Jonathan Philip Agnew (born 4 April 1960) is an English cricket broadcaster and a former cricketer. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and educated at Uppingham School. He is nicknamed "Aggers" and, less commonly, "Spiro" – the latter, according to Debrett's Cricketers' Who's Who, after former US Vice-president Spiro Agnew.
Agnew had a first-class career as a fast bowler for Leicestershire from 1979 to 1990, returning briefly in 1992. In first-class cricket he took 666 wickets at an average of 29.25. Agnew won three Test caps for England, as well as playing three One Day Internationals in the mid-1980s, although his entire international career lasted just under a year. In county cricket, Agnew's most successful seasons came toward the end of his career when he had learned to swing the ball. He was second- and third-leading wicket-taker in 1987 and 1988 respectively, including the achievement of 100 wickets in a season in 1987. He was named as one of the five Cricketers of the Year by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1988.
While still a player, Agnew began a career in cricket journalism and commentary. Since his retirement as a player, he has become a leading voice of cricket on radio, as the BBC Radio cricket correspondent and as a commentator on Test Match Special. He has also contributed as a member of Australian broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Grandstand team.
Agnew's on-air "leg over" comment on Test Match Special, made to fellow commentator Brian Johnston in 1991, provoked giggling fits during a live broadcast and widespread reaction. The incident has been voted "the greatest sporting commentary ever" in a BBC poll.
Agnew has been called "a master broadcaster ... the pick of the sports correspondents at the BBC."
Agnew was born on 4 April 1960 at West Park Hospital in Macclesfield, Cheshire, to Margaret (née McConnell) and Philip Agnew. His parents' forthcoming marriage was announced in The Times in 1957: Philip Agnew was described as "the only son of Mr and Mrs Norris M. Agnew of Dukenfield Hall, Mobberley, Cheshire" and Margaret as "youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs A.F.V. McConnell of Hampton Hall, Worthen, Shropshire". The Agnews had a second son in June 1962 and were recorded as living at "Bainton near Stamford, Lincs"; in April 1966, a daughter, Felicity, was born and was announced as "a sister for Jonathan and Christopher". Agnew's paternal grandmother, Lady Mona Agnew, died aged 110 years and 170 days in 2010 and was on the list of the 100 longest-lived British people ever.
Jonathan Agnew recalls growing up on the family farm and first becoming aware of cricket aged "eight or nine"; his father would carry a radio around and listen to Test Match Special:
"The programme sparked an interest in me, in the same way it has in so many tens of thousands of children down the years, igniting a passion that lasts a lifetime."
Driven by early enjoyment of the media coverage of cricket, Agnew developed a love for playing the game. At the end of days spent watching cricket on television in a blacked-out room with the commentary provided by the radio, Agnew would go into the garden and practise his bowling for hours, trying to imitate the players he had seen. Agnew's father, an amateur cricketer, taught him the rudiments of the sport, including an offspin action, as he wanted his son to develop into a bowler like him. Another family connection to cricket was his first cousin, Mary Duggan, who was a women's Test player for England from 1948 to 1963.
From the age of eight, Agnew boarded at Taverham Hall School near Norwich. His first cricket coach was Eileen Ryder and, according to Agnew, after "a couple of years" a professional arrived at the school: Ken Taylor, a former batsman for Yorkshire who had played three Tests for England in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1971, aged 11, Agnew attended the Gillete Cup Final, and was inspired by Peter Lever, a fast bowler: "I saw a fast bowler running in from the Nursery End. I'd never seen anything like it. I turned to my dad and said: "That's who I want to be." It was Peter Lever. There was something about the way he bowled. The energy, the run-up. It lit a spark under me and, from that moment on, I was Peter Lever. My dad wanted me to be an off-spinner, like him, but there was no chance after I'd seen Peter bowl. I copied his action and he was everywhere in my life as I grew up."
Agnew attended Uppingham School for his secondary education, and left in 1978 with nine O-levels and two A-levels in German and English. From the age of 16 he developed his skills as a right-arm fast bowler out of school hours at Alf Gover's cricket school whilst at Surrey County Cricket Club. That summer, he saw fast bowler Michael Holding take 14 wickets in the 1976 Oval Test match, a performance of pace bowling referred to as "devastating" by cricket writer Norman Preston, which made a lasting impression on Agnew. More than 30 years later he wrote of his bowling during his schooldays:
"For an eighteen-year-old bowler I was unusually fast, and enjoyed terrorising our opponents, be they schoolboys (8 wickets for 2 runs and 7 for 11 stick in the memory) or, better still, the teachers in the annual staff match. This, I gather, used to be a friendly affair until I turned up, and I relished the chance to settle a few scores on behalf of my friends – for whom I was the equivalent of a hired assassin – as well as for myself."
Having played for Surrey under-19s the previous year, he began playing for Surrey's second XI in 1977, but Surrey made no move to sign him as a player. At a home match against Hampshire, the teenage Agnew was the only player to stand up to then Surrey coach and former England player Fred Titmus after the latter racially abused the Guyanese-born Surrey player Lonsdale Skinner, an incident of which Agnew later said: "The consequences hadn’t really dawned on me. But clearly it was a career-ender". Leicestershire County Cricket Club did, however, take note of Agnew's impressive performances in local club cricket and for Uppingham School, for whom he took 37 wickets at a bowling average of 8 in 1977, and signed him while he was still a schoolboy in time for the 1978 season.
On his first-class debut against Lancashire in August 1978, the 18-year-old Agnew bowled to England international David Lloyd, an opening batsman with nine Test caps. Reported in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, Lloyd "was halfway through a forward defensive push when his off stump was despatched halfway towards the Leicestershire wicket-keeper." Agnew took one wicket in each innings of the match, and did not bat; Leicestershire won by an innings.
Agnew won a Whitbread Brewery award at the end of his debut season, an achievement he ascribes to the influence of his county captain, Ray Illingworth: he had taken only six first-class wickets at an average of 35. Illingworth was quoted in The Times as saying that Agnew was "the second fastest bowler" in England in 1978, behind only Bob Willis. The award afforded him the opportunity to spend a winter in Australia developing his skills, alongside fellow winners Mike Gatting, Wayne Larkins and Chris Tavaré, and to be coached by former England fast bowler, Frank Tyson. All four went on to play Test cricket. On that Australia tour, Agnew played his only youth Test, but made headlines when invited to bowl at the touring England team in the nets:
"He struck the captain, Mike Brearley, a nasty blow in the face. It was, Agnew recalls, merely a gentle delivery off two paces that flew off a wet patch; but it did not deter the headline writers. Such early publicity did him no favours, but when a bowler arrives who is young, fast and English, a quiet settling-in period to one of the more difficult apprenticeships in sport is often denied him." – Wisden
Agnew's 1979 season was disrupted by injury. The Editor's Notes of the 1980 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack reported, under the heading "England's Promising Youngsters", that Agnew had strengthened himself over the winter by felling trees. Agnew's own account is that 1979–80 was "the worst winter of his life", although his recollection is that he spent it working as a lorry driver. He did, however, make his List A limited overs debut in 1979, playing just once, against the Sri Lanka touring team – his competitive List A debut followed in 1980, in the Benson & Hedges Cup against Scotland: he bowled just three overs (for five runs) and did not bat.