On Cricket

Martin Chandler | 8:55am GMT 16 March 2025

Published: 2024
Pages: 206
Author: McDonald, Trevor
Publisher: Renegade Books
Rating: 3.5 stars

I have never met Trevor McDonald, nor have I ever had any contact with him, but he is still a man I feel I know. For years he was a regular visitor to my living room in his role as an ITN newsreader and interviewer, and until he retired around a decade ago he had been a fixture there throughout my adult life.

McDonald was good at what he did, and learning that he had a passion for cricket increased my respect for him. Whilst still at ITN he wrote decent biographies of West Indies captains Clive Lloyd and Vivian Richards. So what has he produced here?

Not what I expected is the answer to that one. Bearing in mind the existence of those two biographies I thought this would be a collection of essays on cricketing subjects, so in the nature of an anthology. Part of the reason for that was that I knew McDonald had already published an autobiography, An Improbable Life, back in 2019.

But, essentially, this one is an autobiography too, albeit one where the story of McDonald’s life is intertwined with the story of West Indian cricket, and he goes back a long way – he was just ten years of age and at school in Trinidad when his local hero Sonny Ramadhin played a major role in West Indies’ stunning victory in England in 1950.

McDonald’s early broadcasting career, with Radio Trinidad, began against the backdrop of the series of the first tied Test in Australia in 1960/61. The story proceeds with McDonald’s career unfolding, and mention of many of the people he met and interviewed, and always there is a West Indies Test series in the background. Notable in particular are Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela, but many more of the most important people of the twentieth century are featured.

That McDonald has a thorough understanding of the game to go with his love of it is something that very quickly becomes apparent. Given his experience in other fields three particular areas I was looking forward to reading his take on were World Series Cricket, the rebel tours of the 1980s and, last but by no means least, West Indies’ current cricketing malaise when compared with the glories of the two decades from 1976.

All three were well worth reading. When it came to World Series Cricket the position of the West Indian players and indeed their Board was very different from the Australians and Englishmen. As to the rebel tours of a few years later they inevitably touched nerves and raised emotions that McDonald was and is perfectly placed to deal with and explain.

And does McDonald have the answer to West Indies’ problems? It was perhaps too much to think he might. He does identify the contributory factors, and writes on the subject with considerable authority, but sadly not in a way that gives any real confidence that anything will change any time soon.

But in the final analysis none of those were my favourite part of the book. That ‘accolade’ goes back to the 1960s and McDonald’s connection with the first cricketing superstar produced by the West Indies, Learie Constantine. One of the most charismatic men to have played the game Constantine’s cricket career has been well served by three previous biographers. That said none of those books have dealt as fully as I would like with Constantine’s life outside the game. If it shows nothing else however it is clear from On Cricket that the definitive biography of Baron Constantine of Nelson and Maraval really should be Trevor McDonald’s next project.

I was a little disappointed that On Cricket does not contain any photographs, as there must be many of McDonald in the company of the great and the good that could have graced its pages. I suppose though that McDonald might argue, not without some merit, that the book is not really about Trevor McDonald. In any event it is certainly a worthwhile read and as indicated not, I hope, his final contribution to the literature of the game.