‘Love enjoy and tell good stories’

Michael Atherton is one of the most respected and decorated England cricketers who played 115 Tests and 54 ODIs from 1989 to 2001. He now enjoys a successful career as a broadcaster with Sky Sports and as a journalist with The Times as their chief cricket correspondent.

Atherton visited Pakistan early last month, before the Covid-19 outbreak forced the postponement of the Pakistan Super League, to work on a documentary on the revival of cricket in Pakistan, which is likely to be aired as part of the Pakistan team's build-up for the summer tour of England.

"Love the game. Enjoy the game. Tell good stories. I still think it is about good storytelling. I know statistics and technique and all those kind of things are important and are very much at the heart of the modern landscape. But I think telling good stories is still at the heart of what journalists, broadcasters, documentary-makers and commentators, whatever tell good stories about a great game," Atherton said during a podcast with the PCB when asked about his advice to the current and future generations of cricket correspondents.

He believes that it has indeed become a lot harder for players with the advent of social media than it was during his time as a player.

"I think it is harder for players now than I played. There was no social media when I played. Of course, you still had criticism from commentators and journalists and maybe the tabloid media was a bit stronger in England then than it is now. The social media interest didn't exist then and I think it is tougher for young players now as it is very hard to get away from social media. The players are encouraged to be on social media for all kinds of reasons: for personal sponsorships and general availability.

"But that level of vitriol and criticism is quite tough to deal with particularly if you are young. I was thinking of some of the young England cricketers. I saw some of the Under 19s this winter in South Africa, who got dumped out of the tournament at an early stage and took a fair bit of criticism on social media. At 19, that is quite hard to deal with, but it is a fact of life.

Atherton also believes that the players no longer have something called a personal space due to the social media engagements.

"That is how life has gone a bit. People are much more open than perhaps they were in my generation. Today, in fact, there is an eight-part Amazon Prime documentary series on the Australia cricket team where the cameras have been in the dressing room. They have been in every team meeting and I think the filmmakers had 2,600 hours of footage there and that's just outside of the cricket."