Christopher Dennis Alexander Martin-Jenkins, MBE (20 January 1945 – 1 January 2013), also known as CMJ, was a British
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
journalist and a President of MCC. He was also the longest serving commentator for '' Test Match Special'' (TMS) on BBC Radio, from 1973 until diagnosed with terminal cancer in January 2012.
Early life
Christopher Martin-Jenkins was born at his grandmother's house in Peterborough, the second of three boys. His father, a
lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
in the army at the time, relocated the family to Glasgow where he was stationed. After demobilisation he returned to his job at the shipping firm Ellerman Lines where he subsequently became chairman. His mother was a radiologist and GP, working in the Gorbals during the war.
School
He went to St Bede's prep school in Eastbourne and then to Marlborough. He first played for the school team in 1962 under the captaincy of future Sussex captain (1968–1972) and chairman of MCC (2012–2013), Mike Griffith. The following year, after becoming captain of the school cricket XI, Martin-Jenkins wrote to
Brian Johnston
Brian Alexander Johnston (24 June 1912 – 5 January 1994), nicknamed Johnners, was a British cricket commentator, author, and television presenter. He was most prominently associated with the BBC during a career which lasted from 1946 until h ...
asking him how to become a cricket commentator. Johnston invited him to Broadcasting House, took him out to lunch and told him to develop his ability and review his performance by practising his commentating skills by using a tape recorder. That year he also scored a valiant 99 in Marlborough's second innings in the annual fixture against Rugby School at
Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...
, but despite this they still lost by 22 runs.
University
He went to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he read Modern History and graduated with an upper second in 1967. During his time at Cambridge he won two half-
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
for Rugby fives but never played for the University cricket first XI, although he narrowly missed out on gaining his blue after he was named 12th man for the 1967 Varsity match at Lord's. Nevertheless, he skippered the Crusaders (the University 2nd XI) during 1966 and 1967 and was also a successful captain of his college XI.
He had a great talent for mimicry, which enabled him to progress to final auditions for the Cambridge University Footlights, where his performance was adjudicated by a panel that included Germaine Greer,
Eric Idle
Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English actor, comedian, musician and writer. Idle was a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python and the parody rock band The Rutles, and is the writer of the music and lyrics for the Broadwa ...
and
Clive James
Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
Sir Paul Getty
Sir Paul Getty (; born Eugene Paul Getty; 7 September 1932 – 17 April 2003), known widely as John Paul Getty Jr., was a British philanthropist and book collector. He was the third of five sons born to J. Paul Getty (1892–1976), one of the ...
XI in ten one-day games at Wormsley between 1992 and 2002, with a valedictory appearance, aged 61, against the Heartaches team run by Tim Rice in 2006.
Media career
Following his graduation in 1967 Martin-Jenkins joined '' The Cricketer'' magazine as deputy editor under
E. W. Swanton
Ernest William Swanton (11 February 1907 – 22 January 2000) was an English journalist and author, chiefly known for being a cricket writer and commentator under his initials, E. W. Swanton. He worked as a sports journalist for ''The Daily T ...
. In March 1970 he left to join the BBC Radio Sports News department and subsequently commentated on his first match, a one-day international between England and
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, in 1972. His last commentary, 40 years later, was for ''TMS'' on England's third Test against Pakistan in Dubai in February 2012.
He joined the ''TMS'' team in 1973 and was appointed cricket correspondent in succession to Brian Johnston in 1973 and worked as cricket correspondent for the BBC (1973–1980, 1985–1991), '' The Daily Telegraph'' (1990–1999) and '' The Times'' (1999–2008).
Mike Atherton
Michael Andrew Atherton (born 23 March 1968) is a broadcaster, journalist and a former England international first-class cricketer. A right-handed opening batsman for Lancashire and England, and occasional leg-break bowler, he achieved the ca ...
replaced him as '' The Times'' Chief Cricket Correspondent on 1 May 2008 although CMJ continued contributing to the ''Times'' cricket pages, filing his last article on the death of Tony Greig on 31 December, the day prior to his own death. He was also a BBC TV commentator for their cricket coverage between 1981 and 1985, before returning to radio.
