Sound of the summer: Test Match Specials Michael Vaughan and Jonathan Agnew. Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

It is 19 years since BBC television ceased broadcasting live Test cricket and 12 since Channel 4 drew stumps on its own free-to-air coverage. Since then, Sky has had the monopoly of rights to what was once the national summer game. This will change a bit in 2020, when the BBC will start showing highlights, and some live T20 games, with Sky retaining the bulk of the rights.

Yet for many, free-to-air cricket coverage is now synonymous with radios Test Match Special. On Thursday, as Test cricket resumes for the first time in this English summer, TMS marks its 60th year of ball-by-ball radio commentaries. This deserves salute from the paper of John Arlott, even while recognising that TMS is a Marmite taste that some adore and others dislike.

Many are devoted to TMSs gentle rhythms in spite of the male public school tone that still lingers. Others want it to converse better with todays Britain. The tension between tradition and innovation will always shape responses to TMS and cricket itself.

In a Wisden survey of TMSs role in the game, Matthew Engel this year highlighted an important truth. While televised sports relentless underlying dogma, especially in Skys treatment, is always that this is thrilling and it really matters, he wrote, radios values are subtler. On radio, there is a tacit pact with the listener, who will be registering the cricket as an agreeable extra in their own daily routine. Exactly so. Just as there is more to life than politics, so there is also more to life than cricket. But its good to welcome TMS back for the summer.

Read more:

The Guardian view on Test Match Special: 60 years of tacit pleasure - The Guardian