Much review about nothing: England Ashes accountability falls flat

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2:05Yeah. I had to play. So this is the final world. It's season one. It's season one. It's season one. It's season one. That's season one. That's season one. Nice to see you, Daniel. You've been doing a lot of heavy lifting over the last few weeks while I've been stuck in various parts of travel related purgatory, trying to get from what's up the world to see another. And what was a much more complicated process than usual, but still easier than sitting on a ship for six months, but you and I haven't actually been together. I've heard you on the feed. I've known you've been around, but I now have proof of life you can hold up today's newspaper with the date on the front and I can be assured that you are real unless this is some sort of AI replica of you sitting in your living room. There you go. No, I can do it on my phone. I don't have any newspapers anymore. I used to live with newspaper. I used to love newspapers every morning, I used to use paper everywhere. I've got down to the funky beat and I'm all digital, I'm saving the planet. I'm reading more of the paper to be briefly honest with you now because I forget that

3:07that's from a section that I would never have normally read, you know, like the money section. Yep. That might be interesting. It isn't. It's from what we've been in the money section before, where everything was like paper coded. I could just go, no, throw it away, throw it away and now I stupidly read more of the paper. But there you go. Did you go via, I don't know, like South America and the Caribbean to get here or did you managed to find that little corridor through Turkmenistan? Well, I looked at options going the other way around, but in the time on its fashion of price gouging, everything that one can, given that we live in a world entirely dominated by capital where companies don't have any sense that maybe they need to actually be of service of the people who are their customers. And all of those options were like 10 grand to go the other way. So it was like, do you want to pay an amount of money you don't have or do you want to just roll the dice and fly through the war zone and hope that it works? So commercial imperatives meant that I went for the latter route and crossed my fingers.

4:11And we had a missile, incoming missile warning while on layover in Dubai, but the missiles didn't eventually wait. Oh, you did go to Dubai, okay, well, that was brave because I don't know if you were stupid possibly, but it was yeah, I'm like feasible option other than waiting a few months to see if things cleared up. So Singapore didn't work for you, even though I was sent via Singapore to get back from Sri Lanka, which I will be explained off the map now because they're all taken up by people doing who don't want to die, who have who have companies paying the tab and thus willing to pay $12,000 for their flight through Singapore, but that is not the case for most of us. So yeah, we've made it, we're here and speaking of things commercial, I might as well start here. Here's an introduction. This hasn't quite been science-yielding and delivered, but I'm going to flag this on the weekly show in case people see things on the feeds over the next few days, which is that we're going to do some work with the Indian company, Dream 11, doing streams about

5:15cricket. Now you may say Jeff, aren't Dream 11 bad people who are involved in gambling? And that's what we said. So when they got in touch, we said, no, thanks, we don't do that stuff, see you later. And they said, well, actually, we don't do that anymore. We've reformed. We've been forced to reform because whenever it was six months ago, nine months ago, when Modi's government in India said that all fantasy cricket stuff counts as wagering, it's therefore it's banned under existing Indian legislation about banning gambling. I can't remember if I think they brought in some new legislation to cover this stuff. One of the rare areas of alignment, possibly between that government and the final word, which is that gambling is not healthy for people and access to it, shouldn't be on everybody's phone all the time. It meant that Dream 11 had to completely change their business model. And we talked about that a bit on the show because they were a sponsor on the front of the Indian jersey and they were involved very deeply with the European cricket league. And so that funding was likely to go, but they're a massive company.

6:18So they went, okay, we've got to do something else. We're going to do content and we're going to concentrate on live stuff and have live streams where people talk about all kinds of sports. So we had some conversations with them about it and went back and forth with each other about it and figured, well, we spent a lot of time telling organizations that they should diversify, that they should try to be more creative about where they get their money from instead of taking the easy money from gambling. So if you've got a company that's having to do that, we thought, well, maybe it is consistent to say, well, we should support that, which would try to be part of a company changing its ways. No matter what the imperative was, we have, is this a commercial redemption story, a company that says, we're going to do something else that isn't that anymore. And so yeah, we're going to give it a roll and see if it works out to be part of that. The Lord loves a sinner who repents. And we are not here to judge.

