In July, I was given the opportunity to work with the BBC Sports News team for three months.
I moved across the country to Manchester in order to be based at MediaCity. It was a hugely exciting time to be working in Salford, with the Euros, Olympics and Paralympics, as well as a whole host of other events culminating in a busy summer of sport.
I even managed to keep presenting Around the Wicket for BBC Essex during the first few weeks of my stay. Find out more about the most recent series here.
The majority of my time in Manchester was spent with the BBC World Service Sport team producing ‘Stumped’. I was incredibly excited to be given this opportunity to work on such a well known cricket podcast with presenters I’ve always looked up to.
The podcast goes out weekly online, as a programme on BBC World Service, All India Radio and ABC in Australia. The most recent figures show it’s listened to by 10m people a week on BBC WS which is mind blowing!
The video below shows a quick snapshot of the episodes I produced and you can listen to Stumped here.
During my time with the Stumped team, one of the most prevalent stories both across news and sport was the ongoing political situation in Afghanistan and its knock on effects for activities like cricket, particularly for women.
We had Afghanistan bowler Naveen-ul-Haq talking about his thoughts on the situation which was really interesting to hear when so many people were too scared or upset to speak up.
I also spent a lot of time talking to Tuba Sangar, the former development manager for women’s cricket at the Afghanistan Cricket Board. She agreed to speak to us on the podcast and having previously spoken to the media under a false name, wanted to reveal her identity and speak out for the country’s female cricketers who had gone into hiding. It was a really powerful interview and you can listen to both parts of the interview here and here, as well as read the article.
It was an honour to be part of the podcast team and tell stories like this, as well as take a look at the quirky side of cricket too.
I also spent time working for BBC 5live during my time at MediaCity producing sport content and fixing guests for the daytime programmes.
It was great to live in Manchester too and explore a new city. There was plenty going on in my time there, including the return of Cristiano Ronaldo to Manchester United! I made sure I made the most of going to watch as much sport as I could as well as making a good dent in the many bars and restaurants the city has to offer!