BBC Radio Kent’s ‘Commentators’ XI’

Monday 4th May 2020

Men’s First Team

BBC Radio Kent’s ‘Commentators’ XI’

Familiar voices and personalities from BBC Radio Kent’s sports commentary team came together to select their ultimate Kent Cricket side from the combined 30 years of John Warnett, Matt Cole & Ben Watts’ coverage of Kent matches.

The full debate is available on demand via BBC Sounds here >>>

  1. Mark Benson  

MC:  Made for top the order – rock solid and a mighty accumulator of runs over a 16-year Kent career.

JW: No one played inside the line as well as ‘Benny’.

BW: Must have been good, kept Warnett’s old schoolmate Neil Taylor out of the team.

  1. Rob Key

BW: 50 first-class centuries as well as that famous double-century for England set him apart. Dead cert for our team.

MC: Stylish performer in all formats and a canny captain to boot, leading the county to the Twenty20 Cup title, and Championship promotion.

JW: What can I say about Rob that he hasn’t already said himself!

  1. David Fulton

JW: A batsman I always enjoyed watching. So stylish.

BW: The summer of 2001 where he scored 1,892 runs at an average of 75.68 will always stick in the memory.

MC: Absolute Rolls Royce of a batsman, had to be good to see off fierce competition for our top three.

  1. Joe Denly

BW: A destructive opener in T20, classy stroke-maker in the longer form. I was in the crowd the day he scored a hundred and took a hat-trick against Surrey at The Oval. Had to be in the team.

JW: I always feel sort of proud when I watch him playing for England.

MC: Batting, fielding and latterly bowling, Joe has it all and just seems to be getting better with age. Which brings us to our next choice…

  1. Darren Stevens

BW: Phenomenal ball-striking and outstanding skill with ball in hand. County batsman have sleepless nights about facing his bowling and I’ll forever remember his remarkable 147 off 67 balls at a sunny Swansea in 2017.

MC: Just when you think ‘Stevo’ has produced the best from an extraordinary bag of tricks, he goes one better. A double hundred at the age of 43? Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised.

JW: Legend.

  1. Geraint Jones (wk)

JW: I will never forget the 2005 Ashes series and watching Geraint behind the stumps for England. “I know him”, I would tell anyone who’d listen.

MC: It took a special keeper to be part of that Ashes victory. Exactly what you want behind the stumps – reliability personified, with the spectacular thrown in almost as a matter of course. Absolute gent to boot.

BW: Got in ahead of some very stiff competition from Steve Marsh, who owned the gloves at   Canterbury for more than 15 years, and current captain Sam Billings. 10,000 runs and more than 700 dismissals in his Kent career.

  1. Mark Ealham

BW: Our all-rounder selection thanks to his 12,000+ runs in all formats for Kent and the 693 wickets he collected in only 438 matches.

MC: The ultimate Swiss army knife cricketer. All together now: “All we need is a team of Mark Ealhams….”

JW: One of the nicest guys ever to pull on a Kent shirt, although he did bowl me a nasty bouncer once!

  1. Matt Fleming

BW: Another all-rounder, yes, but we had to get him in our team. He was a smart captain, a superb fielder, a canny bowler and brilliant batsman.

MC: We just couldn’t leave him out – forced his way into our attack, and more than capable of a lightning half century should we need it.

JW: See Rob Key! Seriously though, what a dresser.

  1. Min Patel

JW: He got me out once. Quicker ball. Went on with the arm. Hit middle stump.

MC: Hard to imagine, but from memory he dismissed even better players than John. Surgically accurate and criminally underused by England. This was the toughest choice to make though, did we really leave out James Tredwell?

BW: An almost impossible call. He tweeted us to say he’d pick himself in a first-class XI and “my man Treddy” in a one-day team. Min’s outstanding haul of 589 first-class wickets saw him get the nod.

  1. Dean Headley

MC: At his best, it’s no exaggeration to say no batsman in the world wanted to face him. His stats for Kent back up how difficult he was to play.

BW: Watching Dean in my formative years, I remember being slightly scared by how fast he bowled. Highly impressive strike rate too.

JW: Injury robbed Kent and England of a great fast bowler before his time.

  1. Martin Saggers

JW: Great action. Quicker than he looked. Decent golfer. Great bloke.

MC: So consistent it’s easy to forget just how good he was – 400 First Class wickets at 25 apiece? Not bad for a boy from Norfolk.

BW: “The people’s pick” – he was in almost every XI supporters sent us – fighting off the likes of Martin McCague and Alan Igglesden to make our team

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