Rugby and cycling commentators to lead TNT Sports’ Ashes coverage – The Telegraph

Alastair Eykyn and Rob Hatch will be based in studio in London whilst analysts are on the ground 10,000 miles away in Australia
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TNT Sports insists viewers will not be able to tell their Ashes commentators will be calling the action 10,000 miles apart from each other.
On Tuesday, the broadcaster announced their production plans for the series as well as a line-up that will be unfamiliar to cricket lovers. Their commentary team will also be split between the UK and Australia.
Alastair Eykyn and Rob Hatch, their lead commentators, will be challenged with calling the game “off tube” through the night from a studio in London. Widely-respected Eykyn is best known as a key plank of TNT’s rugby coverage, while Hatch is an award-winning cycling commentator.
In Australia, Becky Ives, who works for TNT on football and boxing, will lead the on-the-ground team where she will be joined by former Ashes winners Sir Alastair Cook, Graeme Swann and Steven Finn.
Two of Cook, Swann and Finn will be in Australia at any one time, and they will act as expert summarisers during live play alongside Eykyn and Hatch via video-link. The ex-England players will also be pundits alongside Ives during the breaks in play.
TNT had lined up the former British No 1 tennis player Laura Robson for a role in Australia, but her scheduling commitments before the Australian Open in January meant they could not reach an agreement.
Former England player Ebony Rainford-Brent will also do commentary stints alongside Eykyn and Hatch in the UK and TNT say there could yet be input from other broadcasters in Australia.
Scott Young, the executive vice-president of WBD Sports Europe (which oversees TNT), said viewers would not be able to tell that their commentators will not be always sitting next to one another.
“There are different ways we will do it, but our play-by-play team will be here [in the UK],” he said. “The pundits will be here or on site. The way it works is that you won’t know where they are, the way the commentary booths are set up. They are effectively mirrors of each other, and you [the viewer] won’t have noticed the way our other productions such as tennis have set up, whether that commentator is actually sat directly next to or just connected [virtually] to that person.”
Young explained why Eykyn and Hatch had been chosen to lead the commentary teams despite little recent experience in cricket.
“They are huge cricket fans with a great depth of knowledge and a passion for the sport,” he said. “If you start with that insight that you understand the sport and you understand how to commentate that sport, that is the person we want in the driver’s seat. Of course they lean into the knowledge of the people who have played the sport like Alastair Cook.
“They are great commentators in their own right, and great storytellers when things take a bit of a pause. They are people who can really drive a narrative with the people sitting next to them.
TNT will broadcast the Ashes for the third series in a row Down Under, having signed a one-season deal with Cricket Australia earlier this year.
They will also broadcast a highlights show called The Edge, where Craig Doyle, the broadcast all-rounder who works on their rugby coverage, will be joined by two as-yet-unannounced pundits per show.
In the last Ashes tour, in 2021-22, TNT, then BT Sport, sent a skeleton team to Australia, which was difficult to enter because of Covid restrictions. In 2017-18, it produced a full bells-and-whistles production on the ground from Australia.
Young said: “I don’t think what we are doing in the UK could be considered cheap”, adding that “people’s schedules” were the reason the whole team would not be in Australia.
Young also said that “the Ashes is a step above” simply taking the Australian commentary feed from the host broadcaster. That, however, is what TNT will be doing for England’s white-ball tour of New Zealand, which begins on Saturday.
“We’ve put our resources into the Ashes,” he said.
“The real investment is to have people there, so that when you turn on the TV in the early hours, it’s bright sunlight, and we have committed to telling stories with people on the ground. Hopefully that helps people feel involved in the Ashes.”
The BBC hold the radio broadcast rights to the Ashes in the UK. Cook and Finn are regulars on the BBC, but are not expected to be involved with the Test Match Special broadcasts of the series as a result of their TNT work.
An outstanding commentator who has specialised in rugby and is a staple of TNT’s extensive coverage of the sport. Previously of the BBC and also heard on ITV.
TNT’s cycling caller, who won sports commentator of the year at the 2024 Broadcast Sport Awards.
Softly-spoken Irishman has had a varied career in TV and is currently involved in projects as wide-ranging as ITV’s This Morning and TNT’s rugby coverage.
An experienced presenter who has worked for ITV and TNT on a range of sports, notably football and boxing. Will be on the ground throughout the series, and describes herself as “a lifelong cricket fan who grew up scoring matches”.
Watch TNT Sports’ live exclusive coverage of The Ashes – alongside every Quilter Nations Series match, live Premier League and UEFA club football and more – on TNT Sports and discovery+.
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