hotel for three of the Tests. I know Andrew Strauss from my university days – he was in the year below me in my college at Durham so I normally have a chat with him.
Most of them seem to keep themselves to themselves a lot of the time, but Jonathan Trott shares my love of American Football and we had a number of conversations in Australia about the respective trials and tribulations of the Bills (my lot) and the 49ers (his lot). His wife works for Warwickshire at Edgbaston as their Media Manager and so she had told him of my love for the oval ball.
FN: Do you agree with the sentiment that county cricket is on the slide, with dwindling attendances, less coverage and the rise and fall of 20-20 and the 4 day game respectively?
BB: The county game is certainly in an interesting place right now. I think that most county players would agree that there is too much Twenty20 cricket now. It isn’t necessarily the number of matches, but the reduction from three groups to two. Last year, Hampshire had a day/night game at Southampton on a Friday followed the next day by a day game at Taunton – not the ideal preparation. I think Essex had some similarly tortuous journeys.
When I was first taken to Lord’s all the England players would turn out for their counties. Gatting, Emburey, Edmonds and Cowans would play for Middlesex, but nowadays the elite players are wrapped up in cotton wool and hardly ever play for their counties. That is a shame for the viewing public that may not live close to an international ground and for whom travelling to such a game might be prohibitive in terms of logistics and cost.
Do spectators really want eight home Twenty matches? Three counties who would probably say ‘yes’ would be Essex, Somerset and Sussex – three successful counties with relatively small grounds close to the town centre. But can Warwickshire fill Edgbaston eight times over the course of a few weeks? Unlikely.
There is no doubt that some kind restructuring may well be needed. This year’s season starts on 2 April – weather permitting – with the championship starting a week later. Last year there was a good stretch of weather in April which helped the championship get off to a flying start. WE can but hope that is repeated this year otherwise it could be a very damp squib! But – people may well point to the successes of the England team recently and say that we must be doing something right!
FN: What was it like being there for the Ashes drubbing last winter? Was it the highlight of your career to date?
BB: I think the recent Ashes will certainly have an “I was there” impact on me in a few years time. Truth be told though, not a huge amount of cricket was particularly close-fought and memorable. England played well and Australia were pretty awful for long stretches. The first couple of days at Brisbane were close – a hat-trick on the first day of an Ashes series is pretty special! And the Perth Test provided some proper ‘Test’ cricket – although we did lose that heavily! The three innings wins while being excellent achievements weren’t particularly close.
In terms of highlights from the tour, the first day of the Brisbane Test was special and turning up on Day one at Melbourne along with 84,345 people was an incredible feeling. It was more than twice the number of people who I had ever experienced at a cricket match anywhere in the world first-hand.
In terms of my career, aspects of the 2009 Ashes series stick in my mind and it will be hard to better the final day at Cardiff. A full house and England scrambling to survive. Plus the joy of the ground being in the centre of town and the whole excitement of it being SKY’s first home Ashes Test. That more than compensated for the minute commentary box!
FN: Finally, fresh from the Ashes victory, but also the defeat in the one-dayers, what is your prediction and assessment of the England team in anticipation of the World Cup going on at the moment? Is Pietersen the right choice to open the batting?
BB: I think Pietersen has almost got the job by default. We have tried all manner of players over the past few years – Bopara, Denly, Cook, Bell, Davies, Prior, Kieswetter, Wright – and none have really impressed. So – I suppose that if Pietersen is our ‘best’ batsman, why not give him a potential fifty overs to bat?
One Day cricket is more difficult to predict. With a Test series, generally the better team wins over the course of the series (with perhaps the sole exception being England’s 2009 tour of the Caribbean) but with ODI cricket surprises can – and do – crop up.
Given the format of the tournament, we should have no problems qualifying for the knock-out stage. Once there, you only need to win three games and you are the champions. It could all come down to the toss of a coin, a dropped catch or something quirky happening that makes all the difference.
FN: Benedict Bermange, thank you very much for talking to Vision.