thefinalword

Jasprit Bumrah arrives by parachute

Season 9, Ep 8: Australia’s Test season faces new turmoil, with any means necessary being considered to deploy cricketers across the length and breadth of the continent. The WBBL heads towards its business end with the previously busted-arse Stars now a lean mean scoring machine, whose only weakness is the biggest battlers in the comp. England’s men head to South Africa while the remnants of Cricket South Africa’s old regime do their best to destroy the tour. Plus the n...

The Final Word Live with Stuart MacGill - full video

For those who couldn't be there live, our session with the wonderfully honest SCG MacGill. 

This video is set to patrons only, so please do us a favour and keep it to yourselves. Thanks in advance.

Special thanks to Peter Lewis for helping set up the Zoom. If you have any thoughts about the show, and whether we should do more / less / differently, hop in the message inbox. 

I want to rock all night and attend the Sheffield Shield every day

Season 9, Ep 7: Final Word friend Bharat Sundaresan has spent the past month in Adelaide rocking out at the First Annual Sheffield Shield Party Carnival Fiesta. He joins us to fill in all the details we might have missed among the centuries and bags of wickets, having watched all the players in similar conditions. Who's up, who's down, who's in, who's out? Bharat and Katy Perry know.

Also, Virat Kohli's paternity leave, how the WBBL teams are faring, Winnie's citizenshi...

TFW Live with Stuart MacGill

Here we go! The show will start at 8pm AEDT or on the relevant hour in your timezone. This link will take you into the waiting room from 15 minutes before the hour.

There will be a text chat bar in the Zoom room if anyone has any problems or questions.

This show is for patrons on this site, so if anyone else would like to come, they’re free to as soon as they sign up (but please keep the link to yourself).

2020-11-12 07:51:08 +0000 UTC View Post

Cricket and BLM, with Ebony Rainford-Brent

We may not have sent out last week's episode yet given the US election came along, but it featured an eye-opening interview.

Season 9, Ep 6: Our first long interview in 2020 was with Ebony Rainford-Brent, when the world looked very different. Nine months on, the former England player has been a prominent voice as cricket addresses the Black Lives Matter movement, and has received a big boost to the ACE program that she initiated to get more black English players into th...

Sacking South Africa, with Lungani Zama

Season 9, Ep 5: This week, the entire board at Cricket South Africa finally gave in to outside pressure and resigned. The extent of wrongdoing via a recent financial investigation remains hidden. Investigative journalist Lungani Zama joins us to analyse the developments and what comes next. In better news for South Africa, England’s tour will go ahead. India’s squads for Australia are named, the WBBL go...

The T20 Disease, with Jarrod Kimber

Season 9, Ep 4: Guess who forgot to post the episode last week? It was... someone else! If you missed it, it's a good one. Previously on the show we talked about the positives of T20 with the IPL up and firing. This time we’re looking at the downsides of the many leagues, a newly developed Wild West that Jarrod Kimber has explored professionally and personally and can now offer a frank appraisal. Speaking of T20, we’ve got our full preview of all the teams in the Women’...

Into the IPL, with Ben Jones

Season 9, Ep 3: It’s the halfway point of the Indian Premier League, the time when you can start to see the trends, the patterns, the improvers, the declines. This week we get T20 analyst Ben Jones to give us the in-depth info on all of that and more. We’ll also look at the ODI winning streak from Australia’s women, the start of the Sheffield Shield, and top it off with Happy Birthday Sachin.

Your Nerd Pledge numbers:

4.29 – Peta Dowling <...

Smithy, get the guitar

Season 9, Ep 2: Steve Smith is giving out free love on the free love highway and good on him for it. Something about those Dubai hotel rooms. In the same part of the world, Ashwin is preparing himself to Mankad, we’re also with him all the way on The Final Word. Back in England, the strangest summer has come to a close – we speak with The Guardian’s Ali Martin about how it happened and what the future entails. And in Australia, Meg’s Lanning record-breaking team conti...

The Batmobile, Bob Willis, and summer Down Under

Season 9, Ep 1: It's a new Final Word season. Cricket starts in Australia and the dial turns. What did we do in the last week week? Geoff has been calling the Australia-NZ games in Brisbane, Adam the Bob Willis Trophy Final in London. Oh, and he bought a Batmobile. That’s nowhere near as impressive as our guest Lloyd Scott doing the Three Peak Challenge in a deep-sea diving suit – to be filed under good cricket people doing good things. Nerd Pledge, Happy Birthday Sachin,...

