On the second day of the 1991 Test match between England and West Indies at The Oval, Ian Botham tried to hook a bouncer from Curtly Ambrose. It was a bit too fast and Botham, struck on the body, lost his balance, went through an ungainly pirouette, and staggered towards the wicket. His last minute attempt to step over the stumps failed, and his right thigh flicked the bail. Christopher Martin Jenkins described his dismissal graphically.

After the tea break, when Johnston and Agnew were going over the details of the play, the latter analysed the hit-wicket dismissal with the words, "He just didn't get his leg over."

Leg over is the colloquial term for having sex, and considering the man in question was Ian Botham, the situation turned catastrophic. Johnston fought manfully against a fit of giggles for about half a minute, before falling into a helpless bout of laughter, from time to time squealing, "Aggers, do stop it." For several minutes, all that could be heard were muffled snorts, chuckles, giggles and laughter. It brought Peter Baxter, the producer, rushing into the box hissing through clenched teeth, "Will somebody say something?"

Johnston now struggled for composure and managed, "And Tufnell came in and batted for 12 minutes, then he was caught Haynes … England were all out for 419. I've stopped laughing now."

While Agnew thought he had successfully ruined his career just a few months into the job, the 79 year old Johnston was embarrassed by the niggling thought that he had been unprofessional. However, the next day mails flooded in with stories of traffic coming to a standstill with drivers in hysterics, several of them pulling up on pavements to get over their guffaws, men caught up on ladders, hanging on for dear life as they roared with laughter. There was a deluge of requests for dubbed cassettes. TMS had never been this popular.

I have stopped laughing n