The day Sophia cooked for Jackers

Robin Jackman talks a good game because he played one. The entertaining Supersport cricket commentator had a first-class career spanning almost 20 years, which was extended through coaching.

Most of his career was with Surrey, a lot of it in then Rhodesia, where he did his first broadcasting, and the tail-end in Western Province, where he coached after retirement and settled, having married Vonnie 40 years ago in Cape Town.

Jackman played four tests, but is famous for the one he didn't play. In 1981, on tour with England in the West Indies, the government of Guyana revoked his visa because of his links with South Africa. The match at Georgetown was cancelled.

Known for his mellifluous tone on air and as a raconteur off it, Jackman has finally got all those anecdotes down in print.

Not all of them concern cricket. There was a time when Sophia Loren came to cook for him. Well, that might be stretching it, but it makes a good yarn in the Jackman anthology.

It happened when a teenage Jackman was invited to lunch by an uncle, Patrick Cargill. Cargill had just completed filming A Countess from Hong Kong with Loren, Marlon Brando, Tippi Hedren and Margaret Rutherford, among others. The film marked the last screen performance by its director, Charlie Chaplin, in a cameo role.

To celebrate the end of filming, Cargill had invited Loren and others to lunch. Loren agreed on the proviso that she be allowed to cook. Jackman's uncle forgot about the offer, hired caterers and was then confronted on the day by Loren arriving ready to don an apron in the kitchen.

"At around 11 o'clock that morning the doorbell rang and there was Sophia Loren with her pots and pans ready to cook up a storm," Jackman recalls.

Is this the first mention of Loren in a cricket book? Possibly, but the other characters are luminaries as much stars in their field as Loren in hers: Ian Botham, who wrote the foreword, Viv Richards, Mike Procter and Trevor Quirk, the former Northern Transvaal wicketkeeper who became more famous for his pioneering television commentaries and who had a major influence on Jackman's own career behind the microphone.

Jackers - A Life in Cricket is co-authored by former Sunday Times sports editor and cricket writer Colin Bryden.

"I tried to make the book an easy read - nothing controversial. I just tell my story. Colin has done a fantastic job in putting it all together," said Jackman.

Jackman succumbed to persistent requests from publisher Don Nelson.

"Don had been pestering me for about a decade to publish a book on my cricket life, but there were two reasons I didn't get around to doing it earlier: a) I was too lazy, and b) I thought it would be too daunting. I didn't know where I would begin. Eventually I said 'yes' and having Bryden on board made things so much easier," he said.

During the West Indies tour that made Jackman an international news item, he kept a diary which is published here for the first time.

"The impact the events of that tour had on my family were much harder for them than it was for me.

"I was deported by [former West Indian cricketer] Roy Fredericks," said Jackman.

Fredericks, who played 59 tests for the West Indies between 1968 and 1977, was minister of sport during the police state regime of Forbes Burnham in Guyana.