The Final Word with Alison Mitchell

Season 8, Ep 30: Measured, erudite, and always the best prepared in the game – Alison Mitchell has become one of the most broadly heard voices on cricket around the world. That didn’t happen by accident. Starting nearly two decades ago when she was the runner on Richie Benaud’s TV broadcast, Ali has worked her way through the county reporting circuit and assignments in distant countries all the way to Test cricket and the Olympic Games. She talks us through the trip fro...

Channel Seven's big cash heist

Season 8, Ep 28: Two years ago the Seven Network bought TV rights to great fanfare. Now they're refusing to pay. The free-to-air broadcaster has Cricket Australia in a tough spot, by withholding the cash required to run the game unless CA agrees to rewrite the contract. And it all sounded so rosy when both parties were talking up the hundreds of millions to be spent not long ago. We have ESPNcricinfo's Daniel Brettig on to talk the details of what could turn into a legal war ...

Australia's choke, the Afghan Mankad, and farewell Bell

Season 8, Ep 27: A bit late posting this week, sorry, it's been a hectic one. Casting our minds back, we saw quite the choke. Australia's T20 series against England started with a dominant position that somehow turned into a loss. England bossed the second, and Australia got one back via Mitchell Marsh when both teams were changed up for the third. Adam came straight from the comm box to this show via a few wrong turns on the motorway with all the details.

In other news...

The Final Word with Trent Woodhill

Season 8, Ep 26: Trent Woodhill is one of the most versatile people in cricket: coach, trusted mentor, adviser, ideas man. This was a good time to pick his brain, from the bubble in Southampton where he is currently on tour as one of Justin Langer’s assistant coaches. Daniel Norcross is riding shotgun this week, with Geoff buried in editing his book, so we looked at England's T20 internationals against Pakistan (past) and Australia (future), reviewed the legacy of Coli...

You hear that, Mr Anderson? That is the sound of 600 wickets.

Season 8, Ep 25: That is the sound of inevitability. No matter who didn't believe it, James Anderson's march did not stop towards the mark that only three spinners had achieved before, 600 wickets in Tests. The Final Word this weeks looks at his work on the last day of the Pakistan-England series, as well as others like Azhar, Buttler, Crawley, Babar and Rizwan. The Australian men take the first ever chartered flight from Perth to Derby direct, the Australian women prepare fo...

The Dhoni Touch, by The Bloodhound Gang

Season 8, Ep 24: The great MSD has put the cue in the rack, for India at least. In the circumstances, there was nobody better to get back on the show than Bharat Sundaresan, author of The Dhoni Touch. 

We also get our light-meters out after a frustrating second Test between England and Pakistan at Southampton. That's where Australia's men are heading, their white-ball squad named during the week. Unfortunately the same can't be said for South Africa's women. We als...

Geoff's preview chapter

Hi all, here's that chapter we mentioned from my new manuscript. We're mid-editing now and this chapter might end up being split and moved around a bit, so this is likely the only look at it the way I first wrote it. I like this as a standalone essay, so you might too. It'll be a glimpse into how structural editing works once you see the final product. 

Please don't pass this on to anyone outside Patreon, as that would run me into trouble with my publisher. Thanks. 

2020-08-13 06:51:19 +0000 UTC View Post

The week when Chris Woakes wakes

Season 8, Ep 23: Comebacks don’t get much more  stylish. England's memorable turnaround in Manchester came when Woakes  and Jos Buttler produced a partnership that will be long celebrated.  Sleep deprived at both ends of the show, we run a half-closed eye over  the Test that was, as well as Ireland’s one-day win over England just  beforehand. The Women’s World Cup has been shunted back a year for  reasons that don’t stack up. Time for a b...

The Green Machines

Season 8, Ep 22: As Ireland, one of cricket’s green machines, prepare to leave England, Pakistan are ready for their Test series at Old Trafford. Zainab Abbas, journalist and TV presenter, chats to us about Azhar Ali’s men and her own remarkable recent rise to fame. 

We recorded this before Ireland's last-up win over the English, so we'll be looking at that next time, don't you worry. Also, more departures at CA and the WBBL, and Australia’s men almost sure t...

An Irish episode with no Irish clichés

Season 8, Ep 21: A bonus episode for Patreon folk, being the fifth in the month. The Irish are coming, and what better time than before their games against England to sit down with their CEO Warren Deutrom to tell us their story from when he took over before St Patrick’s Day at the 2007 World Cup to the present day as a Test nation. The problems and challenges though are as steep as they have ever been. 

