Expected leaves, driving "on the up" & absolute Ebony Rainford-Brent

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Speaker 3 That is very good. Bold!

Speaker 3 A team Patrick!

Speaker 2 Dancing away!

Speaker 5 He didn't try and hit it too hard, just caressed it through the field. Spent time at the wicket, played bread and butter shots, keep it safe, took it off his hip and his legs.
He's done that.

Speaker 5 Got him!

Speaker 5 Why did he do that?

Speaker 5 Unbelievable!

Speaker 6 What about that?

Speaker 5 It wasn't just one of those where it may stick or it may not.

Speaker 2 Remember the name!

Speaker 1 There's so much elegance about it, and yet it was quite brutal.

Speaker 2 Hello and welcome back to Cricket Clichés. I'm Daniel Norcross coming up

Speaker 2 in our difficult second album. England downed faster than a yard of ale by Jimmy Fivebeddy's Gardener.
We ask, what are the traditional stages of Ash's grief?

Speaker 2 England batters' fatal attraction to on-the-up deliveries ironically sends their Ash's dreams into a fatal tailspin as metaphors are mixed to breaking point.

Speaker 2 And everyone appears suddenly to be insane with rage that instead of thinly mixing two days' drama into five days, the players decided to cram five days' drama into two.

Speaker 2 With literally no one, least of all cricket, being the winner. But first, let's introduce today's panel, including our very first bowling change.
Dan Gallon and Dave Tickner are both here again.

Speaker 2 Hello, fellas. Hello.

Speaker 6 Hey, Daniel.

Speaker 2 And we are joined, I'm delighted to say, by new cap, cricket writer, Charlie Reynolds. Charlie, who do you want to have hand you the cap?

Speaker 2 It's a ceremony now that takes place before every Test match One Day International, almost like even when somebody plays for Surrey.

Speaker 2 In your wildest dreams, who would you like to come to you and deliver you that cap?

Speaker 7 I mean I think are you better than the doyen of British broadcasting himself Daniel Norcrop this is the perfect warrior to be handed it what a creep

Speaker 7 yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that that was that was pitiful that's how you get the new ball in for your club Charlie I do always feel a bit sorry for the the players that get a cut kind of slightly underwhelming one at the back end of a tour or something and so like here you go

Speaker 7 Here's someone that just happened to be here.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm trying to think which one was the worst one. I know which was the best.

Speaker 2 I can't remember who he gave the cap to.

Speaker 2 I think it must have been a Middlesex player, but a certain other Middlesex player with whom I have worked on many times, on many occasions, told me that he was really nervous when he was going to do the cap presentation, right?

Speaker 2 It might have been to Toby Roland-Jones. It was somebody like that, right?

Speaker 2 And he goes out into the huddle and he hands over the cap. I said, so what did you say to him when he got back into the comment box? What did you say to him? Well, Dan, I just said,

Speaker 2 what a fucking time to be alive.

Speaker 2 And I thought, actually, that is the best presentation speech you can imagine.

Speaker 2 Because imagine, like, if you get one from Alex Stewart, it'll be, you know, when you wear this cap, you wear it with pride, the three lions. You must

Speaker 2 kiss the badge at all times, remember the people that have come before you, going all the way back to WG Grace, Gavin Hamilton, you know, everybody who's been part of this great journey.

Speaker 2 And by that stage, you just feel the incredible weight of pressure on you, wouldn't you? But if someone goes, what a fucking time to be alive, I reckon that is pretty much spot on.

Speaker 5 I think you'd be more in that camp of cat presentation yourself, wouldn't you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think I am. I think I'm just going to do that to Charlie now.
Charlie, what a fucking time to be alive. How'd you feel? Confident now, yeah?

Speaker 8 Yeah, yeah, I'm fired up.

Speaker 2 This is what I want to hear. Right now, then.

Speaker 2 We've got to address this matter. It's fine for Dan.

Speaker 2 Dan Gallard's sitting there with the most unbelievable unbelievable smirk on his face because South Africa have just pulled off a clean sweep.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you can have a clean sweep with two tests, but we're going to give it to him. They've pulled off a clean sweep against India.

Speaker 6 And what's more, playing proper cricket, teaching you flash bass ballers the true merits of winning a game in the allotted time, not trying to get everything done in two days.

Speaker 6 So this is not just a victory for South Africa and Anglophos, but this is a victory for all of cricket, I would say.

Speaker 5 It's a victory for common sense.

Speaker 2 Joe is it's a victory for proper cricket, which is a term that we haven't actually discussed yet on cricket cliches but i feel strongly that we're going to proper cricket with proper cricket shots which is it's so important if you don't play proper cricket and proper cricket shots and everything goes haywire um and there wasn't so much proper cricket shots played here in perth in the two-day test we've had the first ashes test the debut of basball down under and it was quite a familiar scene really i mean everyone else can dissect the cricket we're not interested in that here because apart from any of the us at various points I dare say quite a few people on this podcast have already had to do it.

Speaker 2 But it now looks like 5-0 is the most likely score and listener Edmund Thompson Jones has said the whole Ashes discourse on both sides ignores the obvious.

Speaker 2 The normal situation for England touring Australia is a massive defeat. In the last 35 years, they've only won six tests out of 45 down under, none in the last three tours.

Speaker 2 What is it that makes a whitewash especially superb to the Australians and especially degrading to the English? It's basically just normal at this point.

Speaker 5 Yeah, just a little bit quicker than usual. You know, it's normally somewhere in the second test that I think, oh, this is going to be 5-0.
This, it's not normally on day two,

Speaker 5 but it's not a huge departure from the normal run of things. And every single time England goes to Australia,

Speaker 5 there seems to be the oh, this time though, this time's going to be different

Speaker 2 and it never is or almost never is I think it was I mean Charlie was with me in in Perth right and England were ahead at the end of the first session of the second day I can't remember them being ahead at the end of the first session of the second day and Australian pundits were wandering around they were using words like weak they were absolutely losing themselves over Usman Khwaja and blaming golf it was fantastic tables were turned when it looked like golf was going to be Australia's downfall, what a plot twist that was.

Speaker 2 It was, wasn't it?

Speaker 5 I wasn't expecting that.

Speaker 2 While a Nathan Lyon was limping around, I mean, it was basically like that day, was it the second or third day at Lourdes in 2023?

Speaker 2 When Nathan Lyon limped off, England were on top in the game, and they used that precise moment to toss their wickets away in gay abandon. I mean, to me, this is just like...

Speaker 2 you know, decent behaviour, isn't it? If you're a guest in someone else's country and you see them with terrible misfortune, Charlie, then you've just got to like go, oh, I'm really sorry.

