The Final Word Cricket Podcast

Season 17, Episode 33: Welcome to our second interview in a series with county pros at the top of their game as season 2025 begins. Jack Leach’s career has been an unusual one - a Test spinner best known for the most significant 1 not out in modern Test nistory. But when he has the ball in his hand, he's been a matchwinner or England. And when he’s had the backing of the powers that be, he’s seen...

Season 17, Episode 32: The English season is upon us, with the county championship starting this week. And in keeping with the comprehensive coverage we’ve given to that competition over many years, we thought this would be the right time to roll out a series of feature interviews with some of the best county pros out there. One man who meets that criteria is Middlesex opener, Sam Robson. A man wh...

It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, Cameron Ponsonby joins Geoff to make his Story Time debut, representing a younger generation of badgerdom. And we do badger: detouring from Australian legends to patchy West Indies number threes, encouragement from Australian legends to promising West Indies number sixes, and an unexpected discovery of...

Book Club 9: Jarrod Kimber - The Art of Batting: The Craft of Cricket’s Greatest Run Scorers Jarrod Kimber was a trailblazer in how the modern game was covered, disrupting press and commentary boxes in the best possible way. But throughout his interesting career, he’s always been an author, and his latest offering includes all the passion and insight you would expect as he goes deep on a simple ye...

Season 17, Episode 31: Yes, we said the wrong episode number. Let's all be grown-ups about that. We're leading up to the Mr Sheffield Shield final, while Queensland's former captain Usman Khawaja smacks down his home state association for putting out false stories. Meanwhile, the sackings have started after England's surrender tour of Australia for the Women's Ashes, we have some new nonsense for...

It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, Bharat Sundaresan joins us for tales from the beginning of India's national team, and the inadvertent birth of the BCCI. Gandhi flashes some kneecap, before we turn back twice through the tale of a heist-master who had one more job in mind. Your Nerd Pledge numbers this week: 5.93 - Rama Subramanian 8.0...

Book Club 8: Stephen Brenkley - A Striking Summer: How Cricket United a Divided Nation 99 years ago, England was in turmoil, leading to unprecedented industrial action. What kept the country together? In no small part, so goes the thesis of Stephen Brenkley in his beautiful new book, a terrific last-gasp Ashes victory - the first time they had defeated the Australians in a series since before the...

Season 17, Episode 30: In November 2023, we interviewed with David Gower for over an hour and a half but still had plenty of his massive story still to tell. With Adam speaking with the former England record run-scorer at a Lord’s Taverners event in London last week, they picked up from where they left off, moving from the 1989 Ashes through to the end of his playing career then on to becoming one...

Season 17, Ep 29: It wasn't a good week for Stu MacGill, with a guilty verdict in court but on a pretty minor criminal count. That doesn't begin to reflect how strange the story was though, with family conflict, kidnapping, and the inevitable dodgy conduct from NSW police. In other news, Saudi Arabia's entry into cricket is being teased again, via a tournament whose proponents including the Austra...

It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, an all-time thrilling finish involving a classic Australian side, a trip back to rare winter cricket under the roof, the high craft of a maligned spinner at his best, and all the cherubim and seraphim who come to mind via a heavenly fast-bowling presence who an English county is unaccountably trying to...

The Greatest Season That Was - The Final Frontier season finale During the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia, The Greatest Season That Was pod focused its attention on the relationship between the cricketing giants over the decades, some 20 years from the staggering 2001 encounter in India. After speaking with a range of excellent guests, it was time to end the story with a conver...

Season 17, Ep 28: We've been excited about the 150th anniversary Test scheduled for 2027, so it was deflating to see the news that Cricket Australia have planned for it to be day-night. A range of specious arguments will try to cover for the fact that it's about the overseas TV market. Also this week, some Champions Trophy wash-up, Steve Smith's ODI retirement, South Australia on track for a domes...

A variation on our Book Club, this time we turn to film with a man well known to Final Word listeners, Tony Wilson. We change sports too, to (round ball) football. Why? The tale of Ange Postecoglou is fascinating one, and the influence of all-time great Ferenc Puskás - when they combined together at South Melbourne in the ‘90s - is central to it. With Cam Fink having shot and edited Ange and the B...

