The Final Word reviews Wisden 2021

Season 9, Ep 29: It's that time again: new Wisden Almanack time. In what has become a tradition – three years makes a tradition, right? – we sat down with Almanack editor Lawrence Booth to go through the pages of The Good Book and get his explanation of all that lies therein. The Wisden Five Cricketers, the essays, the editor's notes, and more. A fascinating year in retrospect, with all of the uncertainty and improvisation that was so unlovely to live through, but will make absorbing history.

Video is above, audio is here. If you have any thoughts on what we're doing with the weekly show video, shoot us a message. It's pretty basic at this stage, but we figure that works for the podcast medium. It's all a trial stage at the moment.

Also we mention on the show that Dr Peter English is doing a survey for Sunshine Coast University survey on The Final Word to help study podcast audiences. You can click here to participate.

Your new Nerd Pledge numbers:

7.28 – Hugh Moorhead
2.78 – Sami Dowd

What else? Not to spam, but you can get the Almanack at a fat discount if you subscribe in the UK at wisdenalmanack.com/2021. We're not sure if the WM30 code is working for discounts in Australia and the US, but we'll clarify that by next week.

You definitely can get 20% off kit from the top-notch supplier Woodstock Cricket here with the code TFW20 .

Story Time 42 – Selfish batting

We're busy recruiting for our tours to Brazil and Pakistan when (hopefully) the planet allows for such a thing in 2022: on The Final Word, we Dera to Dream. From there, straight into our work on Story Time for another weekend, looking at an unexpected captain then a peculiar omission following a Test double ton. We finish off with a trio of our favourites: Simon Katich, the Wild Thing and one of Pakistan's finest century-crushers.

Hear the show here. 

Your new Nerd Pledge numbers:

2.56 – Harry HHH Howard
5.44 – Joe Reinhard
2.17 – Hamish Stares and Richard Casamento
2.46 – Christopher Byrne
3.84 – Will Day & Kris Swales

Plus revisits and confirmations.

The Indian Premier League

Plenty going on over at YouTube with the IPL, too. We've hit on a new format for covering the tournament without going mad trying to do every game: it's called The Speed Round. Not unfamiliar for those who've heard our Lightning Rounds on the weekly show. Episode 1 is here if you're curious. We also did a live watchalong with Daniel Norcross – on his birthday! – gamely filling in while Adam looked after a sick baby. It must be said, even when very sad and snotty, Winnie still wanted to wave.