Speaker 6 let's even things up let's just throw it all away it's the polite thing to do you know that's that's all that we really care about what i like is that is that this feels like the universe writing itself that no matter what you throw into the bag you mix it all up and and the same thing comes out there's something quite reassuring that you can bas ball it you can Alistair cook it, you can play proper cricket, you can play funky cricket, you can wear bucket hats, you can wear traditional caps.

Speaker 6 It doesn't really matter, England will lose. And for me, as an outsider watching, there is something quite comforting.

Speaker 6 And we spoke last week about my angst that people aren't behaving themselves, that the Aussies are acting like the English, and the English are acting like the Aussies.

Speaker 6 It is quite comforting in this tumultuous world that certain truths remain. So, for me, I'm really relieved.
I've slept a lot better this week.

Speaker 6 My morning coffees taste right, the sun is shining, despite it being cold, everything just kind of feels right with the world.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I mean, that's a bully for you, Dan. I mean, that's what we have you want to

Speaker 2 keep ourselves grounded at all times. Yeah, uh, but

Speaker 2 I mentioned in in the intro the phrase on the up, which is highly ironic, given that England's fortunes are actually on the skids. But there are some people who are really annoyed by this.

Speaker 2 Listen to Neil Chandler. And I understand where he's coming from.

Speaker 2 He hates the on the up. And the reason we talk about on the up is because England's fortunes in the test match hinged on three wickets going down in six balls across a place of 10 minutes.

Speaker 2 After

Speaker 2 Ben Duckett had got out quite a good nut, it might almost have been a seed, actually. I don't know.
It might have been a seed.

Speaker 5 Absolute seed.

Speaker 2 That's an absolute seed. I mean, Ebony Rainford Brent might have called it an absolute seed.
More of that later on.

Speaker 2 But what it was,

Speaker 2 it was a decent pull. There then followed three guys getting out, all basically playing the same shot.
And it caused consternation. Consternation.

Speaker 2 on your screens, on your radios, and, I'm delighted to tell you, in the press box, as the phrase on the up was repeated by almost everybody, journalists, commentators, the lot.

Speaker 2 And listener Neil Chandler says, on the up drives me nuts. Any ball that has bounced is on the up.

Speaker 2 The batsman hits it. I mean, technically speaking, he's right.

Speaker 2 And actually, Graham Fowler, the former England player and Testmat special commentator, used to get really annoyed with hitting it on top of the bounce because he said, well, unless you're actually lucky enough to get the ball as it's coming down, which in a game of cricket is extremely tricky, right?

Speaker 2 You're always hitting on top of the bounce or the moment you hit it. Guys, what does on the up mean to you? What do you mean by it?

Speaker 6 I love that the listener points out that, yes, every single ball that bounces, although you don't necessarily hit every ball on the bounce,

Speaker 6 on top of the bounce, Travis head hit a six uppercut under the bounce. Oh, yeah.
So that's quite a new development, but we know exactly what he means. Yeah, on the up, it's this...

Speaker 6 It's this really kind of mysterious, it's sort of like the length version of the corridor of uncertainty because it really also depends on the size of the batter.

Speaker 6 You know, Temper Bavuma hits every ball on the up because he's so short.

Speaker 6 But on the up is like it's a sign of a good player hitting a ball that would otherwise have needed to be left or or just bunted or blocked.

Speaker 6 It's perilous, as the English batter showed, because you shouldn't, it's a ball you shouldn't really be trying to hit.

Speaker 6 So you're either very good in doing it or you're very foolish in trying to do it and going out. There's no real winner when you try to hit the ball.

Speaker 6 You know, it's kind of a zero-sum game. You either show your class or you nick off, which is why I do like on the up and I hope we keep it.

Speaker 2 Well, to me, on the up relies very much on the way your bat is as well.

Speaker 2 Because if you drive a ball on the up with a with a vertical bat, that is a heinous crime for which you need to be put into cricket purgatory, right?

Speaker 2 But if you actually glide the ball with a horizontal bat through deep third, right, then you're Kane Williamson, then you're Joe Root, and you're taking a length ball.

Speaker 2 That's another phrase that we need to understand.

Speaker 2 You're taking a length ball and you're driving a bowler, bracket, in a vertical, to distraction because he thinks he's bowled a good ball and yet you're suddenly able to get it away.

Speaker 2 So the on-the-up ball is only an on-the-up ball because this is my contention, fellas, that it's played with a vertical bat. And at that point, you have basically wronged the gods of cricket.

Speaker 5 I like on the up.

Speaker 5 I think it's like, you know, like length ball. It's one of those cricket phrases that

Speaker 5 if you actually start looking at it closely, yeah, it doesn't actually make sense. It doesn't actually eliminate any ball at all.

Speaker 5 But we do all quite instinctively know what it means. In the same way as a length ball,

Speaker 5 every ball is a length ball, but we know what a length ball is.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but do we know what a length ball is? I mean, is a length ball a different length for someone who's like, you know, six foot eight from someone who's like five foot nine?

Speaker 5 Well, it's a movable feast, the length ball.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 5 But the aim of the length ball is the same.

Speaker 5 It's not the same for every bowler or every pitch or every session or every batsman, or batter, I should say.

Speaker 5 But it's definitely like the idea of it is the, you know, it's the, oh, it's the ball where you don't know whether to play forward or back. And, you know, it's there or it's thereabouts.

Speaker 5 That's where the length ball is.

Speaker 2 Do you know what?

Speaker 2 We've got an embellishment to this as well, Charlie, because we've got the county length. So you bowl a county length.

Speaker 2 Is that a different length from a test match length? And if so, why don't county bowlers just bowl test match lengths and then they get picked the test team? I don't understand it.

Speaker 2 What's a county length?

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 8 I think if we bowl a county length, then you're out of... You're instantly out of selection from Rob Key.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 6 bowling these lengths are, because

Speaker 6 even at our level, when you run up and you bowl, everything's so automatic.

Speaker 6 You're trying to become an automaton where you're just naturally hitting a length, you know, someone's naturally good length.

Speaker 6 And I guess if you're bowling at a county length and you're on these stodgy, poor excuses for wickets that you have in this country, if you go into the hard, you know, the hard tracks of Australia, you find that, yeah, people like Travis Head are just smearing and smoking and pinging you through the covers.

Speaker 6 And you were speaking about Williamson and Root, how they dab and angle down to fine leg. There's something quite, I don't know, forgive the phrase, but there's something quite like naff about it.

Speaker 6 But, you know, oh, I'll just angle this one down for the covers, down, down to deep third. And what I like about Australian decks is that you try that shit, you're going to get nicked off.

