The No Balls Cricket Podcast

The one thing about BazBall is that it does not do boring. Even in a run-fest that turned into only the 2nd draw of Ben Stokes's captaincy, the man found a way to make the Test memorable. The handshake that wasn't stole all the headlines, with England pleading to go off on Day 5 after failing to take any wickets for 2 sessions, and Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar on the cusp of centu...

Where did it all go wrong? After an unexpected win at Edgbaston, where Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill and the rest of the Team India showed they've got the heart of a star to level the series at 1-1, Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul forgot the importance of being idle and promptly handed England the opening they needed to get ahead at Lords. England did not let that opportunity slide away, and...

We went away for a short while, and an entire era changed. South Africa won a trophy, Australia LOST A FINAL, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma retired, Shubman Gill became Test captain, all in the time since we last recorded. Unfortunately, BazBollocks is still here. And still tripping up India occasionally. True to form we are back as soon as India's Test team is back in action, though not in time fo...

India's decade-long stranglehold on the most fiercely-contested trophy in Test cricket has finally come crashing down. And at the end of this long reign, we come to bury everyone, not to praise them. Apart from Jasprit Bumrah. And maybe Rishabh Pant. The last two Tests of the tour of Australia occasionally raised hope that India might still pull off an unlikely win, but reality hit harder than...

There was no repeat of the last miracle at the Gabba, but India not losing that Test might be its own version of a miracle, helped by the rain gods and a rollicking innings from "bowling all-rounder" Akash Deep. Given the state of India's batting, he might get a promotion to bat in the top 7 at this rate. The Test ended up being more notable for what happened off the pitch, with one of India's gre...

India had another nightmare pink-ball Test, but it included a moment that is our podcast's raison d'être: a wicket off a no ball. The past week was a banner week for those, which made for an awards section we were eager to get to...but not before we asked the real, tough question, the kind that we've become famous for: does KL Rahul have a Jay Shah sex tape in his possession? That, somehow, wasn't...

Just how powerful are the BCCI and Jay Shah? That question was important enough to ask even when we had a magnificent India win to review. Would you put it past the new ICC president to engage in some destabilizing of Pakistan that had nothing to do with cricket just to come up with a less controversial reason to move the Champions Trophy out of the PCB's home base? Oh, and there was that Test win...

We're BACK (again)! We could make some overwrought metaphor about how we gritted it out to get to 50 and then retired hurt, but are now back to complete the innings. We *could*. But we won't. Instead we'll just say we're here to laugh at everyone, as always, from our favorite targets like England, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, to new punching bags like Gautam Gambhir. All that, just in time for what c...

Our esteemed podcast has managed to do something Jonny Bairstow wasn't able to do during England's tour of India: get to 50. In a series full of milestones – including a 100th Test for Jonny himself, along with Stokes and Ashwin – we've brought up this special one of our own. So we paid homage (to ourselves) in a few different ways: taking a trip down memory lane, and even bringing out...

England nearly had it. Everything they wanted. A vindication that their stupid marketing gimmick is actually good cricket (even though they only got to this point by dropping the gimmick to play actual good cricket). And then the real England, the one we all know and love and love to make fun of, turned up. And if you think England's cricket is mad, wait until you hear what happens in the Ranj...

If you suffer your worst defeat on the pitch in 90 years, is there any way you can still claim moral victory? According to us, there isn't, but we think somehow England could still manage it even after a 434-run loss. Thanks to the magnitude of India's victory, and some interesting decisions from the BazBollocks strategy brain trust, we had a lot to talk about on this one, so a bit of a lo...

India get back in the series thanks to an outstanding innings from Yashasvi Jaiswal...and are England getting high on their own supply? Also, because we don't know how to stick to cricket on this cricket pod, there's an excellent discussion about climate change and geography – and by excellent discussion, we mean a brief mention that allows some potshots to be taken at familiar targets.

