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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Sport
Tom Hawking

Pitch perfect: why listening to cricket on radio soothes a world that won’t hear sense

Boys play cricket outside the Galle international cricket stadium in Sri Lanka as the sun sets behind them.
Boys play cricket outside the Galle international cricket stadium in Sri Lanka as the sun sets behind them. Photograph: David Gray/REUTERS

My father was a man of his generation, which meant when summer rolled around and the cricket season started, he insisted on muting Channel Nine’s coverage and blasting the ABC’s radio commentary instead.

Ours was a complicated relationship but one thing for which I’ll be forever grateful was the way my father shared his love for Test cricket with me. I grew up as a cricket obsessive. My love for the game survived childhood, adolescence, and even the realisation that, given I was batting No 11 for South Melbourne under-12s, my dream to open the batting for Australia was unlikely to be fulfilled.

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