Speaker 6 You know, don't come bring your milking ones and twos here.

Speaker 6 You got to hit me on the up through the covers, mate, because if you try and angle me down like some soy boy, you're going to get nicked off.

Speaker 2 Okay,

Speaker 2 let's examine that for a minute. For a start,

Speaker 2 you just said nicked off, which for some people is a red card. They hate nicked off, they want edged for some bizarre reason.
Yeah, I don't mind nicked off, actually.

Speaker 2 I think we all know what nicked off means, isn't it?

Speaker 6 What do people prefer?

Speaker 2 Well, I think they like it when a commentator goes edged gone. Yeah, whereas

Speaker 2 I don't know, I don't mind nicked off.

Speaker 2 Nicked off is absolutely fine by me.

Speaker 2 But it is,

Speaker 2 I don't think we've got any closer to establishing where that length is. I mean,

Speaker 2 I think what they'll do is

Speaker 2 they'll try to say to us

Speaker 2 on coverage, they'll go, the right length here is six to eight meters, or, depending on the pitch, five to seven.

Speaker 2 So, are we saying that basically on Australian pitches, that length is a little bit shorter? And if it is a little bit shorter, then why doesn't everybody just leave it?

Speaker 2 Which is the question that Crick Viz have been asking because they have come up with expected leaves.

Speaker 2 Now, then,

Speaker 2 this is football encroaching on cricket.

Speaker 2 Or is it cricket encroaching on football? I don't know. Either way round, it's some kind of hideous hybrid that we've now got.
Expected goals, I don't really mind particularly, but expected leaves.

Speaker 2 I mean, if Ben Duckett is playing no ball, there isn't a single ball you can bowl. There is no length that is an expected leave.

Speaker 2 But in fairness to Ben Duckett, when he plays the length ball, he plays it with a horizontal bat, which is kind of my original point.

Speaker 2 Have you ever heard anything that's given you quite as much ick this week as expected leaves?

Speaker 5 I just

Speaker 5 do we need it. I don't think expected leave is bringing anything.

Speaker 5 I know like they do like expected runs and expected wickets and I sort of quite like that because I think fundamentally with cricket luck plays way

Speaker 5 more of a role than any of us would like to admit because it sort of hits at the heart of what sport is supposed to be.

Speaker 5 But the difference between nicking off and playing and missing early in your innings can change absolutely everything about how the whole day goes. There's almost no innings

Speaker 5 of any greatness where you can't find one ball early on where they've played and missed. And on another day they nick it, they're gone, it's over.

Speaker 5 That's a fundamental part of the game. And And I quite like the expected runs and expected wickets because it gives you an idea.
Like, it was, what was it?

Speaker 5 The Zach Crawley 100 at Old Trafford was like, it had insane expected runs, expected wickets.

Speaker 5 You know, he got 189 or whatever it was, but the expected wickets during his innings was about 5.6 or something

Speaker 5 crazy, but he, you know, the stars aligned for him on that day and he got those on.

Speaker 5 But expected leaves, does this tell us anything that we didn't already know from watching them get out to crap shots?

Speaker 2 It isn't an expected leave, is it? It's actually trying to create some kind of moral compass around what you should do with the ball.

Speaker 5 Let's not introduce another moral compass.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 I do it with hesitation obviously.

Speaker 6 I always just wonder with these things, with these new stats, as Ticker says, you know, runs and wickets, yes, that is what serves a cricket match.

Speaker 6 We want to know how many runs and how many wickets, you know. And whenever we get something new like this, I always wonder, what is the end goal? Are we going to get expected blocks?

Speaker 6 Are we going to get expected cuts? Are we going to get expected padding up to leg spinners outside the leg stump? You know, where does it end?

Speaker 5 It's like a very slippery slope.

Speaker 2 And more importantly for you, Dan, when are we going to get expected scythes? When are we going to get expected mooses? When are we going to get expected Larry?

Speaker 6 Hopefully soon.

Speaker 5 If we are getting it, you need to get in on this, Dan. You need to be, you know.

Speaker 6 Yeah, can I trademark that?

Speaker 2 I don't really care for it, really, because I think what it is, is it's a stick to beat some people with, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Someone who's aggressive, right, who doesn't want to play the South African way, they are now going to get beaten up because they didn't care enough for the badge.

Speaker 7 Well, yeah, that's the only the perhaps the only interesting thing about the statistic is how on earth they calculate it because you know, as you said, bend up, it doesn't leave anything.

Speaker 7 The match situation that is that that that impacts it just seems like there are too many variables and not enough regularity across the different bats. I don't know.
It's not a keeper.

Speaker 2 No, it isn't a keeper. It isn't a keeper.

Speaker 2 But like I say, I think it's a slippery slope towards basically encouraging cricket fans to wait for the England team to arrive with their bags, which they will do on the 9th or 10th of January, looking sullen and downcast and having people shout, mate, mate, do you see how many shots you played to expected leave deliveries of over 68%?

Speaker 2 Because that's what's going to happen. Because all three of those had an expected leave percentage of 68% or more.
And that suddenly became a really big thing where I'd never heard it before.

Speaker 2 I'd never even come across this notion.

Speaker 5 Everyone's suddenly nodding sagely at yes.

Speaker 5 That felt like about a 0.68 to me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 32 times out of 100, I'd expect to see somebody play it, which therefore means it's quite frequent, isn't it? You bowl that ball.

Speaker 5 One in three is quite frequent.

Speaker 6 Quite often

Speaker 2 twice in and over. Yeah, twice in and over, someone's going to play at it.

Speaker 2 It's not the most shocking thing i've ever seen in my life if it was an expected leave rate of 98

Speaker 2 then you'd get me interested

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Speaker 2 Anyway, the last thing on this is natural length bowlers because we're talking about a length and we and you hear commentators say, you know, what a bowler's natural length is.

Speaker 2 And in a sense, again, we sort of understand that to mean that if you're really tall,

Speaker 2 your natural length is back of a length, which is a dangerous phrase to use. I'm familiar with that.

Speaker 2 And therefore, you're unlikely to hit the stumps. I'm thinking here, Stephen Finn, right?

Speaker 2 And then they'll say, well, he's six foot eight, so he can't afford to be, you know, the word I'm about to use. Full and floaty.
Floaty. You can't be full and floaty, right? Now.

Speaker 5 That's your county length.

Speaker 2 Why is it that someone of six foot eight is not allowed to bowl a full length?

Speaker 2 And yet when Jimi Anderson and Stuart Broad roped in the bowling for about six years, commentators were going, they're just bowling it to, they've got to put it up there. What?

Speaker 2 To a full and floaty length? Or maybe their natural length doesn't allow them to do that. I just don't know what's going on.
Someone help me out. Is this about height? Or what is it? What is it?

