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 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 his double century in a losing team in England's 2006 Adelaide debacle. Adam goes back to a memorable week at Galle in 2022, takes in a Surrey victory over the touring Australians in 1899...
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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
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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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April 27, 2024 • 66 mins
It's Story Time, our walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. Daniel Norcross is back with Adam for a second installment of their doubleheader, recorded beneath the Jardine portrait then later at the former England captain’s home ground. It’s an Australian skipper, Allan Border, who is celebrated for his secondary discipline after we learn all there is to know about the man who was for many decades Lancashire...
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April 26, 2024 • 84 mins
It's Story Time, our weekly walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This is the first of a Story Time weekend doubleheader with Daniel Norcross. Only four numbers, but boy did we go to some places. From the Biggest Vince, to a debut hat-trick to picking Daniel’s clothes on TikTok. What about the chap who played once for England in football and once for England in cricket? Or the Dusty Old Bastard who was sen...
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April 26, 2024 • 41 mins
Season 1, Ep 4: Reloading lost episodes from the early Final Word. The 2015 Ashes came to a close, after a series of batting collapses and occasional bowling blowouts. Australia out for 60 in Nottingham, out for 136 in Birmingham, England out for 103 at Lord's - no Test was competitive, even if a 3-2 scoreline looked that way. After a final belting of England by an innings at the Oval, Geoff and Adam got together in London with the...
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April 24, 2024 • 89 mins
Season 16, Episode 8: We've seen her do unreal things before, but this one was the best of the lot. The biggest chase ever in women's cricket, with Chamari ending on 195 not out. Also this week, Meg Lanning's interview about her struggles, the new English women's domestic structure becomes clear, and in men's cricket we have Australian domestic players refusing state contracts, Scott Boland injured out of the county season, Peter S...
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April 22, 2024 • 86 mins
Season 16, Episode 7: It's been a rugged month at Cricket Ireland. In a buoyant mood after winning their first men's Test Match in March, the focus has quickly moved to internal affairs, whether that be the postponement of Australia's visit, budgets or company cars. It's the perfect time for another chat with Warren Deutrom, who has been the chief executive at CI head office since 2006. To help frame this detailed conversation, Nat...
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April 20, 2024 • 80 mins
It's Story Time, our weekly walk through cricket history via your listener quiz challenges. This week, a search for the greatest Welsh all-rounder, and another search for a run out of historical significance. We have a caller on the line sounds weirdly like Steven Finn, an unexpected link from Bradman to Murali, and a song of praise for the most swoon-worthy wrist position of all.
Your Nerd Pledge numbers this week:
10.00 - Anna F...
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