THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy receives a message from a listener, and Toby ponders whether cricket's efforts to reduce carbon emissions may have some unintended consequences "As a podcast host, it makes you feel very differently about the whole enterprise." FROM THE ARCHIVES (12'00): England's victory in the dark: Karachi 2000 "England would later celebrate in the dressing room with a chorus of “Who let the dogs out?”, Duncan Fletcher reportedly woofing along." THE REVIEW (22'00): Crossing the Line (2018, SuperSport) "Warne has the immortal line “Steve Smith is not Pablo Escobar.”" Recorded 27 September 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy plays fantasy cricket, and Toby comes across some retro technology on the train "I went to take out my headphones, and then my ear was caught by the message coming out of his phone." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'15): The Canterbury Lime: Cricket's most famous tree "That particular rule is completely rational, but something of a shame." THE REVIEW (22'40): Herbert Farjeon's Cricket Bag, published 1944 "'Is there a grown man in the grandstand whose maturity isn't a little saddened that after all, he is just a grandstand man?" Recorded 29 September 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy donates his Cricketers to a good cause, and Toby ponders the Shakib al Hasan scandal. "There's a bandaged batsman sitting in hospital leafing through my old magazines." FROM THE ARCHIVES (08'54): Cricket in the poetry of Philip Larkin "'...an Odeon went past, a cooling tower, and someone running up to bowl...'" THE REVIEW (19'00): The Great Cricket Con (BBC Radio 4 / BBC Sounds), 2024 "When you step back, you're talking about organised crime, people smuggling..." Recorded 6 September 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy overhears a conversation about cricket discipline; Toby plays in a family grudge match "The pavilion had the most perfectly positioned loo." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'00): When Left-Handers were in danger of being banned from the game "Most things you Google, you get pages and pages of results. For the Academy of Statistical Studies, you get just three hits." THE REVIEW (21'50): One Long and Beautiful Summer: A Short Elegy for Red Ball Cricket by Duncan Hamilton (2020) "At its best, it makes you think about how *you* watch cricket." Recorded 12 August 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy and Toby spend a day in the Lord's pavilion "We can't let this go without talking about the picnic provision." FROM THE ARCHIVES (08'30): Underwood triumphs in the nick of time - 5th Ashes Test at The Oval, 1968 "There were apparently knitting needles being used to dig holes for drainage." THE REVIEW (19'20): Hitman for Hire: A Year in the Life of a Franchise Cricketer (2024) "He wins the Pakistani T20 competition, and has ten minutes to celebrate the victory before he heads to the airport, so that he can see his family for four days before going to the IPL." Recorded 28 June 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy makes his debut in the Long Room, and Toby reflects on Jimmy Anderson's retirement "Harry Brook came past joking about handwarmers. This was an April day much more winter than spring." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'28): The Precursor to DLS: the Average Run Rate Method "Under the Average Run Rate Method, the target was 61. If DLS had been used, it would have been 131: more than double the number of runs required." THE REVIEW (21'51): It's Always Sunny Somewhere by Felix White (2021) "A particular gem was Ashley Giles reminiscing about his days in a Shell garage, and a rude customer making him think 'I'd better get the cricket going again'." Recorded 20 May 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: French cricket levels up, and Liam Dawsons resigns from trying to play test cricket "The Ghost Cricket Leagues of France - a superb title for anything, really." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'50): The Unstoppable Sonny Ramadhin is stopped "His 588 deliveries over 98 overs remain the most balls bowled in a first-class innings." THE REVIEW (21'20): Cricket's Greatest Game (2022) "We need more people who find Trevor Bayliss sexy." Recorded 1 April 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy reports back from the Logan Cup, and Toby enjoys the small (and futile) parts of Sunday cricket "Clearly the Reverse Swept Radio coffers will be extensive enough to fly me back to Australia every three weeks to record the podcast?" FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'00): the Tied Test between Australia and India, 1960 "Richie Benaud walked onto the outfield as Australia begins their chase, and sees clover flowers all over the outfield." THE REVIEW (24'30): The Miracle Makers: Indian Cricket's Greatest Epic, by Bharat Sundaresan with Gaurav Joshi (2023) "It was on trend to hear that Justin Langer screams "Warrior! Warrior!" to Steve Smith in the nets." Recorded 3 March 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Reflecting on the West Indian victory against Australia "So I woke up last Sunday morning in a Gothic temple, as you do." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'50): Benjamin West's The Cricketers, and the battle to take the painting to the US "One bat is being leant on like a walking stick, the other has been discarded on the floor." THE REVIEW (21'55): Shane Warne: A Hampshire Love Story (BBC Radio Solent, hosted by Robbie James) (2023) "If you're doing a radio show about Warne, generally you talk to the people who like him of course." Recorded 4 February 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy ponders the lot of the groundstaff of waterlogged British pitches; Toby reports back from day 1 of the SCG test "You presumably need a super super blotter, when it comes to a flood." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'50): When Cricket Added a Fourth Stump: the innovations of Cricket Max "This is a niche question: where do you take guard when you've got four stumps?" THE REVIEW (22'40): Evita Burned Down our Pavilion: A Cricketing Odyssey through Latin America by James Coyne and Timothy Abraham (2021) "Pablo Escobar's son was sent to an English school, where as a wicket keeper he would put a match under the bails, attached to a piece of thread, which he would pull to claim a bowled." Recorded 9 January 2024
