The Final Word live in London (& discount code)

Hello friends, welcome to Week 2 of July. Two days of breathing space before the first of three women's ODIs, while there's a week and a bit until the next men's Test. We've done six Tests and three T20s in the space of 39 days. 

For context on how crammed this summer has been, ten years ago today was when Ashton Agar made his 98 at Trent Bridge... to start the first match of the series. 

We've also had an incredible response to the show, with over half a million audio downloads since June 1. We used to take a year to do that many. Couldn't have got here without the support from all of you. 

The live show

It's on July 26, the night before The Oval match, at The Phoenix pub in central London, next to Oxford Circus station. Time is 7pm for 7:30. It's in the downstairs room and we have our own bar. 

Steven Finn is our special guest, as well as live Story Time

Tickets for you all on Patreon are half price when you put in a code at checkout. The page is fiddly but there are instructions there. The code will only apply to the first ticket, so if you have multiple Patreon folk in a group then they'll each need to do their own booking. 

Please keep the code to yourselves: FINALNERD

At the ticket link here. 

Over rate police, arrest this man

Season 14, Episode 23: Finally, a normal weekly show. Plenty going on, with both men's Ashes teams getting clobbered for slow over rates, deservedly, and the women's Ashes teams gearing up for the three ODIs that will decide the destination of the trophy. Also this week, India get ready for some Caribbean Test cricket, Dominica is back on the schedule after its awful hurricane, the Bangladesh Prime Minister gets herself involved in a Tamim Iqbal story, the Dutch reach the ODI World Cup, and we talk to Cam Ponsonby from Houston ahead of Major League Cricket.

Your Nerd Pledge number for this week:
2.24 - David Whiteley

Audio is here.

The Final Word Daily

It's been a big span for the Daily. While Adam and Bharat did the Headingley preview, Geoff and Henry Moeran did the second women's T20 at The Oval before a mad dash to Leeds overnight for the Test, where Geoff and Adam took over, before Henry went back to Lord's on the third evening for the third women's T20 at Lord's to co-ordinate Melissa Story and Alex Hartley joining the guest host roster. 

Here's the second and third T20 shows.

And the Headingley Test days one, two, three and four.

Plus Bharat's preview and story of tangling with Yorkshire police.

The Headingley morning after show

Three Tests, three close finishes, according to the Association of Cricket Statisticians definition. An unprecedented start to an Ashes series.

No  play on what would have been the last day, but plenty to think about. Who has come out of it well, who has struggled, what are some of the moves that might come next? And what is Jeremy Coney's favourite indie rock band of the early 2000s? From Adam's back garden. 

The audio is here.

Welcome new Julios

Lastly, a bunch of new patrons have arrived in recent weeks. How many wickets does James Anderson have? That would be 688. How many patrons do we have right now? That would be 688. 

Farewell to those who have sailed on, and hello to:

Gareth Wilson
Rachel Napier
Chris Bates
Deborah Bui
Owen Beynon
Vishwanath
Sophia Coningham
Phil Berendt
Conor Roche
Barry Quinn
Adam Bedford
Matthias Hine
Cam Amos
Andrew Birch
Cal Mac
Mitchell Adam
Tim John
Bradley Waring
Stephen J

Lots of love to all of you, it's been great to see so many smiling TFW faces at matches over the last few weeks. Here's to more meetups. If you're going to a Test, get on the Discord channel to get involved. Message us if you need help with that. 

And we'll see some of you at the live show.