Simon Hughes (cricketer)

Simon Peter Hughes (born 20 December 1959, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey) is an English cricketer and journalist. He is the son of the actor, Peter Hughes, and the brother of the historian Bettany Hughes.

Cricket career

At Latymer Upper School (where he was a contemporary of Hugh Grant), he was an outstanding fast medium bowler of away-swing and captained the school XI successfully. He went on to study general arts at Durham, and played for the university. He joined Middlesex CCC in 1980 and played for them for 12 seasons, culminating in his benefit season of 1991. He subsequently spent two seasons (1992–1993) playing for Durham CCC. Hughes also played for Northern Transvaal in South Africa during the winter of 1982–83, and the Grafton United Cricket Club in Auckland in the 1987/88 season.

Journalism

He retired in 1993 to concentrate on a writing career which began as a player for The Independent with the widely acclaimed Cricketer's Diary.^[1] In 1994 he joined the Daily Telegraph as a columnist and became the BBC's roving reporter on Test matches. He has worked as a journalist for The Independent and The Daily Telegraph, and for the BBC. He has written several books, including the autobiographical A Lot of Hard Yakka (for which he won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1997), Yakking Around the World (which deal with his experiences as a county cricketer during and between cricket seasons), Jargonbusting (a guide to cricket terminology) and Morning Everyone: An Ashes Odyssey.

He is perhaps best known for his work as "The Analyst" on Channel 4's cricket coverage (from 1999 to 2005), winning the Royal Television Society's Sports pundit of the Year award in 2002,^[2] where he spent matches in a VT trailer, watching replays and drawing viewers' attention to particular details. Channel 4's cricket coverage won 28 awards in its seven-year span, including six Baftas. He is currently a commentator/analyst on Cricket on Five with Geoffrey Boycott and Mark Nicholas (with whom he worked on Channel 4). He originally signed up for the programme from 2006 to 2010 when the deal expires, with the ECB.

On England's December 2007 Test match tour of Sri Lanka he was a summariser on the BBC's Test Match Special, and a commentator for the ODI series against the West Indies in 2009. In 2010 he again joined the Test Match Special team commentating on the tour of Bangladesh and the One Day Series against Australia. He was the analyst for ITV4's coverage of the 2010 Indian Premier League, and the 2011 Indian Premier League.

He remains The Analyst on Channel 5's evening highlights programme, commentates on BBC radio and writes for the Daily Telegraph.

Mobile application

To bring together content in a digital form previously only available in his books and to consolidate his news, views and insights, prior to the Cricket World Cup (March 2011) he launched the "Cricket Analyst" mobile application on the Apple iPhone/iPad^[3] and Google Android.^[4] devices in partnership with Anton Christodoulou.^[5]

Bibliography

• From Minor to Major (1992), Hodder & Stoughton (Teach Yourself), "the story of Durham's first first-class season from the inside", ISBN 978-0340582343
• A Lot of Hard Yakka (1997), Headline Book Publishing, ISBN 978-0747255161
• Yakking Around the World: A Cricketer's Quest for Love and Utopia (2001), Pocket Books, ISBN 978-0671773823
• Jargonbusting, (2002), Channel 4 Books, ISBN 978-0752265087
• Morning Everyone: An Ashes Odyssey
• And God Created Cricket
• The Cricket Analyst (Mobile Application)
• Cricket's Greatest Rivalry: A History of the Ashes in 10 Matches (2013), Cassell Illustrated, ISBN 978-1844037438

References

External links

• Cricinfo Player Profile : Simon Peter Hughes
• Cricinfo : Simon Hughes portrait
• Profile of Simon Hughes and the Five Cricket Team