A top cricket journalist has shared his hopes for future coverage of the sport by local and regional media.

James Coyne, deputy editor of The Cricketer magazine, has called on his readers to “cherish” local coverage of the game after the start of the new English season.

James, who began his career on Bedfordshire on Sunday in 1999, made the call in a first-person piece for The Cricketer’s website after spending a day in the commentary box during BBC Radio Nottingham’s recent coverage of the County Championship fixture between Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire.

The BBC currently provides local radio commentary for all 18 professional county cricket clubs via local radio stations and the BBC Sport website, a service James, pictured, described as “a cherished part of a local journalism sector in constant strife”.

Said James: “I’ve witnessed during my 25-year career the near-death of local print journalism. It’s quite painful for me, as it’s where I started off as a teenager on the Saturday afternoon sports desk.

“So if county cricket commentary is just a small part of what remains of local journalism, then let’s cherish it and hope that it continues to get better.”

His comments come after the Liverpool Echo earlier this month successfully defended its Outstanding Newspaper Coverage crown at the England and Wales Cricket Board’s Domestic Cricket Journalism Awards, beating national competition in the process.

The Echo has also been named Regional Newspaper of the Year at the awards for two consecutive years.

However, the issue of regional press cricket coverage has been a subject of debate in recent years.

In 2016, then-ESPN Cricinfo general editor David Hopps claimed that the industry had “given up” on the sport.