Pakistan v England: Jamie Smith’s kit delivered by TMS scorer Andy Zaltzman
TMS will have ball-by-ball commentary on each of the three Tests, beginning on Monday at 06:00 BST.
And Zaltzman feels he is repaying a debt to Smith, dating back to a fixture involving his county Surrey a number of years ago.
“I’ve not met Jamie personally, but I went to a Surrey T20 game a few years ago,” Zaltzman explained.
“We had seats in front of the dressing room and Jamie was 12th man, still a really young player.
“My son had his autograph book and got every player that came up and down the stairs. He got Jamie’s signature three times in about eight minutes. Jamie very patiently signed his book, even though by the third time I could see him looking at my son thinking ‘come on kid, you have to put in more effort than this’. I feel I owe him a gesture of generosity.”
Zaltzman is a cricketer himself, turning out for Penshurst Park near Tonbridge. He is a gritty, left-handed opener who, by his own admission, “wouldn’t fit into the Bazball regime”.
A regular keeper in his younger days, Zaltzman now takes the gloves “sporadically” and is “quite a bad wicketkeeper”.
“I could have taken my own pads and lent them to him, but I find when I wear them, I drop a lot of balls, so I wouldn’t want him to wear those,” said Zaltzman. “I like to think if I succeed in this position, I will be the first port of call for bringing any spare kit future touring teams may need taking.
“I will massage statistics into the pads to make sure he takes 100% of the chances and lets through no byes. That is all I can do.”
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