7:18There's no choice there's more, right? Over one, one soul who repents than a hundred. Absolutely. We want to be part of the change, not part of the barriers to change. So look, we're, you know, early days on all of this, it won't affect the podcast at all, podcast, world will continue as usual. And you, if you're a podcast listener, you won't necessarily even know that this is going on unless you're someone who has the dream 11 app and you watch streams while you're watching games. The upshort is that I will actually be watching some IPL this year as well, because that'll be part of it. And if you want to say, you're a sell out, you are correct. I am a sell out. I will be watching the IPL because there will be a commercial imperative to do so. Whereas previously, there was not and previously adding that tournament to our workloads without there being a motivation to do so is not something that we're willing to do. But this year, we will be doing some of that as well as doing streams on a bunch of other international cricket in more in our usual remit. I can just say very selfishly, I'm slightly delighted by this because round about this

8:25time of year, I start my work, you know, it's the, the IPL season is when things start to move back here in England because the BBC usually covers the IPL and it can be quite jolly. The games are on a good time. So given that the BBC are not covering the IPL this year, having an excuse to watch the IPL is a good thing. So if I wasn't actually working on the IPL, I'd have very little excuse to put it on. If you want to chat to us about it, if you think this is a bad move and we shouldn't be doing it, info at findowardcricket.com, we're always open to feedback and we're testing the waters here. We're going to see how this goes. I think functionally it will be like having a radio show sort of thing. It'll be, it'll be live chat, we'll be talking to people on the stream as it goes along. So if that's your kind of thing, you can come and have a look at what we're doing and if it's not, you don't have to and it's very, very easy, breezy as far as we're concerned. We're going to, we'll try it out for the first little while and see how it works out for the first month or so and keep your posted, but that will probably be happening as soon

9:29as all of the necessary eyes are dotted and tees are crossed. We talked about Australian stuff on the first part of this weekly. This is essentially part two of the weekly. Because there was so much going on and a lot of it was England related, there's also Pakistan stuff, there's India stuff, we've got the Board of Gavisca dates and venues remarkably, remarkably. The PCC, I have coughed up dates for a series, almost a year in advance, ten months in advance, which is staggering. I was expecting normally at six weeks, you know, you might, you might stretch to three months before and but the big stuff this week was coming out of England and we need to get our teeth into this, Daniel, the Asher's report that was not released, it was completed and they're not released, now we had the big names up in front of the cameras, well not so much the big names, we had Gould and we had Key, so we had the administrators franting the media, we didn't have McCullum and Stokes doing that, they were not involved.

10:34But you know, the big news is that McCullum will stay as coach, Rob Key will stay as whatever they call him, managing director, managing director, I found out the other day. Yeah, doogie has her MD, we will stay in the gig, Brendan McCullum is still watching horse racing in New Zealand and having a nice time and Ben Stokes posted a pithy, sweary thing on social media saying he loves England cricket, which I don't think anybody was in any doubt about, but first impressions, take a deep breath, we've deliberately left this a couple of days because we thought there'd be so much response immediately, we wanted to wait a little while and come back to it with 48 hours space. Right, so what I want to say right from the top is that I am not really remotely surprised at the conclusions, the substantive conclusions which are that nothing is going to change in terms of personnel, notwithstanding the national selector will come to that in a moment,

11:37but your big three is Stokes McCullum Key. When we were out of the ashes, I don't know how much time you spent with the English journalists, but by the end of the second test match, there was a fee-brother atmosphere and halfway through the Adelaide test match, after which point actually England went toe-to-toe with Australia, they scored in runs per wicket, after they were 178 in the first inning. Adelaide, which was let's face it, two and a half tests, two late, and certain journalists, I'm not going to name any names because they're very good friends and I love them dearly, actually flew out to Australia, we said, by the publications, you know, they were always due to go to the second car and they'd sharpen their quills and they had fired everybody in bowl, probably not Stokes, so it's still a kind of sense that he is their leader, sort of makes sense of that, but surely McCullum had to go and then when it sort of became

