Sky Sports News presenter and former cricket correspondent Adam Leventhal discusses life on tour and that Bob Woolmer story.
As a journalist, you started in football. What challenges did you face by switching to cricket?
Touring life was something I hadn’t done and it takes a bit of getting used to. My first trip, for the one-dayers that followed the drawn Test series in India in 2006, was a five-week tour that went to some far-flung places in India, so it was a baptism of fire. I also had to get to know a completely new set of people – journalists who’ve been doing the job, in some instances, for what seemed hundreds of years!
And the players?
Yeah, you have to build bridges and earn their trust. Overall, though, I think they appreciate that you’re going through similar experiences. You’re eating the same food, not drinking the same tap water and if they get an upset tummy there’s every chance you will too. I’d like to think there’s mutual respect. Obviously, you have to maintain a level of detachment as you have to remain objective and often ask them difficult questions.
The death of Bob Woolmer has got to be one of the most dramatic stories you’ve covered. Was it as surreal to work on as it appeared on TV?
The contrast from one day to the next was amazing. Ireland beat Pakistan and we made a beeline over the Blue Mountains to cover the St Paddy’s Day party. One minute I was interviewing a bloke dressed up as a leprechaun and the next I got a call saying that Bob Woolmer was unwell and he’d collapsed in his room. From that moment, the situation just kept on changing. By the time we got to the hospital in Kingston it had become clear that this was a story of a magnitude that you don’t often get in sport.
When does a sports story become a news story, then?
I spoke to our executive editor Andy Cairns at the time; he reinforced that we were leading the coverage of the story even though it had moved into a different realm. He said “This is our story, you broke it and we’re covering it better than anyone.” It was a big moment for me as a journalist –and I just got on with the job–but you’d have these moments of clarity when you’d stop to draw breath and think to yourself this is really, really sad as I’d got to know Bob and spoken to him only the day before.
What was the toughest part of working on that story?
Mushtaq Ahmed and Inzamam were called back for extra questioning, so I had to ask both of them–on the doorstep of my hotel room – whether it was unthinkable that someone in the Pakistan team killed Bob Woolmer. I was effectively asking them whether any of them had been involved in the killing of their coach.
How did this compare to your experience of the terror attacks in Mumbai?
Even though we were in Cuttack, it was very tense. As soon as we heard that the terrorists were checking for British passports there was a lot of focus on the cricket team. We’d been in the Taj Hotel earlier in the tour, which brought it home even more. There isn’t the sort of self-editing on Indian TV that you get over here either, so we were seeing some images that would scare the living daylights out of anyone.
For the full interview, pick up this month’s All Out Cricket, in shops now. You can follow Adam on Twitter: @adamleventhal
