The Final Word Cricket Podcast
Cricket for everyone – your friendly guide to the world's strangest sport. Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins combine match analysis with irreverence, politics, interviews and history as they follow the game they love around the world. You can support the show at patreon.com/thefinalword.
Episodes
May 27, 2024 • 36 mins
Season 16, Episode 16: It has been quite the story. First, the revelation that France's cricket board was approving scorecards from domestic games with no evidence of ever existing. Then, blacklisting the entire national women's squad when those players asked for an investigation. The ICC says there is nothing to see here. As ever, there is a lot of money at stake.
We speak to the France24 reporter who broke the story, Peter O'Bri...
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May 26, 2024 • 82 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, is this one of the most bogus games to get first-class status? Probably not in the top hundred if we're honest but it's funny anyway. Also, a great player's brief and bombastic return, another's fondest day, and the ease of resolving scheduling dilemmas when you have sufficient clout.
Your Nerd Pledge numbers this week:
2.33 - Pushkar G...
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May 25, 2024 • 88 mins
The 1961 Ashes had it all, especially at Old Trafford. The ground where Jim Laker ran amok the previous time the Australians visited would be the scene of a staggering come-from-behind triumph under the bold leadership of Richie Benaud, spinning to win from out of the rough. Adam has Steve Cannane with him to interview Harry Ricketts, the co-author of a terrific new book focused on a match that helped earn the Australian captain th...
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May 24, 2024 • 89 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, how many things do you not know about Jim Laker? For us, plenty, including how close he came to turning out in the baggy green. Lara Killick asks about some rubbery figures, we head back to the early IPL, some forgotten T20 Blast, and the very beginning of Test cricket once again.
Your Nerd Pledge numbers this week:
2.49 - Cam Allen
18....
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May 22, 2024 • 85 mins
Season 16, Episode 15: Yes, we finally have our ad-free feed up and running, extra exciting in the same week as Adam claims to have watched The Greatest Round of County Cricket Ever. Wait for his documentary series on it in 10 years' time. Jofra Archer is tentatively back bowling snorters, there is civil unrest in Australian state cricket, and we finally figure out how the IPL works as Mitch Starc hits top gear. Also, our Westfield...
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May 21, 2024 • 60 mins
Season 16, Episode 14: After Australian cricket endured its worst moment in modern memory in 2018, the Sandpaper debacle, cameras were invited into the inner sanctum of the men’s dressing room for a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Five years on, they have returned for a third installment during last year’s World Test Championship and the Ashes that followed. The result is another engaging peek behind the curtain as Pat Cummins and his...
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May 20, 2024 • 53 mins
Season 1, Ep 1: We're finally there! Reloading lost episodes from the early Final Word, this is episode No1.
London 2015, with our new Ashes podcast project not signed off in time to cover the first Test in Cardiff, we got started after the second Test at Lord's. Australia had been beaten badly in the first match, only to take the next when Mitchell Johnson went on the last of his magical sprees with the ball. Emma John, then of t...
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May 18, 2024 • 87 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. Did Paul Nixon pen his own Wikipedia entry? Daniel Norcross reports, you decide. Our co-host has been busy too, getting Paul Collingwood to help tell the story of the less enjoyable half of that visit to Australia. Adam goes back to a memorable week in Galle, takes in Surrey challenging the touring Australians in 1899, and reflects on the life and ...
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May 17, 2024 • 91 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, a long backtrack to a much earlier episode where we tried to unravel the mystery of carrying one's bat for nought not out. Enter a multitude of Hearnes. Also, the man they called Stork, a forgotten career of coincidences, Winnie Mae's birthday, Pip Clark The Musical, and the fastest snorters that Braddles ever faced.
Your Nerd Pledge nu...
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May 15, 2024 • 101 mins
Season 16, Episode 13: With the Jimmy farewell in the air, was it the right move or wrong? Should it have happened three years earlier, or one year later? Let's get into it. Also this week, Monty does a Mal Meninga, the ECB continue towards selling up, the ICC continue selling out to the worst people in sport, the Dutch keep being sold short, Ireland's men and Pakistan's women put in performances against the odds, and we chat the d...
