The Final Word Cricket Podcast

World Cup Daily 2023, Day 1: Expect the unexpected. The first day of this year's tournament and it was already worth the wait. Jonny Bairstow started in style, Joe Root recovered his best, Jos Buttler showed some flair, while Matt Henry and Mitchell Santner went old fashioned for success. Then it was time for Rachin Ravindra's incredible arrival party with his good buddy Devon Conway. A night a li...

World Cup Daily 2023, Day 0: It's about to land. Ten teams, a dozen cities, the best part of seven weeks. Take a deep breath and dive in with us, and the expert help of ESPNCricinfo's young gun Matt Roller. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/thefinalword Find out what's fun at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City – More extra, less ordinary! https://www.westfield.com/unite...

Season 15, Episode 2: With only a day or two before the World Cup, the press releases are coming thick and stupid, and we are the only podcast with the courage to tell you why the ICC mascots should go to jail. Also this week, Hayley Matthews becomes a one-player hurricane against Australia, and a million warm-ups are played in amongst a couple of official ODIs. Which raises the question: when doe...

It's The Mitchell Johnson Cricket Show, with our great friend and regular co-host, Bharat Sundaresan. This is a new project for the two of them, which has been some time in planning. It will be where, as they say in their intro, tell 'the story of the man behind the mo'. As that passage goes on to say, “despite his fierce exterior, there was a vulnerability underneath” and that’s something Mitch i...

It's Story Time, our weekly walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, our second revisit special before we get into the World Cup. Have you ever heard of the Fake Olympics? How do you decide which Indian players are cult heroes and which are beyond that? What happens when a live Bannerman opportunity happens while recording our show? It's another peculiar episode o...

Episode 5 - Today The final revisited episode of our multi-part audio documentary on the 100-year history of cricket broadcasting brings us up to the modern day. To do so, Adam and Daniel Norcross looked at the evolution and revolution inside commentary boxes, where women were welcome on a regular basis for the first time. Also important to that tale: the thirst for deeper statistical analysis as...

Episode 4 - The Disruptors: This was an awkward one to prepare because it told our stories. Not only Adam Collins and Daniel Norcross, but many others who, in one way or another, messed with the usual system - from Cricinfo and beyond. To help us tell the tale, our guests were Andrew Miller, Jarrod Kimber, Nigel Henderson and, of course, Geoff Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/the...

Season 15, Episode 1: Spring is springing in Melbourne, domestic cricket has begun, and you know what that means. A new season of The Final Word. Just in time for a fresh World Cup. Australia's warm-ups continue to derail in India, Shubman Gill is set to break records, David Warner is now a right-hander, Dasun Shanaka is sacked as Sri Lanka captain, India's women win a medal at storied Pingfeng, a...

Episode 3 - On TV In the third installment of our revisit of the documentary series made by Adam and Daniel Norcross during the first Covid lockdowns of 2020 we shift medium, from radio to television. With guests Harsha Bhogle, Jim Maxwell, Mark Nicholas and Dan Waddell, the episode explores how TV broadcasts evolved from humble beginnings into the mega machines they are today. Along the way, it b...

It's Story Time, our weekly walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, in a bumper revisit special, have we found the cricketer whose career was most unfairly influenced by accountants? Bring your MBAs. The birth of a legendary franchise, before franchises existed. The greatest prison escape stories from regional Victoria. And have we also found the best cricket pho...

Episode 2 - Test Match Special: Our revisited documentary series began between the World Wars, where radio and cricket started their beautiful relationship. The next logical step was to chart the game's most enduring broadcast, Test Match Special. To tell a tale more complicated than one might assume are three guests who have spanned decades with the programme: commentator Jonathan Agnew, summaris...

Season 14, Episode 43: What happened to... everyone, in the space of a week, with the World Cup approaching? South Africa smear Australia across the park to turn 2-0 into 2-3. Travis Head breaks his hand, Jason Roy gets punted by England, Naseem Shah's shoulder gives way for Pakistan, and India demolish Sri Lanka inside 22 overs in the Asia Cup final. In England one-day cricket, Leicestershire cat...

Season 14, Episode 42: Kumar Sangakkara is not only one of the greatest cricketers to ever play the game but also one of the most thoughtful. In turn, his life in the sport is one that continues to represent a great deal more than batting and wicketkeeping, although our conversation - which this is but the first part, we have plenty more to discuss - does eventually get to the 22 yards in the midd...

