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 geography 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.

Journalism

Since retiring from cricket, 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), where he spent matches in a VT trailer, watching replays and drawing viewers' attention to particular details. He is currently a commentator/analyst on Cricket on Five with Geoffrey Boycott and Mark Nicholas (with whom he worked on Channel 4). He has 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.

Bibliography

*"A Lot of Hard Yakka" (1997)
*"Yakking Around the World"
*"Jargonbusting"
*""

External links

* [http://content.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/14364.html Cricinfo Player Profile : Simon Peter Hughes]
* [http://content.cricinfo.com/ci/content/image/222538.html Cricinfo : Simon Hughes portrait]
* [http://cricket.five.tv/ontv/ Profile of Simon Hughes and the Five Cricket Team]