Season 8, Ep 10: Bonus episode for May, no charge.
It's one year since the start of the 2019 World Cup – the time of our cricketing lives. To mark the anniversary, we talk to a funny man we spent a lot of time with each Monday morning of the tournament, RadioX’s Toby Tarrant.
Back...
2020-05-27 08:34:19 +0000 UTC View Post
At the start of last year, Adam and I took the show independent. We had been with a couple of big news publications, but they had conventions that were limiting. So we joined the small podcast label Bad Producer, among a handful of other shows, and now our episodes could be whatever we wanted: longer or shorter as desired, shifting structure by the week, going to daily shows when that idea came up, f...
2020-05-22 03:03:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 8, Ep 9. A quick FYI for supporters who donate per episode – this will be the last for May, given it's our fourth. There will be a fifth episode published in May but we don't charge for five in a month. Let's think of them as bonus eps. Much love to you all.
This week: we shouldn’t, but we couldn’t help ourselves. Somehow we all keep getting sucked in by Shane Warne being an old man yelling at a cloud shaped like Steve Waugh. There are numbers though, and r...
2020-05-21 02:20:06 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 8, Ep 8: We've been wanting to speak to Megan Schutt on the pod for years. It was worth the wait. The world’s top-ranked seamer told us her story, from tough times in the schoolyard to reaching the top of the cricketing world and everything in between. She’s a gem. Also, in the news: Warnie’s mural and Monty’s couch - both welcome distractions as we try to work out what will be of this English summer. There’s happier news for Australia, with India now very mu...
2020-05-12 12:20:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Oh, what a night. Thanks to everyone who came along into the Zooper Dooper Zoom Room, we had a fine old time.
If you couldn't be there, or you want to revisit the magic, or if you want to excise part of our chat for your wedding march or your funeral song, here's the video in full.
This is an unlisted link intended for those of you who've joined this site, so do us a favour and don't post it anywhere, hey? (Ok, yes, if you have a sad broke friend whose day will be markedly i...
2020-05-08 08:03:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 8, Ep 7. More segments than a juicy Valencia orange. A new Statman chases the grandest cricket number of all. The Milk Round tests out new dairy abominations. Ever heard a man drink 1.8 litres of milk? Is this a cricket show or Who Dares Wins? Happy Birthday Sachin sees the Master back to doing what he does best. Nerd Pledge goes down a different tangent to usual.
Izzy Westbury joins the show to talk through English cricket cancelling The Hundred. Harbhajan Singh is chasin...
2020-05-07 11:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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The broadcast uses a video program called Zoom. The smoothest option would be for you to install Zoom on your comput...
2020-05-07 03:50:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Look we’re not saying it’s a good idea, but this was a large part of tonight’s recording session...
2020-05-04 11:31:58 +0000 UTC View PostAfter Bruce Dawe died on April 1, we read his perfect football poem on the show. A few people have asked about it since, so here is Geoff's version on its own.
2020-05-03 11:56:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 8, Ep 6: It’s quiz time. Official brain genius J. Liew joins us from the Guardian for a proper dive into an overflowing heap of Nerd Pledge numbers. Before that we’ve got Daniel Brettig from Cricinfo for an update on Cricket Australia’s problems with its relationships and its money bin. We’ve got cricket up and running in Vanuatu with the mighty Mele Bulls taking a title over the Powerhouse Sharks.
We’ve got the most special episode yet of Happy Birthda...
2020-05-01 09:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
May 7 is our online Final Word Live, with Damien Fleming. If you've ever wanted to sit in on one of our interviews, now's your chance.
This will be available to everyone who joins our Patreon before or during the show. You can set whatever $ amount you like and can cancel anytime. We'll put up a patron-only post with the link shortly before the show.
If you or your friends want to attend without joining Patreon, one-off tickets are listed at thefinalword.bigcartel.com. We’ll ema...
2020-04-24 01:01:53 +0000 UTC View Post
S8, Ep5. You thought cricket was safe in the south? Think again. CA is shutting down operations to avoid running out of cash. Questions and accusations abound. Are they broke yet? Will they stiff the players? Did they lose it all playing the stock market? We talk to newshound Peter Lalor to separate fact from misunderstanding.
Also: which of the Mighty Ducks actually deserved to play for Team USA? Will Glenn Maxwell captain Australia A in an unofficial Test agains...
2020-04-22 04:30:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Lara is down! We were aiming for 375 supporters and we passed it today. You’re all utterly wonderful, helping two idiots do something they love.
As our way of thanks, here is friend of the show (FOTS) Sunny Munn doing his lockdown version of Marvellous, complete with stunts. What timing.
Next aim? Maybe it should be Hanif Mohammad’s 499, the first-class marker that inspired Lara’s 501.
