Christopher Martin-Jenkins awarded MBE

Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the Test Match Special commentator and former Times cricket correspondent, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's New Year's honours list.

Known throughout the game as CMJ, he stood down as the Times correspondent in May to be replaced by Michael Atherton, having previously held the same position with the Daily Telegraph, but still writes occasional columns for the newspaper and remains part of the TMS team which he first joined 35 years ago. He was also the BBC's cricket correspondent in two spells from 1973 to 1980 and 1985 to 1991

"It has been a great privilege to go round the world writing about cricket," he told the Times. "The older one gets, the requirement for England to win becomes less important than the needs of the game as a whole, but nonetheless England's rare successes in Australia have been the most exciting.

"One concern for me is the contraction of cricket coverage towards the England team alone," he added. "We should not forget the county game and the grass roots, without which you couldn't have an England team. Nor should we overlook the fascination of the world game generally."

He provides the only representation for cricket in this year's list, which on a sporting front is dominated by the British Olympic medallists from the Beijing Games.