Jonathan Agnew
Jonathan Philip Agnew, MBE, DL is an English cricket broadcaster and a former professional cricketer. Agnew had a successful first-class career as a fast bowler for Leicestershire from 1979 to 1990. He won three Test caps for England, as well as playing three One Day Internationals in the mid-1980s. While still a player, Agnew began a career in cricket journalism and commentary. He has become a leading voice of cricket on radio, as the BBC Radio cricket correspondent and as a commentator on Test Match Special.
About Jonathan Agnew in brief
Jonathan Philip Agnew, MBE, DL is an English cricket broadcaster and a former professional cricketer. Agnew had a successful first-class career as a fast bowler for Leicestershire from 1979 to 1990, returning briefly in 1992. He won three Test caps for England, as well as playing three One Day Internationals in the mid-1980s. While still a player, Agnew began a career in cricket journalism and commentary. He has become a leading voice of cricket on radio, as the BBC Radio cricket correspondent and as a commentator on Test Match Special. His on-air comment, made to fellow commentator Brian Johnston in 1991, provoked giggling fits during a live broadcast and reaction from across England. The incident has been voted “the greatest sporting commentary ever” in a BBC poll. He is nicknamed ‘Aggers’ and ‘Spiro’ – the former after former US Vice-President Spiro Agnew. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and educated at Uppingham School. His father taught him the rudiments of the sport, including an offspin action, as he wanted his son to develop into a bowler like him. His first cousin was Mary Duggan, who was a women’s Test player for England from 1948 to 1963. From the age of 16 he developed his skills as a right-arm fast-arm bowler. He saw Michael Holding take 14 wickets in a Test match at the Oval in 1976, referred to as a ‘fast bowler’ by a former England batsman who had played three Tests for England in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
His paternal grandmother, Lady Mona Ag new, died aged 110 years and 170 days in 2010 and was on the list of the 100 longest-lived British people ever. He has also contributed as a member of Australian broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Grandstand team. Agnew recalls growing up on the family farm and first becoming aware of cricket aged eight or nine. He would go into the garden and practise his bowling for hours, trying to imitate the players he had seen. From eight, Eileen Ryder, a professional cricket coach, arrived at the school and, after a couple of years, he became a professional bowler himself. He left in 1978 with nine O-levels and two A-levels in German and English, and two German-level A-Levels in 1978 and 1979. In 1987 he was named as one of the five Cricketer of the Year by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack in 1988. He was second- and third-leading wicket-taker in 1987 and 1988 respectively, including the achievement of 100 wicket in a season in 1987. In 1988 he played for Surrey County Cricket Club whilst at Gover’s cricket school whilst at Surrey Cricket Club. In the summer of 1976, he saw Michael holding take 14 Test wickets for England against Australia.
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