2020-04-16 11:40:00 +0000 UTC View Post
S8, Ep4. With no cricket on, everyone in England watched replays of the Headingley Test over the weekend, so we look back at that day in our lives as well. Nathan Lyon has had to cancel a deal at Hampshire, and likes the idea of playing Virat Kohli in empty stadiums. We solve at last the David Varley conundrum (see posts below). Also this week, we talk to journalist Will Macpherson about how the current situation will hit English counties and the international season, and all...
2020-04-16 03:56:10 +0000 UTC View Post
A few weeks ago we speciously discussed the likely Hong Kong cricket career of one David Varley. It turns out we were right, and here he is snagging a couple of wickets with some spectacular leg-spin, just before the world went to shit. Areas, Dave.
2020-04-13 12:54:18 +0000 UTC View Post
A glimpse at the extremely high-tech, high art methods we currently employ to make a long-distance lockdown show. Hello from us both.
2020-04-10 04:52:38 +0000 UTC View Post
S8, Ep3. The year ahead looks sparse but the year before was one of the busiest. For 157 years the Wisden Almanack has been recording all things cricket, and the latest edition of the biggest small book in the game is out this week. As last year, we talk through the contents with editor Lawrence Booth.
Also on the show: Steve O’Keefe has to hang up his glowsticks as New South Wales give him a premature exit. Dean Jones cracks the shits with Victoria. We farewell the poet Bruce D...
2020-04-09 12:34:45 +0000 UTC View Post
S8, Ep 2. He’s known for Karachi in the dark, for the toss at Brisbane, for Hansie’s leather jacket, so we talked about none of these things.
Instead we sat down and talked about everything else: about the boy who played in India’s Chepauk stadium but went on to captain England, about the teenage leg-spinner who was forced to change arts, about the young hothead who became a shrewd tactician. About rebuilding a broken side, building a team that went on to great things,...
2020-04-02 11:54:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 8 of the Final Word begins today. A time of renewal. A season in which little cricket may be played, but much cricket will be played in our hearts. A season in which the real cricket may be the friends we make along the way.
Thanks so much to everyone who has joined in to support the show since the shit hit the fan. We’ll keep doing it.
One of the best pastimes in isolation has been watching documentary series The Test, a view from within the Au...
2020-03-25 18:24:51 +0000 UTC View Post
In these uncertain times you must know how to wash your hands. Daniel Norcross channels the spirit of Ian Smith to show you how.
2020-03-20 16:15:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 7, Ep 25. With COVID-19 stopping the world of sport, Dr Peter Brukner is who you want to hear from: having been the doctor for Australia’s cricket and football teams, Olympic athletics and swimming squads, AFL and Premier League clubs. The doc joins The Final Word to give us the answers, and to tell us when those answers don’t exist.
And check out the small sample of his memorabilia below.
We’d also like you all to know that we’ll keep podcasting weekly throug...
2020-03-19 05:21:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Since we won't be seeing any crowds for a while, you might want to look back on the most recent one. A few snippets from the grandstand won't win any film awards but they can give some sense of what it was like on the day. There was definitely some snark about booking Katy Perry to play, but when she was up there, pregnant, belting out songs on her IWD stage, it was pretty great.
The first clip is a bit of Roar. Then you have:
Season 7, Ep 24: World Cup finals do have that special sauce. A few years ago you could barely have assembled a dodgeball game out of the attendance at most women's international matches. This time they aimed to fill the MCG, and pretty well did. Alyssa Healy provided the fireworks, Katy Perry provided Firework. It was a night of joy.
Geoff and Adam have covered a lot of those less celebrated games over the years, so they won't pretend to be impartial about enjoying this moment. We mana...
2020-03-12 15:25:59 +0000 UTC View Post
You wouldn’t believe it at the final, but more dark shenanigans were afoot.
2020-03-12 15:12:07 +0000 UTC View PostOur first exclusive article on Patreon for subscribers, via Geoff.
Thailand's day out
You go to watch cricket because most of the days won’t be special. You get yourself up out of bed and along to the ground because probably the game will be a standard affair. Some runs, some wickets, the fundamentals, nothing to write on your website about. You go to these games because they most likely won’t be great. And because they probably won’t be great, there is a sl...
2020-03-03 13:10:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Season 7, Episode 23. Lousy Smarch weather. It's a new month! The T20 World Cup pool (party) stage is done, the usual suspects are in the semis. But the last two games were rained off and the semis might be too. Geoff and Adam run the ruler over the Cup so far, the teams that made it and those who missed out.
Also: Dan Norcross with a double WWII update, Sunny Munn sighted in Fitzroy, Nerd Pledge gets deep into 1911, Winnie baby updates, Shashikala Siriwardene retired after an epic Sri ...
2020-03-03 12:20:04 +0000 UTC View Post
Backflips: if they come at the right moment they work a treat. We need one right now from the ICC on a semi-final reserve day. Winnie insists on it.
2020-03-03 11:42:30 +0000 UTC View Post
Thailand! They were so, so good today. Robbed by the rain, but deserving of such praise. An immediate response from a damp Sydney.
2020-03-03 10:25:57 +0000 UTC View Post
