Last week BT Sport announced its lineup for the Ashes, the first it will broadcast. Michael Vaughan and Ricky Ponting, who were involved in the station’s first toe-dip in the cricketing pool a year ago, are back, along with Graeme Swann, Geoffrey Boycott, Damien Fleming, Michael Slater and Adam Gilchrist. But while the network is still fairly new to this particular game the team behind the team are no ingenues; the coverage will be produced by Sunset + Vine, which has been working on cricket since taking charge of Channel 4’s first Test broadcasts in 1999 and is currently the International Cricket Council’s production partner.
A few weeks before they all head off to Australia the Spin got to sit down for a chat with Matt Smith, who will anchor the coverage, and the commentator Alison Mitchell. Mitchell’s cricketing chops are well established, while Smith is more of an all-rounder, most commonly associated with football, although he anchored ITV’s coverage of the Indian Premier League with aplomb.
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