Speaker 6 This accusation followed Mornay Morkall,

Speaker 6 seven foot whatever, throughout his entire career.

Speaker 6 But then when he would just bang it in short and players would just rock on the back foot and pull him well he's got to put it up you know pitch it up make him play make him drive it's like yeah but i'm a six foot nine man you know my my good length my natural length is not just back of a length is quite short so look i'm i'm not going to feel sorry i i tell after three pints i tell all my my clubmates at my rubbish sundays that if i was more in walklet's height i would have been a better cricketer so i don't have i don't feel sorry for these tall lads who just can run up and land it on a good length but yeah that that floats thing what what is it about the mechanics of a of a really long man turning his arm over if he gets it up is it just that he's it doesn't like the inertia of the arm coming around takes too long and by the time he lets go on a full length it's it's lost momentum is is that what's happening oh there is something about a tall bowler who gets it really full that it does just feel floaty instinctively and it should it shouldn't should it because like all logic should say that

Speaker 5 The taller you are, the fuller you can bowl before it becomes floaty because it's going to bounce more.

Speaker 5 And yet it's Stain and Anderson, you kiss the surface, not bowl it into the surface. And why is it always the surface and never the pitch, by the way? It's always the surface in these conversations.

Speaker 5 But why?

Speaker 6 Why isn't the taller bowler should be fuller?

Speaker 5 But it's not, is it? We all know that it's shorter for the taller.

Speaker 2 They've got to be able to define what kissing the surface is because to me, I think what it must mean is that it spends less time on the ground and loses less speed.

Speaker 7 You can't kiss the surface with a heavy ball.

Speaker 5 No, definitely.

Speaker 2 You can't kiss the surface. You cannot kiss the surface with a heavy ball.
And yet, it's a different kind of kiss.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's a peck we're talking about, as opposed to a nice, lingering, romantic kiss.

Speaker 5 It's perfunctory.

Speaker 2 Just because the English are so absolutely hopeless at romance, and we've invented this notion. So it's just a little peck on the cheek, dear.

Speaker 6 I think there's a height limit for how tall you can be before you are unable to kiss the surface.

Speaker 6 Like, we know that Mornay Morkels, finn marco jansen these guys are too tall to to kiss the surface so what is it like if you're 6'2 you're no longer able to kiss the surface because the ball is coming from too steep an angle you have to be delivering it from slightly shorter than it just yeah off the surface how tall is james anderson 6'1 something like that that that's that's your limit james anderson can kiss the surface right because was broad ever accused of kissing the surface no he was floaty right when he when he tried to kiss it he was floaty yeah it's definitely a trajectory thing i think But this would suggest, wouldn't it, that, like, you know, most women bowlers are much, are shorter.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't even have to introduce Ekter Bisht again, although there's a second week running I've mentioned Ektabisht, but that's because she was 4'11 and bowled slow left arm. And was one of the

Speaker 2 really slow, 38 mile an hour slow. But in theory, therefore, loads and loads of women bowlers should kiss the surface.
So Shabnim Ishmael, would she be a classic kiss the surface bowler?

Speaker 2 Whereas Lauren Bell has no chance of kissing the surface, but most women should kiss the surface in that case.

Speaker 5 But here's another one: if a bowler's four foot eleven, can you hit them on the up?

Speaker 2 Oh,

Speaker 6 that's a yeah, that is a tickers. That is a cracker.
I do like that.

Speaker 2 This could be a David Richard Derek Tickner moment, you know. Robert, this could be our first of the series.

Speaker 6 Because kissing the surface also requires pace, I think. And maybe that's why the shorter women bowlers who aren't able to crank it up, Ishmael, she is the quintessential kisser of a surface.

Speaker 6 But I think there has to be some pace. We talk about Stain and Anderson, you know, they've got some wheels, as it were, that requires the kissing.

Speaker 6 If you're too slow, then there's a danger that you might bite into the surface. So I think when a kiss slows down, it becomes a bite, is what I would suggest.

Speaker 7 I think with kissing the surface, that trajectory comes into it quite a lot. It's kind of like, you know,

Speaker 7 skimming stones. You're You're kind of pinging it off the bitch.

Speaker 2 I think that's right. It's got to be that.

Speaker 7 You can't do that from a height.

Speaker 2 We're going to move on from kissing the surface because

Speaker 2 it's taking us down a terrible rabbit hole. Now, tickers,

Speaker 2 let's move on to something that you've tweeted about. First rule of Ashes catastrophe down under.
There should never be sympathy for those on a massive holiday in Australia. The real heroes.

Speaker 2 Sounds like you're talking about yourself here. The real heroes are shivering in the freezing cold at home, trying to operate on 90-minute sleep.

Speaker 2 I mean, the only cliche you didn't really use there was under the duvet, listening to Test Match Special.

Speaker 2 Are you the real heroes? I mean, I did an event the other day

Speaker 2 with a bunch of thoroughly likable people, I'm absolutely sure. And I got a show of hands after the test match and said, How many of you have come out here for just one test match? Right?

Speaker 2 There was a room of about 250 people. How many have come out for just one test match?

Speaker 2 About 70 arms shot up from very angry, very disgruntled people who had paid upwards of four and a half grand each with flights, hotels, tickets in order to watch a two-day test match.

Speaker 2 And you're saying that there can be no sympathy for these people, especially when they come.

Speaker 2 Imagine the one, you know, it doesn't have to be the wife, but often it was the case in this instance where there was a husband who had said, this is on my bucket list.

Speaker 2 I've just got to get to Australia to watch the ashes. And this really lovely, tolerant woman had said, Yeah, and sometimes it's the other way around.

Speaker 2 There were a couple like that, but the majority was the other way around, was the men forcing this stuff on their wives. And they've just spunk nine grand at the wall for two days of cricket.

Speaker 2 And however much I go, oh, but you'll always have the memory of that wonderful first day when England bowled better than you've ever seen in your life.

Speaker 2 It's cold comfort, even in a modestly warm Perth, isn't it?

Speaker 5 There was a brilliant couple I saw on the BBC.

Speaker 5 You just reminded me there, where a guy absolutely distraught. Like, clearly, this is the one Ashes test he's ever going to go and see in Australia, and he was in bits.

Speaker 5 And his wife was absolutely delighted that they were going to spend the next three days at wineries.

Speaker 6 She couldn't believe her luck.

Speaker 5 She was thrilled with it. It's such a classic story that you get at some point during the standard England catastrophe in Australia.

