“It’s 31 years old now,” says Agnew. “It’s a ridiculous piece of radio, a total cock-up. Two people trying to talk, but unable to do so because of this volcano of a belly laugh. When we play it, I’m the only person who can see Brian sitting there, the mixture of mirth and utter terror on his face. 

“I remember he was really angry afterwards, thought he’d been unprofessional, because we had lost control. But he came to love it so much, they played it to try and bring him back to life when he had his heart attack. If he knew we were still playing that 31 years later and people are still laughing at it, he’d be so pleased.”

The point about the clip is that it perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Test Match Special. The schoolboy humour, the camaraderie, the silly nicknames: it is all there. This is a show unique in the manner it has long melded sports reporting with entertainment, becoming to its audience a companion as much as a source of information. 

“My job is two things: the correspondent, being serious about cricketing matters, but also being an entertainer,” says Agnew. “My three years with Brian gave me the confidence to do both, seeing how he did it, the way he could connect with people, really rubbed off. He was a million times the broadcaster I’ll ever be, but we’re similar types of people. And the format of the show allows you to be set meandering off down the road, but then once you’ve started a story, you can park it when you need to address the cricket – which is always the main event – then come back to it.”

One thing Agnew has long enjoyed is the segment he took over from Johnston, the interview during the lunch interval with a celebrity cricket enthusiast. Over the years he has spoken to hundreds of guests, from former Prime Ministers (“with one I found myself looking at the clock after about five minutes”) through film stars and novelists to Lily Allen. His favourite, though, was Elton John. 

“He came in and said: ‘did you watch the one dayer between West Indies and Zimbabwe yesterday?’ Which to be honest I wasn’t remotely interested in. But he went on about a Zimbabwe fast bowler in incredible detail.”

Agnew is a stickler for research, spending hours ahead of the chat poring over Google. Which is a technological upgrade from the old days.