Cricket with an Accent Podcast · Saqib Ali

The Ashes or BGT - What makes a rivalry

·1 hr 57 min·2 clips

"The Ashes started off as a mock obituary" and the trophy is only ever touched as a replica.

Saqib gathers the panel for a New Year cricket conversation on Cricket with an Accent. With the Ashes' last Test in Sydney less than a day away, he frames the central question around whether BGT has become the most competitive series, and whether that edge outweighs the history and cultural exchange attached to the England-Australia clash, especially when the Ashes in Australia have not lived up to the billing on the field. The panel includes Kevin Framp, Vijay Armagam, and Deepak Rao, who is joining from London and was also on a previous Ashes nostalgia episode with Kevin. The opening banter stays light, including a joke about people who may have bought third-day tickets for a Sydney Test that has already moved quickly, which gives the episode a dry, slightly rueful tone. From there, the discussion turns to media. One thread contrasts how Indian print coverage used to work with the broader, story-driven sports pages in Australia and England, where the build-up often leans on stories, place, and overseas visitors rather than only boundaries and wickets. The show lingers on that gap. Rather than just reporting cricket, newspapers and broadcasters in those markets are described as building a narrative that helps hold audience interest. India's scale changes the economics. The conversation then moves into the money side of touring cricket, arguing that Indian eyeballs drive greater value for boards such as the ECB and Cricket Australia than gate receipts alone would suggest. That point becomes the spine of the talk. The guests treat fan interest, board finances, and media attention as part of the same ecosystem, so the rivalry debate stops being only about runs and results and becomes a larger argument about power and attention in modern cricket. Historical memory keeps surfacing. Saqib and the guests revisit how older eras of coverage handled figures like Imran Khan, Vivian Richards, and Sachin Tendulkar, using those examples to show that fame travels differently depending on the market, the era, and the media machinery around it. The Sydney Test stays in the background. Even when the group drifts into broader questions, the looming final Test keeps the discussion anchored, and the episode keeps circling back to the tension between what the scoreboard shows and what the surrounding culture tries to make the series mean. Indian media comes under scrutiny. Near the close, the panel says Indian media is lagging in building cricket narratives, with only a lone wolf here and there speaking up ferociously against the establishment. The tone stays conversational. It ends with thanks, mutual respect, and the sense that the sport has been used as a route into history, media, economics, and memory all at once.

As heard by us

A rivalry debate that folds cricket history, media, and touring economics into one argument.

With the Ashes' last Test in Sydney less than a day away, the piece uses the rivalry to ask whether BGT has become the tougher series and, by extension, the better one.

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Why you'd press play

For rivalry talk that moves from the scoreline into media, money, and the stories around the game.

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