A Marathon week
It's felt like a great week to be in our newsroom.
In the Caribbean, the Cricket World Cup is reaching its climax with the last Super 8 game taking place on Saturday before we get on with the serious business of the semi-finals next week.
Meanwhile an England coach resigned and, within 22 hours, a replacement was appointed. In between, one of cricket's greatest ever players retired from the international scene.
With no time to draw our breath, the snooker World Championship gets underway on Saturday, plus there's the Heineken Cup semi-finals and on Sunday, the London Marathon, which my colleague Dave Gordon has blogged about.
Oh, and the most thrilling Premiership title race in years continues, while we are also turning our thoughts to at least one English team taking part in the Champions League final and the first FA Cup final at the new Wembley Stadium.
Not that I'm complaining. These are the weeks you do this job for. And it's particularly pleasing when BBC Sport broke the story about Duncan Fletcher resigning. The BBC's Sports Editor, Mihir Bose, was first to report that Fletcher was definitely going, and was on BBC News 24 discussing this before it appeared on any of the news wires or on any of our rivals' services. Radio Five Live’s Pat Murphy was also at the training session when Fletcher told the players, and saw the coach wipe away a tear.
We then spent the rest of Thursday going to town on the Fletcher story with my colleague Martin Gough looking back at his reign and Jonathan Agnew adding his thoughts.
I heard on Five Live on my way to work today Brian Lara had stepped down from international cricket, but I was then able to read Martin's account of how the great batsman more or less blurted out the news a day or so early. That was the sort of thing it would have been tricky to report before we introduced the TMS blog - the sort of behind-the-scenes detail which journalists used to discuss amongst themselves but which now, happily, everyone can share in.
Also on Friday the news that Peter Moores was not just being appointed as caretaker coach but as permanent boss came as a news flash on the Press Association wires. We had to respond quickly, but again it's what you do the job for.
I'm now looking forward to the snooker getting under way - and like more or less everyone else I know I'll be watching the Marathon coverage on the BBC, except I'll be doing it from the office. I also have more than a little personal interest in a derby match going on in north London on Saturday, but even if that goes the way I fear it might, I'll still feel like it was a good week, albeit a fairly exhausting one.
Hope you've enjoyed the coverage on the website – don’t forget to set your alarms on Sunday to watch the Marathon.
Lewis
