NO ACTION: T20WC, Healy's Farewell, Privatisation & Grassroots

·45 min·3 clips

Sanju Samson averages 26, strikes over 150, and still changes a chase.

Cricket et al begins with Gideon Hague and Peter Lawler presenting the show as an independent cricket podcast in a moment when global geopolitics keeps crowding the game out. They note the T20 World Cup and immediately test the mood of it. Australia's absence is treated as both a relief and a strange loss of gravity. The hosts joke that attention is easier to place when Australia are not involved. That freedom does not last long. They move to the West Indies, whom they had been backing in the tournament. The group-stage enthusiasm for associate sides gets a mention too. West Indies are acknowledged as bowing out after a decent run. The show then broadens into a discussion of what administrators mean when they talk about grassroots cricket. The hosts are sceptical about the gap between that language and the actual work clubs do. They point to councils, membership subscriptions, and the cost of cricket balls. They also talk through expensive facility projects and the upkeep that follows them. Cricket New South Wales and Cricket Victoria are used as examples of the financial scale involved. The discussion lands on practice centres with many pitches and the ongoing maintenance bill attached to them. The question underneath all of it is simple: what is the benefit, and who is paying for it. The episode then briefly folds in a sponsor read for Surfshark VPN. That segment is delivered in the same comic, self-aware register as the rest of the show. The final stretch turns to Imran Khan and the severity of his treatment. The hosts end with a bit of T-shirt politics, including calls to send Free Imran Khan shirts to a few public figures. The episode closes as the show always does, with thanks, goodbyes, and a promise to return after the semifinals and final are decided.

As heard by us

Cricket talk that folds the World Cup, grassroots costs, and politics into one conversation.

This episode ties cricket, geopolitics, and the small economics of keeping the game afloat into one running conversation. Gideon Hague and Peter Lawler use the T20 World Cup as a way in, note the odd freedom of Australia being absent, and leave room for some regret over West…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want cricket chat that follows the T20 World Cup and the money.

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