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May 13, 2024 • 30 mins
Season 1, Ep 2: Reloading lost episodes from the early Final Word, we're all the way back to our second episode ever. This came after Australia got shot out of the sky in Birmingham during the 2015 Ashes, for England to take a lead 2-1 with two matches to play. Geoff was joined by fellow writers Will Macpherson and Subash Jayaraman, with Adam absent at a wedding or something.
Hot quotes include Will: "If you can't enjoy watching Mi...
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May 12, 2024 • 103 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, with Daniel Norcross joining Geoff Lemon, we start with a walk through the Indian hill town of Ooty, then end up deep in the origins of European fascism. Yes, it's all related to the cricket. Also, the German influence on Lord's in 1994, the worst ever hat-trick, and an ode to a love that never quite panned out.
Your Nerd Pledge numbers...
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May 11, 2024 • 36 mins
We weren't expecting to record an ep today but the news of Jimmy Anderson's retirement announcement required it. At The Oval, Adam has an emotional Daniel Norcross with him to reflect on a truly magnificent international career.
Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at patreon.com/thefinalword
Get down to Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City! More extra, less ordinary. westfield.com/united-kingdom/london
Get your 10% discou...
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May 10, 2024 • 79 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, with Adam and Geoff are back together, do you know how cricket relates to Ronald Ryan and to Malaysian capital punishment in the 1980s? Neither do we, but we got there somehow anyway. Also, a lot of time in the Imaginary City - Adelaide. Short runs, rain delays, referenda, and the best defensive technique that any bunny has had. It's ano...
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May 8, 2024 • 83 mins
Season 16, Episode 12: Our 1000th episode! A serious number. From the 2015 Ashes to now so much has changed, but we’ve kept hitting record and talking to each other – in a week where Geoff has moved to Portugal and Adam has seen Peggy start to walk. Into the show itself, English cricket mourns the loss of young player Josh Baker. Australia’s decision-makers have explained their JFM T20 omission as Jake Fraser-McGurk continues to li...
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May 6, 2024 • 34 mins
Season 1, Ep 3: Reloading lost episodes from the early Final Word. This was the show's first engagement with women's cricket, and you can hear how much we've learned since.
Down in Canterbury, amid a men's Test series of batting collapses, the only women's Test of their 2015 Ashes series ended similarly. It wasn't one-sided earlier though, with Australia staging a major fightback via Jess Jonassen before England gave up trying to w...
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May 4, 2024 • 86 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, Bharat Sundaresan joins the show for what is coincidentally a great week to be an expert on West Indies teams meeting India. Famous uncles, less famous young nephews, and one of the most underrated batting greats of all. Join the dots on Story Time.
Your Nerd Pledge numbers this week:
5.60 - Bala Sivaramanan
16.24 - Dom Griffiths
4.73 -...
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May 3, 2024 • 40 mins
Season 16, Episode 11: On this episode, as promised, we shift focus to Vanuatu. Specifically, to their extraordinary women’s team, currently in action at the T20 World Cup qualifier in Abu Dhabi. To be one step away from the World Cup with a side that barely existed until a decade ago is a story that, in a way, speaks for itself.
Their rise was confirmed when knocking off regional giant PNG to win a spot at a tournament that inclu...
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May 1, 2024 • 83 mins
Season 16, Episode 10: Just what is The 100 worth? It's a question that has vexed English cricket, on various levels, since it was first dreamed up some six years ago. Now, we are up to the inevitable moment for the controversial competition as it is prepared for a day at the market. Will Macpherson, from the Telegraph, joins as this week's co-host to go into depth about a story he's been covering as closely as anyone. It leads our...
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April 29, 2024 • 61 mins
Season 16, Episode 9: It’s appropriate that this conversation with Greg James took place at The Oval, the ground he grew up visiting with his dad – the place where he developed an unbreakable bond with the game. He explains how he fell in and out of love with playing without ever really leaving. And how that’s turned into finding a place for it professionally through the Tailenders podcast and all that's evolved from it, but not so...
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