Speaker 5 I understand, like, it's an if you've got suddenly usually two, on this occasion, three days of column inches to fill and there's suddenly no cricket to do it, it's a it's quite an easy story to find angry England fans who've done their money and

Speaker 5 you know, like,

Speaker 5 you know, oh, I've pissed that up the wall and England, you know, they didn't think of me, did they? They've disgraced themselves.

Speaker 5 But I just think like the audience that these stories are supposedly for

Speaker 5 is back home in England, who've had six cans of Red Bull and had to do the school run while being able to see the concept of time itself.

Speaker 5 And they're freezing cold. And I'm not talking about me.
What do you mean, me?

Speaker 6 How dare you?

Speaker 5 This isn't me at all.

Speaker 2 Couldn't possibly. No.

Speaker 5 And it's like, and these stories, they're always full of pictures of like people doing this, you know, local newspaper compo face, but they're in a bar in Australia and the sun is shining and they've got a beer in their hands.

Speaker 5 And why are we supposed to feel sorry for them?

Speaker 2 I get where you're coming from.

Speaker 5 If you're going to Australia to watch England play cricket and your enjoyment of that trip hinges on whether or not England absolutely shit the bed, History's against you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you've gone on the wrong trip.

Speaker 2 You've gone on the wrong trip, haven't you? Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 6 you've absolutely not nailed that one yeah there was there was one couple who were talking about oh well we got a wine we got a wine tasting books and we're going to go to rotten side and it's like yeah you've you've just actually bagged yourself a an extra three days of holiday i i'm totally with tickers i think any sympathy should be with the people us back here dan daniel i think you're just saying this because you are there and you had to now fill some time but yeah that couple that were going on the on the wine tour having watched what was you know it was short but it was two days of great cricket.

Speaker 6 I mean, it was entertaining. So, I mean, that sounds like they're having the time of their life.
I don't feel sorry for them at all.

Speaker 2 Everybody says this on the TV, you know, they go on about how absolutely marvelous Perth is and you know, how lucky everybody is to be out here. Charlie knows as well as I do.

Speaker 2 It's basically hot Croydon. You're done in 48 hours.
You know, less than that.

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, as long as you don't want to do anything after 9:30 p.m., it's the perfect place to be.

Speaker 8 No, it's a shame, considering that it's sort of 5,000 miles from anywhere else that there isn't a bit more going on.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but they keep on banging on the on the TV, don't they? Oh, we've got the wonderful Margaret River. Never matter.
I mean, why are we all supposed to be in such thrall to Australian rivers?

Speaker 2 They're obsessed with their rivers. You know, the swan, this, the Margaret, that.
I'm sick to death of Australian rivers. I'm not bashing Australia.
All I'm saying is that it's just...

Speaker 5 You're bashing rivers.

Speaker 2 Look, I think the Danube I could get down with. But they don't do this in football, do they?

Speaker 2 They don't all go, oh, well, after a disappointing 4-1 loss in the Champions League against Paris-Saint-Germain, at least we've all got the opportunity to wander down the Seine.

Speaker 5 What a watercourse that is, by the way.

Speaker 2 Now, before we move on from this test and move on instead to a happy place for Dan Gallon, incidentally, much of which I managed to see in various open-air parks in Perth, because once the England game had finished,

Speaker 2 the big screens were showing South Africa, India against South Africa, I should say.

Speaker 2 But we do need to touch on TNT. And they had some pretty poor, and I thought, unfair press, really,

Speaker 2 and also some fairly nasty things in social media. I mean, it's difficult when you start

Speaker 2 a new broadcast. They're not Sky, so everybody's looking at this.

Speaker 2 And I've seen this happen with Talksport before, when Talksport might have done a perfectly good day on the radio, but where's John Arlett? He's dead. Where's Henry Blofeld? He's retired.

Speaker 2 And everybody gets very hot under the collar about it. But Charlie and I didn't manage to catch the coverage because we were over here.
So can you guys fill us in?

Speaker 2 What were the issues? Why was there such a kind of outcry about it?

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 it wasn't very good. And I know we are spoiled.
I think most people,

Speaker 5 you know, even if they're not particularly cricket fans, sort of acknowledge that sky's cricket coverage is some of the best sports coverage done by anyone anywhere.

Speaker 5 And it's not normal for it to be that good and anything else is going to be less good than that but i i had a lot of sympathy for pretty much everyone who was on air on tnt because it just felt like they were set up to fail like i don't even know what success looked like for the way they tried to do it there's there's fundamentally just not enough of them so they're they must be shattered because they're on air for such a long period of time you know between the sort of four or five of them they had it's such a small team to do a whole day's play and it just felt like yeah there were mistakes there were some quite sort of embarrassing blunders things that a more experienced cricket commentary team wouldn't have got wrong a cricket commentary team would have realized kawaja wasn't opening and that that was quite significant.

Speaker 2 If you are under scrutiny for being new to the sport, the very last thing you want to do is, as Tick has said, draw attention to your regular job in cycling with a Freudian slip of the tongue.

Speaker 2 Six for 22 his best. Of course, his captain

Speaker 2 moving on. We all know the injury troubles.

Speaker 2 And he looks fit and ready to go.

Speaker 2 It's Ben Spokes all the way to Green.

Speaker 5 I mean, that's quite funny. That's...
To bring the guy in from cycling and then have his big slip up be to call the England captain Ben Spokes.

Speaker 6 It's almost like he did it deliberately.

Speaker 6 Sometimes how commentators will, a mate will dare them to say something. Dan, I'm sure you've get this as well.

Speaker 6 It almost feels like his cycling mates were like, go on, I bet at some point, just call him Ben Spokes. It'll be funny.

Speaker 5 And I'll tell you what,

Speaker 5 it was a rare moment of levity. My biggest issue with it wasn't the mistakes.
It wasn't even the sort of irritating delays and sinking issues with the sound.

Speaker 5 It wasn't the fact that had to turn the crowd sound right down, so it just sounded like the atmosphere was completely dead.

Speaker 6 My issue with it was it was just dull.

Speaker 5 It felt like they're working so hard just to try and not fuck it up that there was no space left for anything other than the most sort of perfunctory get through this.

Speaker 5 Here's the information commentary imaginable. There was nothing, you know, like we talked about, and we all know that cricket commentary, like it, it's what happens in between, isn't it?

Speaker 5 There's fun and there's diversions and tangents and aside, and there was, there was nothing fun. They obviously, they don't all know each other.

Speaker 5 There's not that familiarity that you get with the Skylass. There's not the to-and-fro,

Speaker 5 you know, that you get with NASA and Athers and the rest of it. And when you're trying to watch a test match, it's through the night

Speaker 5 you need,

Speaker 5 even in a game that's two days long and absolutely packed full of nonsense, you need some help. You need something fun.
And I felt like Ebony tried to do it. Like she tried to inject that

Speaker 5 necessary sort of frivolity and levity to it.