It's Story Time, our weekly walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. For the non-milestone episode of 150, we got everybody together, recording this in front of a live online audience. They heard another update about new fave Maurice Kellerman and the shipwreck of the Viking, an incredible Dutch story from World War I thanks to a guest contributor, the blazing start of a tee...

England v New Zealand, 4th ODI at Lord's: Dawid Malan might’ve thought the selectors were a chance of trading him in for a flashier model a couple of weeks ago. Well, that won’t be happening any time soon, a glittering Lord’s ton from the left-hander completing the 3-1 series win for the hosts over New Zealand at Lord’s. Adam has Phil Walker (Wisden Cricket Monthly) with him, casting forward to th...

Episode 1 - How it all Began: In March 2020, the world stopped as human tragedy unfolded. To that backdrop, a lockdown project started small and got way out of hand, as Adam Collins and Daniel Norcross set about telling the story of 100 years of cricket broadcasting. Our documentary series still prompts questions to this day. So three and a half years later, we're re-releasing the episodes along w...

Season 14, Episode 41: A child prodigy, a five-time Ashes winner, and the man with the finest cover drive you could ever wish to see - Ian Bell's fine career brought a lot of joy to onlookers as he himself got to observe a period of immense change in English cricket, from the time of Atherton and Hussain to that of Stokes and Buttler. We catch up with him in London where he's working as an assista...

England v New Zealand, 3rd ODI at The Oval: Ben Stokes, good grief. He was retired from this format until a week ago, and today at The Oval he’s smacked England’s highest-ever score in the format. It paved the way to another thumping win over New Zealand. Phil Walker, the big boss at Wisden Cricket Monthly, joins Adam to reflect on the carnage. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/th...

Season 14, Episode 40: It's easy to forget, but as soon as a few good one-dayers start up again, we get right back into it. Australia have been notching wins in South Africa thanks to the return of the Suber-Sub: did you know that Labuschagne also spells La Sub Change? England's heatwave* is over, Liam Livingstone figures out how to bat for a while, the Test team will be the second-tier ODI team t...

England v New Zealand, 2nd ODI at Southampton: It was all going so well for New Zealand, romping through England’s top order in a rain-reduced affair at Southampton. Enter Liam Livingstone, who turned the game on its head, enhancing his credentials yet further. From there, Buttler’s bowlers clicked and the Black Caps folded. Daniel Norcross joins Adam on their commentary box balcony. Support the s...

It's Story Time, our weekly walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. And sometimes, we have to go all in on a certain subject. Sometimes, it takes half an hour to get to the first number. Sometimes, that number means a story that leads to a story that leads to a story. So it is with a long trajectory through the middle years of Neighbours, the frank assessments of Dr Carl Ke...

England v New Zealand, 1st ODI at Cardiff: What a difference a week makes. Last Friday, New Zealand’s batting was in a world of pain, bowled out in 14 overs. Tonight, they chased 292 in a canter at Cardiff, unbeaten tons for Conway and Mitchell to make it so, and have now knocked off the dual world champions three times on the trot. Jeremy Coney joins Adam to consider the result in the context of...

Season 14, Episode 39: It's not often we get the chance to talk to India's cricketers, especially young guns on the way up. So with Sai Sudharsan playing county cricket at Surrey, it was a treat to sit down with the 21-year-old who hit 96 from 47 balls to win the IPL final earlier this year. A classy left-hander with ambition and determination, this is a player we might see plenty of in the decade...

Season 14, Episode 38: A huge week of international men's white-ball cricket, with the Asia Cup complemented by Australia's tour of South Africa and New Zealand in England. If only West Indies had engaged Zimbabwe and Ireland in a tri-series. Mitchell Marsh is having a great time captaining Australia. There's sad news as Heath Streak dies at 49. Sri Lanka's women produce a huge upset of England, a...

England v New Zealand, 4th T20 at Trent Bridge: Another day, another new Final Word host, with Andy Zaltzman steering the ship for the first time alongside the newly minted Jeremy Coney. And another fine day for New Zealand, fighting back to square the series after being belted first up and second up. Find out how... Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/thefinalword Sign up to learn...