Alan Wilkins, the silver-haired sports broadcaster with a marmalade voice, is an endearing name to sportspersons and sports enthusiasts alike of all age groups, owing to his self-effacing personality, his thorough insight into an array of sports, and an infectious smile that can lift a person up from his/her bleakest mood.
Having spent over four decades on the sports circuit—first as a cricketer and a rugby player, and later as a broadcaster—Wilkins has seen through the sports industry with his opera glasses like only a few have seen, and his long association with sports has garnered him respect from a host of athletes and media moguls, who unanimously claim that he is one of the nicest persons they have ever worked with.
Interestingly, long before going on to become the face of ESPN Star Sports in the subcontinent, Wilkins was a regular for Glamorgan/Gloucestershire as a left-arm medium pacer in the mid-seventies and early eighties. A debilitating shoulder injury brought an abrupt end to his blossoming cricketing career in 1983 and forced him to consider an alternative career in broadcasting. It was a ‘blessing in disguise’ in many ways, for his articulateness and easy-going nature was always tailor-made for Radio/Television, and it didn’t take him long to carve out his own niche and become a massive hit among the spectators.
Naturally, having traversed such an eventful life with so many highs and lows lurking around at every turn, Wilkins has had an engaging story to narrate—a story which deals with ‘’A Life in Sport’’; one which is ‘’Easier Said Than Done’’. Yes, that’s the title of his autobiography.
In the presence of chief guest Sourav Ganguly and some highly-esteemed cricketers of yesteryears, namely VVS Laxman, Tom Moody and Michael Slater, the sixty-four-year-old Welshman unveiled his autobiography in front of some fifty odd people in the banquet hall of The Park Hotel, Kolkata on Thursday evening. Emcee Gautam Bhimani elicited laughter from the audience throughout the event, thanks to some harmless but fabricated stories regarding the author’s transition over the years and some pictures from the book that were up on the big screen—one of which showed a young Alan sporting a Bob Taylor-like moustache back during his Glamorgan days. Ganguly, who has had the opportunity of sharing the commentary box with Wilkins in the past, duly joined in to pull the latter’s leg by quipping, ‘’I think he looked more like Robin Smith back in those days’’, and the entire hall burst out with laughter.
This spirit of jovial celebration was sustained throughout the program as the author surged back and forth in time to recollect his ‘halcyon days’ as a cricketer, one of whose biggest takeaways was an image of Sir Vivian Richards (who was at that time playing for Somerset) standing perplexed at the crease as his off stump was ripped up by one of Wilkins’s outswinging deliveries in a Benson and Hedges Cup match in Cardiff, April 1978. Wilkins also revealed a deep passion for golf and reminisced about his experience of playing golf with ‘’two of [his] all-time cricketing idols: Sir Gary Sobers and Sir Vivian Richards, at the superb Apes Hill Golf Resort in Barbados, May 2010….’’ [‘’Easier Said Than Done: A Life in Sport’’, Alan Wilkins; published in India by Roli Books, 2018], as he writes in the book.
Besides hosting and commentating on cricket for a long time on TV, Wilkins has also presented the Wimbledon since 1996, and his partnership with former Indian tennis star Vijay Amritraj as part of ESPN Star Sports’ coverage team for the grand tennis event, is one which has achieved a cult status. An ardent tennis fan himself, Ganguly, got nostalgic recollecting how he would look forward to hearing the Amritraj-Wilkins duo discuss their views on Wimbledon tennis, and said Wilkins was one of the primary reasons why he took such keen interest in tennis as a youngster.
One incident which left an indelible mark on Wilkins’s broadcasting career, and which still gives him the shivers, relates to the coverage of the 2002 US Open—a year after the 9/11 attacks. Remembering how the disaster had shaken the morale of an entire nation, Wilkins said, “The flag of the World Trade Centre was torn, tattered and burnt. They unfurled the flag on the court and let off doves. I still don’t know how the two finalists at Flushing Meadows that year—the two American tennis legends, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi—battled their way through the match. It was certainly the most emotional moment of my commentating career.”
Australians Michael Slater and Tom Moody, too, eulogised Wilkins’s illustrious career and his charming disposition, saying they learnt a lot from him about the subtle nuances of commentary. While Moody spoke highly of Alan Wilkins, the person and called him ‘’a great educator’’, Slater said that it is his great communication skills with players which have been the hallmark of his successful career.
VVS Laxman, who has also commentated alongside Wilkins in the past, added, ‘’Alan is fun to work with. He is always willing to help others and only a good-natured person can share his knowledge.”
The event ended on a cheerful note with the author displaying his latent talent for mimicry, as his humorous impersonation of former West Indies captain Darren Sammy’s way of speaking made the audience fall out of their seats with laughter.