So about those 5-0 and 4-0 predictions from our podcast... We look back on a wild first Test and how exactly England pulled off the "Heist of Hyderabad". How do India turn things around? Meanwhile, West Indies pulled off a heist of their own in Australia and we have more updates from the life of Shoaib Malik.

We're back! With perfect timing. After a winter break for us where a lot of cricket happened (and we aren't even talking about the IPL and WPL auctions). Meanwhile, England are bringing their "BazBollocks" marketing gimmick to India. And we have some sad news about India's favorite Pakistani, who may no longer hold that title.

We put it off for as long as we could, but finally, here we are, sucking it up and dealing with our loss. By which we mean, of course, India's loss at the men's ODI World Cup final. What happened, who can we yell at for it (BCCI), and where do we go from here? In the middle of all that, of course, cricket never stops, so we take a look at what's next for India and everyone else.

Working against a deadline trying to get an episode in before the World Cup final puts a lot of pressure on us. Thankfully we didn't choke. Unlike... Maybe let's not go there, and just leave it at enjoying the fact that we got two high-quality semifinals and now it's time for the ultimate heavyweight matchup in the final: India vs Australia. (Don't worry, we went there in the episo...

It's time to preview the semifinals. India get a chance to stare down the demons of 2019 and New Zealand, and South Africa have semifinal ghosts of their own to exorcise against Australia. We're in crunch time at the World Cup...or should that be crispy time, Ramiz Raja?

After a ho-hum first half of the group stage, the World Cup has really kicked off over the last week. Our favorite rivalry just had its biggest controversy that has Siddhant potentially causing geopolitical incidents, and even that got overshadowed, by arguably the greatest innings in men's ODI history. And amidst all that, India are humming along, giving us great joy thanks to a certain bet-w...

Having come back after a long time, we've decided that we need to freshen this podcast up by doing something we didn't know we're capable of: sounding smart. So this pod has Siddhant busting out stats, Aditya talking about "process-based analysis", and...a lot of shit-talking about the teams we like talking shit about, still, because we can't not do that. But we did smart...

WE'RE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! After a long hiatus as we moved around in the world, we finally figured out how to do a long-distance pod. Just in time for the men's ODI World Cup. Sort of. Anyway, your favorite duo, Siddhant Pradhan aka the club cricketer and Aditya Devavrat aka the respected journalist, is here to make fun of England and Pakistan (and maybe look at the rest of the World Cup af...

This may or may not be the last episode of No Balls Cricket. Are we being dramatic and dumb? Would anyone listening to us think we're capable of such behavior? (Don't answer that.) What exactly we mean by that, is revealed in the episode, where we also discuss Sid's cricket "escapades", Ashwin's latest tactical controversy, and of course, more of our favorite pastime...dunking on England cricket....

Cricket had its own version of March Madness last month, with three Test series going on simultaneously and the month culminating in the Women's World Cup. We'll review that thrilling tournament in a special episode, but for now we're focusing on the Test cricket that we saw, or didn't see, given how some of it put us to sleep. Can you blame us? India were dominant against Sri Lanka as one would e...

We mentioned last time that, in true No Balls Cricket fashion, we were releasing a preview episode just in time for the start of a tournament or series. Well, hold that thought. We may have gotten the Women's World Cup preview out ahead of the tournament starting (or rather, on the day it started, and after the first match had begun), but we have outdone ourselves with the next one: our preview of...

In true No Balls Cricket fashion, we have yet again cut it fine with a series or tournament preview. Two, in fact, as we've also got a preview for the three Test series that are going on in the world at just about the same time, which is going to be up in a day or two...after two of those Tests have started. In the meantime, we've got a special episode to preview the women's World Cup (which actua...

For those of you who are regular listeners, you know we have a long-standing joke about being "respected" journalists. Aditya has worked in sports content for most of his career, which has included some journalistic work, and Sid...well, Sid is a dentist/surgeon but recently interviewed a cricketing legend, so we'll give him his due there. It's clear how much we love this particular running gag. S...