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy becomes a Middlesex member, and Toby finds himself hopelessly out of his depth "We have a running joke that our shirts are our best player. This has come back to bite us in the arse: bonus points for wearing the same shirt got us promoted up a division." FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'10): The One Ball Walkout: Transvaal vs the Rest of South Africa, 3 April 1971 "We create so many assorted reasons for play to stop, that you do become slightly immune as a spectator..." THE REVIEW (20'35): You Guys are History: The Story of England's Black Cricketers (2021) "Phil DeFreitas talks about getting ready to bowl and thinking about the sniper threatened by The National Front." Recorded 10 December 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy reflects on a rare summer without cricket, and Toby enjoys Mark Ramprakash's insights into England's woeful World Cup "To lose me and Sir Alastair in just a few weeks would be a lot for the nation to take." FROM THE ARCHIVES (13'48): The Greatest Australian Cricketer you've never heard of: Greg Mail "Perhaps the secret to his success is not being quite good enough." THE REVIEW (26'18): First of the Summer Wine by Harry Pearson (2022) "A breeder of canaries and pigeons, and a champion clog dancer, as a keeper he often purred 'Well bowled, Honey' from behind the stumps." Recorded 5 November 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy makes a first visit to Nevil Road and Toby reflects on post-captaincy careers "In my head, Misbah-ul-Haq had to go for it. In reality, he could have done it in singles." FROM THE ARCHIVES (12'10): When Warne and Dravid met by the Solent "He is eventually undone by legspin - but not by Warne." THE REVIEW (22'10): The Englishman Abroad - BBC radio play by Christopher Douglas "Much like that Australian top order, I might have had enough of Bodyline by this point." Recorded 24 September 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy plays cricket in a field in Kent, and Toby enjoys Afghanistan v Pakistan "The other great advantage: compared to a proper game, the wait for a post-match pint is much shorter." FROM THE ARCHIVES (07'50): A potted history of cricket in Japan "And then the penny dropped, and I realised that all along he had been talking about croquet, while I had been talking about cricket." THE REVIEW (17'15): Edging Towards Darkness: The Story of the Last Timeless Test by John Lazenby "We were disappointed to be robbed of the opportunity [to win], but at the end of the day I'm afraid few of us cared what happened." Recorded 27 August 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: For the third episode in a row, Andy visits Lord's, and Abdullah Shafique pulls off an impossible catch "Maybe short legs around the world are cursing Shafique for resetting expectations for what short legs can be." FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'20): Ted Alletson's 189 in 1911 "Play restarted at 2:15 and Alletson was out at 2:55. In those forty minutes, he scored 142 runs." THE REVIEW (21'40): Stumped (2022) by Shomit Dutta "We've all played in games of cricket that don't really matter, but they do matter to us. And so it's extraordinary to watch a Nobel prize winner anxious about scoring runs in an amateur village game." Recorded 23 July 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy visits Lord's again, and a vintage cricket story on Twitter "This is the most awful team I have ever had, the batting is awful and the bowling, my god. I have not got a bowler. . . . If anyone would like to take on my job they can have it. . . I hope it rains for the rest of the season." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'00): Fowler's Match: Eton vs Harrow, 1910 "In the whole history of cricket, there has been nothing more sensational" - The Times THE REVIEW (19'15): Gilbert: The Last Years of WG Grace, by Charlie Connelly (2015) "It'll be a while until the next episode of Reverse Swept Radio, while Andy and I set about writing a new series of historical fiction novels to plug this gap in cricket literature." Recorded 30 May 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Visiting the Lord's pavilion and Leicestershire win a remarkable game "You can't really have everyone wandering around with pints." FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'20): Ian Botham v Andy Roberts in 1974: teenage Botham loses his teeth but wins the match "I spat out the last fragments of teeth, took a few sips of water, and let the 12th man assess the damage." THE REVIEW (19'20): Caught Out: Crime, Corruption, Cricket (Netflix documentary) “Sport is meant to be unscripted. It’s the unexpectedness that makes it special. If it’s scripted, it takes away everything that sport stands for.” Recorded 9 April 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Discovering ICC TV, and rediscovering The Nightwatchman "Watching Zimbabwe is pure nostalgia for me: in Harare I made a very elegant four." FROM THE ARCHIVES (09'10): The Curious Case of the end of Bobby Peel's Career "Pissed at the wicket? Most probably. Did he piss on the wicket? Probably not." THE REVIEW (19'50): Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, by Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde (2019) "There's a theme which could almost be used by businesses as an organisational psychology piece." Recorded 25 March 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Duncan Hamilton fears for the future of cricket writing, and Australia's test players learn from their predecessors via the media "Ian Healey sets himself up in front of the pedal bin in the SEN Office, and did a piece for camera that looks suspiciously like it was filmed on a phone." FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'50): The Rise, Fall and Rise of Chris Schofield "This is the feature that Andy has just admitted he has been looking forward to for several years..." THE REVIEW (22'10): Cricketers All (1949) "This remains utterly bonkers to the point I thought that it was a wind-up, but at the end of the day some poor man has to go and set off some rockets: two for a draw, one for win. I have so many questions about this..." Recorded 26 February 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Ricky Ponting has a plan to save Test cricket, and the MCC take a mis-step when issuing their clarification on the Mankad. "It goes back to that thing called 'the Spirit of Cricket', and the MCC don't contribute towards a debate pro-actively about the Spirit of Cricket when they use language like this" FROM THE ARCHIVES (12'00): Pakistan vs Bangladesh in Multan, 2003 "They decide not to call the batsman back - which is odd, given that it's the captain who has dropped the catch." THE REVIEW (23'15): Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page by Richard Thomas (May 2021) "Archie MacLaren was a limousine salesman later in his life. "By all accounts, what he tried to sell to his customers what they wanted or needed." A wonderful way to prick the pomposity of a man who is very much seen that way...." Recorded 29 January 2023