BARMY: England Win After Two Wild Days

·32 min·2 clips

This was the first Ashes Test without a fifty since Edgbaston 1981.

Cricket et al. opens with the plain absurdity of an Ashes Test ending in two days. Gideon Hague and Peter Lawler sound amused, stunned, and a touch relieved that England have actually won in Australia. They keep circling how long it has been since that last happened. The result feels like a novelty as much as a sporting fact. The hosts joke about the long drought, then keep coming back to the cricket itself. One of the main points of fixation is the lack of a fifty in the match. That detail gives the game its ugly shape. They call it a proper stink fest. Even so, the episode does not stay in comic mode. Australia’s batting comes under scrutiny. Cameron Green becomes the main case study. The hosts think he tried to do the right thing early on. They notice the small physical tells, like the jogging and the effort to get himself going. But they also think his dismissal was weak enough to look like catching practice. England’s bowling gets the opposite treatment. The pair say it was a strong all-round bowling performance. They are interested in why Australia batted as they did. One question is whether the same approach would have held if the Test were live and the series still in play. Another is whether England's freedom changed the shape of the day more than Australia's intent did. Bazball enters the conversation as a useful, slightly ironic frame. The hosts suggest England may even have borrowed something from Australia's own Perth template. The episode keeps that mix of technical cricket talk and offhand comic debris running all the way through. It sounds like two writers who have just come in from the ground and are still sorting the day out aloud. The result is not polished punditry. It is an argument with atmosphere. The match may have been short, but the episode gives it enough room to feel strange, funny, and oddly significant.

As heard by us

A strange Ashes win, told with dry, observant cricket chat.

Cricket et al. treats the two-day Ashes Test as a rare kind of oddity, centering England's long wait for a Test win in Australia and the striking detail that no batter reached 50.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a blunt post-match debrief on England's rare win in Australia, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Cricket Et Al