Before that, Stuart Broad takes his 500th Test wicket ...

England level the Windies, and every Cup is on the move

It’s 1-1 and the Wisden Trophy is the series that keeps on giving. Another last-day finish, another good fight, another fine bit of comedic timing from Stuart Broad. We go through the best and and rest. An ICC meet has finally taken place, and it’ll be WorldCuppapalooza in the next three years now the 2020 edition has been delayed. India’s women can’t get to England with travel bans, Sachin has been busy as ever, Barry Jarman left this plane of existence, the deeply crook House of Lor...

How England won the World Cup (and lost the first Test back)

Season 8, Ep.19: Exactly a year from that famous day at Lord's we're joined by Nick Hoult to discuss his new book that gives all the detail you didn't know about England’s triumph. We also, thankfully, get to talk about the first Test match of the covid era, as the West Indies rallied gloriously to knock off the hosts late on the final afternoon at Southampton. What a joy to have it back.  

Your Nerd Pledge numbers this week are:  

Cricket is back! England prepares the Bio-Dome

Season 8, Ep. 17: At last. England are hosting West Indies this week in the first of three Tests and we couldn’t be happier. Vithushan Ehantharajah joins us to talk about the Southampton Bio-Dome he’s about to enter and the most unusual series he’s about to cover. Back in Australia, the road ahead is a less clear after a troubling week on the Covid front.  

And there's a bonus Episode 18: Commentary with Ian Smith.

To save on posts, let...

The many sides of South Africa's political brawl

Season 8, Ep 16: Amidst ongoing fighting that predates the virus crisis, South African cricket writer Telford Vice joins the show to explain the conflict in South African cricket. A long investigation into the suspended CEO will soon have a result while a carload of high-ranking staff have been sacked. The divisions are deep but as ever, it's complicated.

Meanwhile Covid continues to confuse matters in Australia, and England's men prepare to take on the West Indies in t...

The Final Word with William McInnes

Season 8, Ep 15: As promised – our chat with one of Australia’s favourite sons, William McInnes. You know him as an actor and a writer, but before that he was a cricket obsessive and remains one to this day. But our long and winding conversation went to more than simply why he cites Rick McCosker in the acknowledgement section of all his books - we also canvassed fatherhood, leadership, youth and grief. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we did recording it. &...

Exit Kevin Roberts, pursued by a bear

Season 8, Ep 14: That happened fast. At the start of the corona crisis all looked rosy at Cricket Australia with the women winning the World Cup in front of a packed MCG and the men’s Test team getting back to the top of the world. 

But was this always destined to be the new CEO's fate given the baggage he brought to the role? And how did he misread the room so badly over the last couple of months? 

2020-06-18 07:37:51 +0000 UTC View Post

VAT tax info for Europe, and Tsar Nicholas II

We think we've worked out a tax solution. People in Australia and in the USA are not liable to begin with, so let us know if you see any charges. People in EU countries and the UK are already paying VAT on their pledges because Patreon would have to process exemptions individually.

However, you legally shouldn't have to pay VAT because you're supporting the show rather than buying a service. 

So what you can do is go into your Profile Setting...

The Final Word with Mark Nicholas, Part I

Season 8, Ep 12: While working on their Calling The Shots documentary, Adam and Daniel Norcross recorded an extremely detailed conversation with Mark Nicholas. We decided it was too good not to release in full. It begins with Mark’s childhood fascination with commentary before moving through his own varied and celebrated career behind the microphone across the cricketing world over the last 25 years. Geoff dials in from the 12-hour train ride between Melbourne and Sydney, a...

CrickiLeaks

Season 8, Ep 11: The BCCI is fuming after some sensitive correspondence found its way to the public. Things the BCCI don’t want you to Be See(ing) with your See(ing) Eye. What got leaked, and why are they mad? Plans for the T20 World Cup still haven’t been finalised after an ICC meeting got cancelled in the aftermath. Detectives are on the case. Want to know more? Join us in this darkened underground car park.  

Also this week we’ll look at the WACA cracking ...

New tax info (not scary) and a poem (also not scary)

Hey all. Patreon says they'll email you shortly about a bunch of countries and US states adding sales tax (or GST or VAT) to pledges.

This shouldn't be a problem for us, because we've set our tax settings to indicate that you're supporting the show rather than specifically buying anything. Which means that tax won't apply. 

There are lots of jurisdictions, so if you do see a tax charge then let us know where you are in the world and we'll check it out.

Just so that this...