My campaign to get Andy Murray into the commentary box starts here

It will be hard not having him on our screens – but hearing his thoughts on tennis will do just fine

I’m starting a campaign and I’d like you to join it. We’re all going to be bereft when Andy Murray finally takes his leave of tennis after the Olympics. But that needn’t be the end. He could walk straight into the commentary box where I’m absolutely convinced he’d – yes – smash it.

I know, I know. He’s already said he doesn’t fancy TV, based on his sole stint at the mic six years ago. But I’m hoping he could be persuaded. Maybe after he’s got playing out of his system and, as Tim Henman has remarked – jokily but maybe perceptively as well – when he might fancy a break from looking after his four kids and a return to the world of occasionally brattish behaviour in the name of the sport he loves.

Not that Murray was ever really brattish, whatever those mini explosions of his younger years. Maybe Nick Kyrgios has been brattish on the court and will be again but as of right now the Aussie must be basking in the afterglow, post-Wimbledon, of being the boggling breakout star of commentating, in any sport. Who would have predicted this? Not so long ago Kyrgios was spitting at fans and accusing a bottle-clanker in the stands of consuming “about 700 drinks”. Now he’s the quick, hip, funny, self-deprecating, insightful voice of the Centre Court.

Andy Murray plays his last tournament at the Olympics.

Not everyone, in any sport, is capable of making such a transition though many – far too many - try. But Kyrgios can and Murray could, too. What a double-act they would be, Murray having been a supporter of Kyrgios from when the latter first started metaphorically piddling in the All England Club’s hydrangeas and seemed to have few allies. And maybe the pair wouldn’t have to confine themselves to tennis. Watch out, Clare Balding. Watch out, Gary Lineker.

Way back when at Wimbledon, and the tournament provided such fertile material for Clive James’ hilarious TV reviews, the great Aussie wisecracker use to remark on how Britain’s great hopes in whites could be relied upon to join the BBC’s coverage early in the first week, having been bundled out in the first or second round.

Murray wasn’t a competitor in 2018. That was an injury-interrupted year and he pulled out of the tournament the day before it began. So would he fancy trying some commentating? He joined Andrew Castle and Henman for the quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Juan Martin del Potro. Classic match and all that, couldn’t have chosen a better one, but for our man there were three issues. Firstly, the commentary box used by the Beeb is notoriously poky, a broom cupboard where maybe only Boris Becker, with his notorious experience of such, can feel at home. Secondly, the match was a four-and-a-half hour epic which was always going to be gruelling for a fellow of 6ft 3ins who’d recently undergone his first hip surgery, sat still for so long.

Thirdly, Murray wanted more than anything to be out there competing in his own four-and-a-half hour epics, chasing down ball after ball after ball. He’d been crowned No 1 in the world just 18 months previously so we mere mortals can only imagine how it must have felt, judderingly reduced to talking about tennis and stuck in that room.

But the frustrations did not show. Murray that afternoon was an entertaining chronicler of the play. I’ve checked back on the reaction of Daily Mail readers - hard to please, hard to convince that dear old Dan Maskell wasn’t still politely exclaiming (“Ooh I say!”) and hard to persuade that Murray was only joking when, in a football context, he’d backed “Anyone But England” - and almost all of them raved about his performance.

He was “funny” and “intelligent”. He “showed yet again what a genuine nice guy he is”. He was “highly knowledgeable … droll sense of humour … a genuine delight at being there must have been obvious to all, except those whose eyes are closed.” Murray was “perfect” and another convert remarked: “Welcome to your future, Andy.”

As anyone who’s interviewed Murray knows, he is not a verbose man. The words don’t spew out of him; rather they’re concise, considered and as carefully selected as his shots. He’s been a strong feminist ally. He’s spoken out against Saudi Arabian sportswashing. He’s always worth a listen. And back on the courts, back in the matches, I’ve no doubt he would inform, amuse and enhance our enjoyment of these completely immersive experiences.

This is not a golden time for those whose job it is to describe and analyse sport for TV. Five minutes into the BBC’s breakfast bulletins from the Olympics yesterday and I was raging. I’m confident, though, that in similar circumstances Murray would not be a titterer, a waffler, a blurter or someone blissfully ignorant of the fact that Alan Partridge’s early broadcasts were send-ups of commentating.

Trouble often comes when a commentator strives for lyricism which remains tantalisingly out of reach. For example, this from Alan Shearer during the Euros: “Pressure? What pressure? Pressure is for tyres.” You sort of know what poor Alan meant. (Actually not so poor, the Beeb pay him close to £400,000 for what comes out of his mouth). That’s a quote destined for Colemanballs, and it comes across as even more underwhelming when your remember how the England cricketer - and WW2 hero - Keith Miller placed sport and its challenges into unanswerable context on the Parkinson chat show: “Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse. Playing cricket is not.”

Murray is too smart to ever say there’s pressure in commentating. Certainly not for someone like him – he’d be a natural.