The moment a BBC cricket commentator couldn't stop laughing at the player who couldn't keep his rod down

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Whenever radio commentators try to control their giggles, it seems they always fail the Test.

Radio 4's cricket pundit Christopher Martin-Jenkins yesterday experienced "corpsing" - the uncontrollable laughter that strikes at the most inappropriate moments.

Describing a delivery from England's pace bowler Stuart Broad to New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori, Martin-Jenkins essayed an unfortunate analogy as the batsman "fished" outside the off-stump for the ball.

"Broad's in, he bowls, this time Vettori lets it go outside the off-stump, good length, inviting him to fish," he said.

"Vettori stays on the bank...and keeps his rod down, so to speak."

Seconds later, listeners of Radio 4's Test Match Special on Thursday could hear the veteran - known to the cricketing world as CMJ - struggling to keep his composure over the unfortunate wording.

His voice got steadily higher as he said: "I don't know if he is a fisherman, is he?"

Eventually, he yielded to the inevitable, before contritely resuming the commentary when the giggles subsided.

Martin-Jenkins, 63, can take some comfort from the fact he joins a distinguished club of broadcasters who have found themselves in a similar position.

The late Brian Johnston made an art form of being present during unintentional double entendres.

Covering an England match against the West Indies in 1991, he watched Ian Botham unsuccessfully try to avoid falling backwards into his own stumps.

Fellow commentator Jonathan Agnew noted "he couldn't quite get his leg over," reducing his colleague to helpless fits of giggles.

Fifteen years earlier, it had been his turn to render the commentary box helpless with laughter during an England-West Indies match.

As Michael Holding ran in to bowl to Peter Willey, "Johnners" noted: "The bowler is Holding, the batsman's Willey."

Martin-Jenkins's Radio 4 colleague Charlotte Green will also be sympathetic to his plight.

She described herself as being "ambushed by the giggles" while playing a scratchy recording of a woman singing Au Clair de la Lune made in 1860 earlier this year.

She was also unable to keep a straight face in 1997 after reading out the name of a Papua New Guinea politician called Jack Tuat - where the "u" is pronounced as a "w".