Champions Trophy Final, India v New Zealand, Dubai: A tournament tailor-made for Indian success has ended with just that, the best team getting the trophy they came to the UAE for. The Black Caps earned themselves a route to victory with their spinners after dark, but they just didn't have enough runs. Daniel Norcross and Danyal Rasool recap the Dubai decider. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge a...

Champions Trophy Final preview semi-final, India v New Zealand, Dubai: The time has come. A tournament on a platter for the men in blue, they simply must stick the landing against the Black Caps, right? Andrew Fidel Fernando is at Dubai Sports City, and having heard the pre-game press conferences, he's with Daniel Norcross to preview the big one! Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/...

It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, we're obviously going to end up at Shane Warne's sideline as a handyman, but before we get there it's going to be a meander through several facets of the career of someone who ended up on the wicket tally right behind him, and another of somebody who should have had a Test tally closer to those two than...

Champions Trophy 2nd semi-final, New Zealand v South Africa, Lahore: What a performance from the Black Caps with the bat, storming into another ICC trophy decider against India. At Lahore, we have Danyal Rasool from cricinfo, and he's joining Cameron Ponsonby. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/thefinalword Get 20% off your cask of MacIness scotch whisky! ICCWHISKYCRICKET20 is the...

Season 17, Ep 27: While the Champions Trophy semi-finals happen around us, Adam and Geoff try to stay focused on the rest of the week's matters at hand. Jos Buttler finally gives up the eternal sadness of England captaincy, Matt Kuhnemann gets cleared by the University of Western Australia (don't start with us), Cam Green is held back from the Shield, David Boon joins the CA board, Jimmy Anderson...

Champions Trophy 1st semi-final, India v Australia, Dubai: Australia changed their blueprint and their attack but neither quite worked as India did enough with the ball and had too much depth with the bat, advancing to the final with Virat Kohli front and centre. In the thick of things at Dubai Sports City for us, it's Daniel Norcross with Andrew Fidel Fernando. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge...

Champions Trophy Day 13, semi-final preview: Everyone is where they need to be for the final stages of this tournament, with Australia's configuration the main point of interest - the underdogs by any measure in Dubai against India on Tuesday. From there, it'll be South Africa and New Zealand duking it out in Lahore on Wednesday. Might it be the Proteas against the men in blue as it was in last ye...

Champions Trophy Day 12, India v New Zealand, Dubai: We knew who had made the final four of this tournament, but now - after India flexed their muscles in an impressive bowling performance against New Zealand - it's clear who gets who in the semis. Daniel Norcross and Andrew Fidel Fernando are on duty for the final game of the group stage in the UAE. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon....

Champions Trophy Day 11, England v South Africa, Karachi: South Africa have successfully made it through to another semi-final, annihilating Jos Buttler’s sorry side on his final day in charge. To work through it all, we have Danyal Rasool at the National Stadium in Karachi joining Cameron Ponsonby. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/thefinalword Get 20% off your cask of MacIness s...

It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, we head to South Africa for the first big explosion in a career of big explosions, we pop by Headingley and the MCG for a career that was something more than what might have been, head through India and the West Indies for a career of frustration that finally had its fulfilment, and go back to Western A...

Champions Trophy Day 10, Australia v Afghanistan, Lahore: More rain ruined the result for the men in gold (canary yellow?), but it matters little - they are going to be playing in another semi-final and Travis Head, India's nemesis so many times, is back to top form at the perfect time. Meanwhile, Afghanistan remain an outside chance of qualification themselves. At Lahore, Andrew Fidel Fernando is...

Champions Trophy Day 9, Pakistan v Bangladesh, Rawalpindi: What a mess. Pakistan, tournament hosts, were already bundled out after two dreadful losses and now their third and final game, against Bangladesh, has been washed out before a ball was bowled. But never fear, Daniel Norcross and Andrew Fidel Fernando are here to tell us what this all means. There is also the chance for them to go back to...