Speaker 6 But it just felt, oh, it was hard work.

Speaker 5 That was the thing. It felt like hard work listening to it.

Speaker 6 Has anyone checked on Alistair Cook?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I've checked on Alistair Cook and poor old Stephen Finn. Is he okay?

Speaker 6 Because has he been wrapped in cottonwood? Because I was half expecting him to carry the drinks. He was doing so much.
I mean, he was basically on the entire time. He must be absolutely shattered.

Speaker 2 He was, because they were doing the breaks as well. You know, so they were doing the lunch and the tea.
And, you know, and Finney, I think, told me he did like 80% of the day's broadcast.

Speaker 2 Just to give you an insight back home, if you're wondering, you know, how a rotor works,

Speaker 2 and now you're just going to hate us all now because you think we're doing nothing. But on TMS, normally...

Speaker 2 you might do like a third of the day sometimes actually a little bit more than a quarter because we'll have usually three ball-by-ball commentators as an absolute minimum.

Speaker 2 And the summarisers will usually have four, so they'll do half an hour per session. But they will also be doing other stuff as well, right?

Speaker 2 So, some of those guys who are doing the half an hours will also be doing maybe the highlight show for the BBC or something like that.

Speaker 2 Or they might be working for another broadcaster if they're the overseas broadcaster, like if you had like Dinish Kartik or something like that, then they might be doing TV and a bit with us.

Speaker 2 But you'd never do really more than half of a day's play. Like, once you get into that realm, your problem is actually being fresh and having ideas.

Speaker 2 Commentators come in in cricket and they come in and sit down and they've had a chance to talk. They'll have a chance to go and talk to the likes of Charlie and go and have a chat with the journos.

Speaker 2 But you guys, Charlie, you must have had a similar thing because actually a lot of what a journal does is very similar. They're kind of digesting the game and trying to find insight.

Speaker 2 How on earth do you have insight where you hear yourself going, oh, well, Australia, they're running scared. They're frit of England.
They can't handle this bowling.

Speaker 2 And now, look, they're 99 ahead with nine wickets in hand. They're going to win 5-0.
And then by the end of it, your expertise is torn up. And you're going, oh, my God, they're absolutely useless.

Speaker 2 They're going to lose 5-0. So

Speaker 2 if you're trying to think about how you're going to write that, how on earth do you frame that as a commentator when all that is happening around you when you've got, and it's all happening in real time and you've got no opportunity to reflect i mean charlie it's got to be tough for you as a writer let alone as a broadcaster hasn't it yeah i mean i think you have to um

Speaker 6 leave things quite late basically um and it helps if you don't have too much of a deadline um because otherwise you can get some quite frantic final minutes of the session before we bring up the the the smallest violins for the cricket journalists i i do a lot of rugby as well and and i know nick um who's not on the pod does a lot of football Cricket is, because of the time, especially test match, is I would say the easiest sport to write about to meet those deadlines.

Speaker 6 But like you say, the hard thing is to come up with something original and to kind of have that flowing lyricism throughout a day.

Speaker 6 But even in a healthy scale of the game like the one we've just seen, writing about it, maybe that's why so many people want to write about it because it's kind of like the, it is, it is the easiest one to write about.

Speaker 6 But if you were on all day,

Speaker 6 occasionally in a previous life, I would have to to do lunch reports, tea reports, and then a final report.

Speaker 6 And that's sort of like what you're saying, Dan, the commentator being on throughout the whole day.

Speaker 6 And if you're doing three pieces a day, by the time you get to the end, you've sort of run out of words. And I think that was just what happened with TNT.

Speaker 6 In a way, I think we'll look back and it'll be a blessing that it only lasted two days because they could kind of get all the mistakes out of their system.

Speaker 6 And also they paid the price

Speaker 6 for not having a team there. TNT can afford to have a full-time crew in Australia.

Speaker 6 And I think they rightly get a bit of stick for trying to cheap out a little bit, for trying to kind of take shortcuts. This is the ashes.

Speaker 6 You know, I've made

Speaker 6 a lot of noise about how the ashes are overblown and overrated and real cricket was happening elsewhere.

Speaker 6 But of all the people that should have been taking it, giving it the gravitas, it was the ones who were bringing it to the English public weren't doing that.

Speaker 2 I mean, to give you a little bit of an insight, what it's like...

Speaker 2 if you're sat there and you don't have it's not your producer so they're what they're doing is they're getting the fox feed that's coming through to them.

Speaker 2 And then, if you get a graphic that comes up, and a lot of people kind of bagged Alastair Cook for, you know, not being sure about the graphic that appeared.

Speaker 2 If it's not your producer who's doing it, if it's the fox feed that you're getting, then you don't get any warning of that.

Speaker 2 So, you've then got to try to interpret this thing that you see in front of your eyes, and you've got to do it in real time.

Speaker 2 And this particular graphic that he was attacked for from memory was a really weird one. It was biomechanics.
I mean, this was even crazier than expected leaves, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 Since when have we started to have these weird geometric patterns?

Speaker 5 And the speed of the run-up and the L the wrist snap.

Speaker 7 The wrist snap. Yeah.

Speaker 5 You mentioned this as, oh, you know, this is going to be the problem they have with a rugby commentator and a cycling commentator that they're not going to know how to instantly on the fly interpret a cricket graphic.

Speaker 5 They then rocked up with cricket graphics that no one in cricket had ever seen before. So no one had a chance.
If you see that, and you've got no warning, it's coming.

Speaker 5 And I think Cook said something like, Oh, that's very clever, isn't it? Not sure what it's telling us.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it's like, Was this the weight? Was this the weight transfer graphic?

Speaker 5 Yeah, and the weight transfer one as well.

Speaker 2 What on earth is that?

Speaker 5 The brilliant thing about the weight transfer one, and I don't know if Australia's coverage they actually were able to interpret it, but brilliantly, and this is not a criticism of anyone on the TNT broadcast because who knows?

Speaker 5 No one actually knew what good numbers were. You know, what is a good way to...
Oh, he's 96% front foot and 4% back foot. Is he? Is that good? I don't know.

Speaker 6 And I still...

Speaker 2 It's number one, isn't it?

Speaker 2 It's actual literal number wang.

Speaker 5 That is number wang.

Speaker 7 The bowling one was very confusing. It was sort of flashing up on the TVs in the press box.
You thought, oh,

Speaker 7 a wrist snap of 65 miles an hour. Like, oh, that.
That must be good. And then they checked somebody else.
It was kind of, is it MNT2? You're like, oh, is that better or is that what? Like,

Speaker 7 yeah, I mean, we didn't have the sound.

