If the truth hurts, then the decision by Nottinghamshire batsman Mark Wagh not to pursue a post-cricket life in sports journalism because it is not a “career with a future”, may wound many readers of this site.
Jon Culley, the Independent cricket writer who also runs the sportsbookshelf website, has interviewed Wagh about his plans, which involve a final county cricket season in 2011 followed by a move to the London law firm Freshfields.
“I did think about journalism because I do enjoy writing,” said Wagh, whose 2008 cricket diary, Pavilion to Crease… and Back, was highly acclaimed.
Of course, there is at least one established cricket writer who will not be too upset that an ex-player will not be taking off their pads and walking straight in to the Press box, as so many former cricketers have managed to do.
But it is Wagh’s outsider’s analysis of the state of the cricket-writing business that is particularly interesting.
“While I enjoy playing cricket I’m not a great watcher and I wondered if it might be a bit of a lonely existence, with just a laptop for company a lot of the time,” Wagh, 32, said.
“I also looked at the diminishing number of column inches being given to cricket in the newspapers these days and wondered whether it was really a career with a future.
“If I buy a paper it is usually The Times but there have been occasions this summer when there has been a really interesting day in the domestic programme and I’ve bought the paper the next day to find not a word about it.”