12:41clear that actually Stokes and McCullum, despite the reported disagreements over Stile, most notably during that Adelaide test match, when England sort of went into their shell on a good deck on a hot day rather than taking the attack to Australia, there were reports that there was a disagreement, it's always been pretty clear that Stokes and McCullum had, I think if they used them very early on in the piece, I'm by which I mean very soon after the end of the ashes, Stokes was sort of saying, I don't want to recap, so then let's McCullum's coach, so that meant they were definitely staying, so then other people assumed, I think kind of reasonably, that that has to be a head that rolls, so it's going to be key, it's got to be Rob Key, well Rob Key got on the most different to front foot, because he's a lovey chap and he's very sweet to it to be, and he sounds like he's being thoughtful, I think he is being thoughtful, but he then says things in a slightly disarming way, and you think, oh well, is there any point sacking him as well, and then this slow-moving

13:45car crash of inertia, if you can have such a thing, suddenly hoved interview, well it's very, very cute, I mean it's typical of English cricket really, and, yeah, so I felt no surprise whatsoever at the decision coming out, and actually, I'm a pretty dispassionate fellow when it comes to being the team, so I am able to see it and have a certain dispassion that responds to this, and it is that I do think that Stokes and McCullum have actually done remarkable things for making the England team bearable to watch, but when you break it down into their main failures and everybody does, it is against the big three, well there's a clue there for a star, they're the big three for a reason, they haven't won a series, if you just look at the details of that, they actually played very well in the ashes after throwing away the Lord's test at a fit of madness the moment Nathan Lein walked

14:51off, but you would say they went toe-to-toe with Australia, and you might even think that they were a little bit better, or you might think they were a little bit worse, but it was a very good series between two very well match teams, against India in the series that's just gone, they drew that too, and I think if anybody is going to be reasonable, they would say well, they would have won that series, had to Chris Woke's not dislocated his shoulder on the first day, they would have had a bowl, they would have had a batter in two minutes, they hardly lost the test match, so in the two home series that they played against, the big three, they have acquitted themselves actually perfectly well, they have done pretty badly in India, but you can't imagine spinners when there aren't any of that is in Stokes and McCullum and Key's problem, what they did actually do was get the most out of Tom Hartley, remember him, six wickets on debut, they won a game that you wouldn't actually believe, they got 50 wickets out of Show and Bashir, I mean, you may look at that now, I think that was a mistake, but he was the youngest man to get to 50 wickets,

15:53and it would do something right in an arid desert of spinnerslessness, so if you really a proper about it and go into the details, they sort of won everywhere else, they'd beat Pakistan away, they'd indeed lose to Pakistan away, but you know, again, very different circumstances playing on used pitches that become very spin friendly when they didn't have the firepower against them, and why should England be expecting to win games all the time, there are lots of other countries, so they're good at cricket, and one of them just happens to have 1.4 billion people, and a vast quantity of money, and the other one happens to be Australia, which has traditionally been, you know what, very good at cricket, so I think that the massive pylon about England's performances is not what we should be looking at. What I am more peaked and irritated by than anything is the tone of the way these things are presented to us, like, you know, I am willing to play for England, they're willing

16:55to do these jobs, rules said, they don't have to do these jobs, like we're supposed to be grateful, I mean, just pull the other one, right, and it looked like I know full well as a man who sits on his ass in a commentary box, having a way of a time being set around the world that I'm having fun, right, and yeah, Rob Key could have continued having fun in a commentary box, and I suppose when you're getting smashed up by everybody, and if you're McCullen getting yelled at by everybody, it's probably not a great deal of fun when it's happening. Like, I appreciate that if somebody said, would you like to be, to have the full force of the English sporting media directed at your shortcomings for between 12 and 24 months, I would say I probably wouldn't enjoy that, but if they said we're going to give you several million pounds in exchange for doing that, I'd probably take that deal, you know, a shitty hug of years, and then you walk out of it with more money than God.

17:58Yeah, I mean, look, the money is a large part of it. The other part of it is that this job has been arranged for McCullen in such a way as to impact him as, as uncivilious possible, right, it's, I mean, until he did the white ball stuff, it was pop in a week before the test series to England, leave a day after it, head back to New Zealand, live your life, pop over to wherever you're touring a couple of weeks before the start, leave immediately. Now, it's a little bit more stressful now that he's doing the white ball stuff, very little bit more. I mean, he basically does get to live where he wants to live from the day after England got knocked out of the T20 World Cup, until a week before the test series starts in June. That's quite a long time, right? He's not being expected to wander around England, you know, checking out if there's anybody at Derbyshire or Leicestershire, who might be really good, which in fairness to Jeff Miller when he was an actual selector, he did do lock up 50,000 miles.