Speaker 2 I'm trying it now, Charlie. And I reckon, I don't know.
I mean, I reckon it's, I can make, because a wrist snap is only going to be about, what, five inches, yeah? At most.

Speaker 7 It depends if you're going for a good length.

Speaker 2 I reckon I could do 72 mile an hour wrist snap.

Speaker 6 Chopper archer, I can do that, mate. What a fucking time to be alive, hey, Daniel.

Speaker 2 Don't you reckon?

Speaker 2 I don't know. I'm going to practice that all night now.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Look, I'm sad I missed all that, but we're going to leave TNT very shortly because, as I think we've said, they're all hiding to nothing. The technicals are tricky.

Speaker 2 If you've got a team back in London, on the first day, the first day I did BT sport for the third test of the last series, for example, everything went horribly wrong.

Speaker 2 Mark Ramprakash couldn't hear me in the next door cubicle. So the producer had to come into my ear and say, Daniel, Ramps can't hear you, by the way.

Speaker 2 So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to say your name and then you speak. And then I'm going to say Ramps' name and then he speaks.

Speaker 2 And because it was COVID, it was 2021, we were in separate cubicles with a window between us. And so I would say something, you know, Anna Dina ridiculous.
Lovely shot, great wrist snap.

Speaker 2 He got right on top of the bounce there,

Speaker 2 hitting the ball on the up, showing how to hit the ball on the up, you know, down to the bounty for that kind of drivel.

Speaker 5 84% front foot weight transfer.

Speaker 2 All of that.

Speaker 2 Although possibly not then four years ago, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 If I'd had that graphic, I would just have lent into it. And then I'd hear, you know, pause, and then Ramp spoke, and we were in soundproof booths.
I just turned and stared at him.

Speaker 2 And then it went Daniel again. And all I could do is go, I couldn't agree with you more, Ramp.
And move on.

Speaker 2 Because what else are you supposed to do? So, look, it's really hard when broadcasters take over stuff

Speaker 2 for the first time.

Speaker 2 And it's even harder when they choose to do things from split sites and it's even harder when they choose only to have like four or five broadcasters doing it and two of them are completely exhausted in the middle of the night in England and two of them are completely exhausted because they're doing 80% of the game and then you add on top of that that 19 wickets fall on the first day so I tip my hat to Alistair Cook Stephen Finn and everyone else involved in the broadcast

Speaker 2 sorry lads you did you did really well and I'm sure things will get better in Brisbane.

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Speaker 2 There is one last comment here from Kathy, who asked about the TNT commentary. She says, Mohanis Labachain hit a six to take them to one run required.

Speaker 2 And the commentary was, and Australia edge towards victory.

Speaker 2 Can you edge to victory at that stage? Not with a six. No.

Speaker 5 Being close to a target doesn't preclude you from edging towards it. But if you're two wickets down and you hit a six, you're not edging towards anything here.

Speaker 2 You edge towards victory at Trent Bridge in 2005. Yes.
That's when you edge towards victory. You don't edge towards victory two'd out.
Yeah, the number of wickets is crucial. It is crucial, actually.

Speaker 2 And now you've just reminded me of something else I wanted to get into because

Speaker 2 I think we've got just enough time to do this very, very quickly. England had a collapse, a massive collapse, right? And it was variously described on various platforms as bundled out, skittled out.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if anybody said calypso collapso, but I'd be absolutely staggered if somebody didn't or even tried to work out some kind of, I don't know, pun on basball that has the word collapse in it.

Speaker 2 You'll have to do really well to do that.

Speaker 2 But I've got to, I want to go around the group very quickly and ask about the difference between a bundle and a skittle, because we talk about this a lot on air.

Speaker 2 And to me, you know, you can be bundled out for anything under about 230.

Speaker 2 But to be skittled out, it's got to be well under 200. I think skittling is under 160 myself.
And

Speaker 2 I guess

Speaker 2 it's how it's done. Speed.
Speed is important, isn't it, guys?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I definitely think speed's important. And perhaps the order in which, well, the manner in which the wickets fell.
So if you lose

Speaker 7 a lot of early wickets and then sort of limp to a very low total, that feels more skittly. Whereas the sort of England 100 for two,

Speaker 7 160 all out is a slight sort of you're just sort of bundled.

Speaker 2 Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Yes, I hadn't thought about that.
Okay, so the nature of the collapse. So does skittling have to take place, guys?

Speaker 2 Does that have to take place sort of in a regular fashion?

Speaker 2 You're losing wickets every sort of 15 runs.

Speaker 2 If you get a partnership of any kind, does that preclude the skittling?

Speaker 5 I've never really thought of that.

Speaker 6 I think it does.

Speaker 5 I certainly think that, yeah, that the skit, that skittling is less than bundling.

Speaker 5 You can definitely, you are skittled out for a lower score than you're bundled out. Now I think about it, I think Charlie's nailed it there.

Speaker 5 I think there is, there's a regularity to a skittling, that it all happens sort of as a procession, whereas bundling has a sort of slow, slow, quick element to it that, you know, like you're, you're walking along and you're bundled into the back of a car by a masked man.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's exactly it.

Speaker 5 That's the bundling, that it suddenly all falls apart in a bundling.

Speaker 2 Can I give you the perfect bundling in that case?

Speaker 6 Go for it.

Speaker 2 England against Bangladesh might have been Chilligong. They were set 160 odd.

Speaker 2 They were around about 80, 90, 100 without loss at T.

Speaker 2 And then they lost all their wickets in a.

Speaker 5 Yeah, 10 wickets in a session.

Speaker 2 So if they hadn't had that partnership, they would have been skittled. But because of the partnership, they were bundled as they were.
Definitely bundled.

Speaker 5 Definitely not skittled.

Speaker 7 Yeah, you have to be minding your own. I think you have to be minding your own business, sort of poodling along on the squad.
Yes.

Speaker 7 And then you just get bundled and it's sort of like, oh God, what happened there? Whereas skittled is you never really you never got set.

Speaker 7 You just sort of ah everything everything's skittled from underneath.

Speaker 6 So then is it just one partnership?

Speaker 2 It's like walking out of your house and not realising that it's been the first frost of the day and you've and you've slid from under suddenly there's icy patches on the ground.

Speaker 2 That's or you lose a wicket in the first over.

Speaker 2 So at like at wherever it was when they were pulled out for sixty Trent Bridge or whatever by by broad, that's an absolute genuine skittling because wickets went in the first over. Yeah.

Speaker 6 So then is it just a case of, you know, the runs are immaterial.

