Sky Sports Cricket Podcast: How coronavirus pandemic is affecting cricket writing

What does a cricket writer do when there's no cricket?

Mike Atherton invited three fellow scribes of the top order to join him for a Sky Sports Cricket vodcast special to discuss the journalistic challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Happily, Wisden Almanack editor Lawrence Booth, Will Macpherson - who writes for the Evening Standard on cricket and rugby - and independent writer Gideon Haigh accepted and contributed to a fascinating discussion which you can listen to here.

Listen in the player below or by downloading: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

The global ramifications of Covid-19 have forced people to think about how to do things differently and Macpherson said cricket writers are no different.

"First of all, the ECB have been quite helpful - these kind of conversations via Zoom have become fairly normal for journalists with players over the last couple of weeks, which is a strange thing and we couldn't have imagined a while ago," he said.

"I'm secretary of a cricket writers' club; we've about 400 members and we've been communicating with them a lot more closely because there is all sorts of things going on with furloughs and difficulties for freelancers, who make up a huge portion of our membership.

"It is quite a bleak time; there are quite a lot of people out of work or concerned.

"On Sunday there is a huge raft of people who would have started covering the Championship and there is no Championship to cover and therefore there is no payment.

"So it is very difficult. Everyone who reads a newspaper will have noticed that any newspaper with a separate sports section, whether that's on a weekend or a weekday, no longer has that.

Stokes recognised by Wisden

Ben Stokes has unseated Virat Kohli as Wisden's leading cricketer in the world, ending the India captain's three-year reign.

"There are fewer pages dedicated to sport, which all makes total sense; newspapers are trying to save costs and at the same time there is no sport on, which makes up the day-to-day cycle.

"My instinct is that this crisis isn't going to be good news for sports media generally but we've got to make the best of the situation."

On the podcast our panel also discusses:

• The latest edition of Wisden, just released, and how much thinner next year's edition might be
• The democratisation of cricket writing with the advent of blogs, social media and podcasts
• The impact of coronavirus on counties and players, with Gideon providing the Australian perspective
• Book and podcast recommendations for cricket fans looking to enjoy new offerings

Listen to the latest Sky Cricket Podcast in the player above, or by downloading here - you can also listen at this link