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No Balls Cricket Unfiltered Episode 43: Don't Choke

·52 min·3 clips

Virat Kohli passed Tendulkar’s 50-hundred mark with his first World Cup knockout fifty-plus score.

The show opens in deliberate disorder. The hosts bicker over who should start, fix the episode number, and quickly turn the introduction into a running joke about how the podcast never begins cleanly. The mascot wanders in, gets greeted, and the whole thing settles into its usual rhythm of organised chaos. The conversation then moves to the semi-finals, where South Africa's position is unpacked through their batting start, Australia's response, and the sense that 240 was very defendable if the innings had offered just a little more. They keep circling the same key image: 60 for 1 after six overs, a lead that should have been bigger, and a chase that was already leaning toward Australia before the middle overs could truly bite. Jansen and Rabada come up in the early damage discussion, while Shamsi, Maharaj, and even Markram get credit for the way South Africa pulled things back in the middle. Even so, the main complaint never changes. There were not enough runs, and once Australia had the platform, South Africa could not find a late move to force panic. That leads the discussion into captaincy and trust. Bavuma is treated with sympathy and criticism at the same time, with the hosts noting the pressure on him as captain and questioning why Rabada was not given the final over instead of another option. The point is less about hindsight theatre than the panel's belief that your best bowler should usually be the one you back when the game is on the line. From there, the podcast pivots into the final preview. India and Australia are the destination now, and the show leans into that matchup with cricket talk and its usual provocation. The hosts also spend time on Kumar Dharmasena's perfume, and they end by noting that he is not one of the umpires for the World Cup final. That joke carries into the outro, where the tone stays half analysis and half nonsense right through the sign-off. The episode ends the way this podcast likes to live: messy, specific, and very much alive.

As heard by us

A rough edged but lively semi final wrap that rolls into the final preview.

The episode keeps its focus on the semi finals and then moves into the final preview without much detour. It comes back to the moment the game slipped away and the question of whether Rabada should have been trusted with the last over.

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Why you'd press play

Need a loud semi-final breakdown before the India-Australia final?

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