In ''The Daily Telegraph'', his obituarist wrote of his radio commentary that: "Nobody excelled him... in what he regarded as the first duty: that of giving a precise, clear, well-informed and accurate account of every ball that was bowled and every stroke that was played."Scyld Berry wrote: "What made him so good as a radio commentator, apart from his precise and unforced diction, was that he came closer than anyone to combining the knowledge of an expert with the enthusiasm of a student."
By temperament conciliatory, he was rarely involved in controversy. However, during a Test on England's 1989–90 tour of the West Indies he criticised the umpire Lloyd Barker, claiming that he had allowed himself to be pressurised by the West Indies captain, Viv Richards, into wrongly giving Rob Bailey out caught down the leg side. Barker threatened to sue, believing incorrectly that Martin-Jenkins had called him a cheat. The case was settled by the BBC without going to court.
He was renowned among his broadcasting colleagues for a certain vagueness regarding practical matters. Jonathan Agnew described how on one occasion he arrived at Lord's for a match which unfortunately was due to be played on the other side of London at the Oval. He also struggled with modern technology, once mistaking the television remote control in his hotel room for his mobile phone. When attempting to email a report to his newspaper, he would occasionally press the Delete button rather than the Send button, causing him much consternation.
Author
Martin-Jenkins was the author of ''The Complete Who's Who of Test Cricketers''. Altogether he wrote or edited 25 books including ''The Wisden Book of County Cricket'' (1981); ''Bedside Cricket'' (1981); ''Twenty Years On: Cricket's years of change'' (1984); ''Cricket: a way of life'' (1984); ''Grand Slam'' (1987); ''Cricket Characters'' (1987); ''Sketches of a Season'' (1987); and ''Ball by Ball: The Story of Cricket Broadcasting'' (1990) and finally concluding with his autobiography, ''CMJ – A Cricketing Life''.
He edited ''The Cricketer'' from 1980 and was President of the Cricket Society from 1998 to 2008.
Awards and honours
He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.
He was President of MCC for 2010–11, a rare honour for a journalist. His time in office was a difficult one, as it coincided with the £400 million redevelopment plan for Lord's being dropped in favour of something better suited to the difficult economic situation. This led to an as yet unresolved split in the membership between those in favour of the new plan and those who still support the old one.
In 2007 he was invited to deliver the annual MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture, becoming the only career journalist and broadcaster to do so. As MCC President, in 2011 he invited Kumar Sangakkara to deliver the same lecture, the only actively playing cricketer to have delivered a Cowdrey Lecture.
Personal life
He met Judy Hayman at Cambridge and they married in April 1971. They had two sons, James and Robin, and a daughter, Lucy. Robin Martin-Jenkins played county cricket for
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
before retiring in 2010, while elder brother James played club cricket for Radley Rangers from 1993 to 2006.
Death
During 2009 and 2010 his health seemed to be declining when he had a bad bout of pneumonia, followed by acute hepatitis. He was subsequently diagnosed with terminal cancer in March 2012, shortly after returning from commentating duties in the UAE, and was forced to step down from '' Test Match Special'' due to his illness. He died of lymphoma, at his home in
Horsham
Horsham is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...
, on the morning of 1 January 2013, at the age of 67.''Daily Telegraph'', 17 April 2013, "Six England captains bid farewell to CMJ" by
Derek Pringle
Derek Raymond Pringle (born 18 September 1958) is an English former Test and One Day International cricketer for England, and is now a cricket journalist.
Life and career
Pringle was born in Nairobi, Kenya. His father Donald Pringle, who ha ...
, pp S12-3.
A statement from his family said: "Christopher died peacefully at home this morning after his brave resistance to cancer. The family is extremely proud of all that he did to pass on his love of cricket worldwide with his gift of communicating through the spoken and written word. He was above all a much loved husband, brother, father and grandfather."
A memorial service was held in
St. Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gr ...
on 16 April 2013, attended by 2,000 people including at least six former England captains. The service included readings by his sons, James and Robin, and tributes by Sir Tim Rice and Jonathan Agnew. After the service there was a reception at
Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord's, is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and ...