19:00I mean, personally, I can't think of anything much more fun than wandering around watching Candy Cricket, but I'm a weirdo, okay? I appreciate that if you're cool and you've got those fancy shades and you're ripped and, you know, you're loaded, perhaps your idea of fun is not going to want to droid. I don't know. I'd like to think that even if I had the shades and I was ripped and I was loaded, I'd still like to pop into wanting to droid, because I like cricket and you kind of hope that the people who are running cricket actually enjoy cricket, whereas the tone of voice that we get is they're sacrificing a life of luxury where they could be doing anything else in order that we should get to see this team play cricket, which frankly is utter patronizing, vicious bullshit, and it gets on my nerves, okay? That said, which is why I'm telling myself in not to this conversation, I think they're probably the right people to run the team at the moment, because they have got something

20:03going, they did make mistakes, they've talked about learnings which sounds incredibly awful. This is the thing, you see, what they're doing is they're having to be slightly penitent because they've got a little thing there saying you do realise they're found to be absolutely furious, but then they've reminded us that they're doing us a favour, so I'm trying to work out when these attitudes started and I see it a bit with the women, right? When the women were being thrashed 16 nil by Australia and the ashes, before the test match, one of the players said that she was prepared to put on her whites to turn up to a test match. Whoopsie do, thank you so much for putting on the clothes and that they'd been there to make memories for friends and family, no you haven't, you're not there to make memories for friends and family, you're there to play cricket, you've been paid to play cricket. I've actually gone about that one, yes, I know. I mean, I think that tops, you know, the kudji, you know, the Bondi beach wall.

21:04It does, doesn't it? I reckon that's, I think that's out there ahead of me. I want it on a t-shirt, I really want it on a t-shirt, so now this is just a thing where I, this didn't happen. My memory for friends and family, that's a fucking trip to Disneyland, you know, in your own time, on your own duck, that's not a professionally paid trip to Disneyland. No, my employer is paying me handsomely to visit Disneyland, that's not how that works. It's on, but it's, it was genuinely unbelievable and what it is, it's just a creeping sense that the players and the authorities think that they are better than everybody else who's watching it. Now they are, they're better at cricket, don't doubt about that, right? But you don't say these things and you can think them to yourself, you can be as dismissive of everybody else's opinions if you want, but the thing is that cricket should be owned by cricket lovers as well as cricketers, we're all in it together and I'm not blaming

22:06sky for this at all, I think it could be entirely coincidental, but since the game has become further and further removed from the consciousness of the nation, it's fear of fear of people understand what it is, what cricket is, and the players themselves, weirdly in a completely paradoxical way, the less recognizable the players are. The more no one has a clue who they are, the more haughty and superior they have become. The pond is shrinking and the fish are remaining the same size, so proportionally the fish are starting to have a different sense of their relative rank. I think so. And as the proportion of people watching the sport wearing gilets get higher because more and more other people are dropping off, there's going to be a crash point at some stage, but there are enough people with enough money still watching it that those within it think that they're pretty important, even though I get that, but indoor bowls players don't wander

23:09around like this. No, that's what I mean. It's on if you graft it, there'd be a point at which you collapse into being a genuine minority sport, but at the moment, there's still the idea of being a major sport. They look at India, they look at Pakistan, they say hundreds of millions of people follow this sport where a big deal. Maybe you are a big deal when you're playing in the IPL, but you're not a big deal when you're playing for Leicestershire. I know. I mean, it's never has to be in mind of some of the Surrey players saying that they ran Clapham. And I'm afraid it couldn't be any further from the truth. Nobody in Clapham knows who they are, because they're not really that intricate at Clapham. Like if they were footballer and wondered in, they could own Clapham, and this kind of detachment between self-perception and reality is what will drive some fans not away from the game, because people who love cricket will love cricket, but it will drive them further away from the team and make them, let's say, a less forgiving of failures that are inevitably