Speaker 6 You could be bundled out for 150 and skittled out for 150, but as long as there's just a single partnership, it turns a skittling into a bundling.

Speaker 6 If you've got a partnership of, say, 50 and you still bowled out for 150, you're bundled out. But if there's only a high partnership of, say, 22, that becomes a skittling.

Speaker 2 I think this might be the first time, nearly two episodes into this that we've actually come up with some kind of coherent answer to one of these questions i think we have actually i think we might have nailed it we've solved something there haven't we we're getting our iron we're getting our iron we are getting our i hid getting set i hope no one bundles us how do you know when someone's got their iron i think you know when they've got their iron when they're able to hit balls on the iron on top of the bounce that's right they're seeing it like a bean ball with a vertical bat shot you hit you hit a bowler off their good length um basically we're running out of time to go anywhere near South Africa, and that does not displease me, Dan.

Speaker 2 I want this to be a kind of tantric experience where every week we can nearly talk about how South Africa are not only World Test champions, but have just beaten India 2-0.

Speaker 2 They've whitewashed them in a two-match series, whatever that may be, whatever a two-match series is as well. So where I want to finish today is with what I'm going to term crickets absolutists.

Speaker 2 We know about the widespread use of the modifier absolute in football punditry and commentary, but it's very much in play of the cricket as well let's go let's let's do a countdown um

Speaker 2 dick it down

Speaker 2 ticket down kick it down kick it down kick it down

Speaker 5 down in at three it's baroness hardly of absolute this is now just beginning to look rather ugly from her england 161 for seven stark has put on an absolute clinic here today

Speaker 2 Gotta love it. Dana down down, dick it down, kick it down, kick it down.
In at two, it's the knight of the Absolute Realm. It's Alistair Cook.

Speaker 13 You don't need to get him on the front foot if you can bowl balls like that. An absolute seed from Cass.

Speaker 13 He's absolutely flown off the length. He's an absolute brute.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 at number one, the absolute queen of it all. Take a bow.
Ebony

Speaker 2 Rainford Brent.

Speaker 14 That's edged. That's taken.
England have their third wicket. Steve Smith is gone.

Speaker 13 And it's a huge one.

Speaker 14 England bowlers bowling in as an absolute unit today. This is brilliant.

Speaker 7 Caught behind.

Speaker 15 And that took over five minutes for umpire Shafadullah to decide. The fans are perplexed.
And I think looking at the expressions around the commentary box, as are we.

Speaker 13 I have to be honest, they've gone around the absolute houses there to make a decision.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, where do we begin?

Speaker 2 Absolutely the best of all absolutes. And we all do it.
We've all got our own words.

Speaker 2 I think Artif Nawaz has one. We've all got one.
I think it's something like

Speaker 2 it's not absolutely or tremendous or completely, but it's something like that. I've got one.
I say glorious all the time, but there's something about absolute which brooks no argument, team.

Speaker 2 And it might be my favorite tick. Are we going to give them absolution, Charlie?

Speaker 5 The way Alice approaches absolute seed slightly struck me as someone trying to sort of fit in with the cool kids he's he didn't i don't think his heart was quite in it he'd sort of sounded like a term he'd heard and thought oh this is what people say it felt very sort of when in rome didn't it you know he's in australia i'm gonna i'm gonna try out an absolute seed see how it fits i don't think he liked it no it was a bit there was something a bit off well tickers said absolute seed last week so we know that alistair cook listens to the pod yeah that was this comes back to my point last week doesn't it that seed is not the same as cherry or pill as just another word for ball.

Speaker 5 It's an absolute seed.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, it's a good ball.

Speaker 2 I've got to tell you now, I know Alistair quite well, and I'm pretty sure he can't operate any kind of technical machinery. So the chances of him listening to this podcast are next to zero.

Speaker 5 Farm machinery.

Speaker 6 Yeah, he could do that.

Speaker 2 He can ride a tractor, all right, but there is absolutely no way he can find his way to Spotify or Apple Pods or anything like that. That's just not going to happen.
He's lost.

Speaker 2 We mentioned it last week, though,

Speaker 2 about when you find yourself next to an Aussie and you'll say seed. And I totally get that.
But the thing about TNT's coverage was that there were no Aussies anywhere near him.

Speaker 2 He was being, he was in a tightly cocooned space. He didn't have to say seed.
Seed pod.

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 2 It's just what this place does to you. It's what this place does to you.
It's just, oh my God, I'm starting to talk like I'm eating avocados on toast. I mean,

Speaker 2 I got myself smoked salmon, eggs benedict the other day, and it came on a four-poster bed of bloody spinach and asparagus and pomegranate seeds.

Speaker 5 Absolute pomegranate seeds.

Speaker 2 They were festooned all over it. It was amazing.

Speaker 2 But we have knighted, I said we've knighted, we've done more than knighted. We've actually anointed the queen, the queen of absolute Ebony Rainford Brent.

Speaker 2 And I'm very happy to do that because she's my number one.

Speaker 2 Right. I think it's time that we just

Speaker 2 bundled ourselves off, got skittled out into the uh, into wherever we are in the open air, and um,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 go on the up. I need to get on the up, I need to go out to dinner and play some vertical bat shots as I choose.
I don't, I can't extend that metaphor any further, it's painful to work as an outro.

Speaker 2 It was, it was terribly, deeply painful.

Speaker 2 I'd obviously put next to no thought into it, but it it sort of occurred to me that if I could just sit down just like an England batter trying to run one down of a good length. Exactly.

Speaker 2 Do you know what I did, guys? Do you know what I did there?

Speaker 2 I raw-dogged it.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't talk about it.

Speaker 2 You know who raw-dogged this week? Travis Head.

Speaker 2 According to many an Australian, both on-air and off-air, he raw-dogged that 100 because he came into it entirely unprepared and he did what he needed to do.

Speaker 2 He took England down in a variety of magical ways. He played more balls on the up than you can shake a stick at.
And as Dan pointed out earlier, he played some balls underneath the up,

Speaker 2 which is a phrase that no one has yet ever heard, but I intend to bring it in.

Speaker 2 Thank you all so much. If you have been listening to this second episode of Cricket Clichés, thank you to Dan Gallon, to Charlie Reynolds making his debut and taking his cap.
What a

Speaker 2 time to be alive.

Speaker 2 And to David Robert Derek Tickner, who I think actually

Speaker 2 today,

Speaker 2 he's done it. He's done it.
He's got it. He's got the accolade.
We've been cricket clichés. I've been Daniel Norcross, and hopefully, I will remain so for a little while longer.

Speaker 2 Until next time, thank you for joining us. Goodbye.

Speaker 11 This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.