24:11going to come, because it's sport and teams lose, and so there will be an amplification of infuriation, and the pressure will build, so I'm not sure that it's a sustainable long-term future, but I do think that they've got this with the ashes and with India in mind. One thing I will say is that there has been a refreshing honesty, you may disapprove of it, but there has been a refreshing honesty in saying that our priorities are actually test series against the big three, you all said this, we've always known it, but now they've come out in the open, since England won their home world cup, white ball cricket has become less of a priority, and there's good reasons for it, because there's considerably more engagement in England over red ball cricket than there is over white ball cricket, so it makes financial sense to want to prioritise your England testing, because that's the one that's going to get the most headlines, get the most eyeballs, and please the most people, so at least they're being honest about that, it's not really fair on Pakistan and New Zealand, because in a sense, we're going, well, these warm-ups, let's make sure that

25:13we've got the team ready for where we play Australia next summer in India, straight after that, and you kind of go into this sort of weird place, but English cricket, by the way, last part on this, is always in a weird place in the even number of years, because it is a minor sport, it has to cower beneath the spectre of all tournaments, and in even number of years, there's world cup, there's Euro this year, there's world cup, so they will be able to probably do things slightly away from the line light, but a few bits to race through from what happened as this was presented. The money part of it, it would cost them about a million quid to sack Brenda McCullum, so clearly that is a motivator, because they don't want to be seen to be wasting that amount of money. If you're keeping McCullum hard to sack the guy who appointed him and then renewed his contract in Rob Kees, so it was kind of keep him all or keep none of them really. The review itself, as Will McPherson described at a market-owned homework exercise,

26:16there was so much vagueness, so Rob Kees was asked, did you seek external feedback, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, I talked to people outside cricket all the time, we're always talking to people outside cricket, and that was it, it was as vague as that, there was no names were put to anything. The review will not be released apparently, if this were an Australian situation, there would be a public release of a review, like the August review, like the Sandpaper reviews, there would be a sense that this is how you do contrition in a public relations sense. The review will get leaked at some point, I have no doubt whatsoever. As soon as somebody wants to undermine somebody else, the review will get leaked somewhere, so it gives this sense that they're desperate to draw a line under it, but not actually equips to do so, or the way they've set this up point to do so. The slideshow presentation, the topics that we're to talk about here, why are these things being presented as ideas that you've just come upon, and you know, after say, poor old Rob Kees didn't come across too well in his various interviews that he did,

27:18for exactly this reason. So the slides had something about using the structure that exists, which basically means engaging with county cricket after the years of ignoring county cricket, long-term preparation, which is something they didn't do any of for the Australian to it, and then culture and environment, which comes in a situation where they covered up a potentially embarrassing minor scandal with Harry Brook right before the Asher series began, and then backed him to play like a moron through the beginning section of that series. There's so much kind of passivity to this. One of Rob Kees' lines was, you'd like to prepare better, but the quote was, you find yourself in New Zealand for a white pool series. You don't find yourself in New Zealand. It was a, you didn't win the mystery flight in a castle. Toshed over the head and you wake up in Auckland, bloody hell. It was not an accident. It was okay, you didn't wake up on the, on the slow boat, you know, having been chloroformed outside

28:21in a fucking pub in Clapham that you run that you just left and out before, and say, oh, goodness, me, I'm in Dunedin playing it into any against the black caps. Why is it so freezing and yet everybody wearing shorts? Now, that's not what happened. You know, people knew that there was an New Zealand series coming up and sure you can blame scheduling and all the rest of it, but you could also have said, well, we're not going to send these players to that series, we're going to send some other players and we'll send these players to Australia and we'll cop the complaints about doing that. There was a point where, I think it was under the TMS pod, they were asking whether players should get more coaching support or it was, you know, Rob Key was talking about players getting more coaching support. Then he was asked if players said that they weren't given enough and he said, no, no, of course, they didn't say that. And then a minute later, he says, well, of course, they wanted more coaching support. Like, there's this complete jumble in terms of how many things being expressed and announcing things like their discoveries, the line that will get reported, has been reported a lot is we overvalued

29:25loyalty. And the quote that jumped out at me from Rob Key was it then creates an environment where there's not enough consequence. No shit. Like, did you just come upon this idea? Like, Zach Crawley has played 64 test matches and averages 31. Zach Crawley's played 56 test matches opening the batting and averages 30.5 to as an opener. That is the lowest average of any opener in test history to have opened in 45 or more test matches. And New Zealand, and New Zealand have got a whole load of people who might have threatened that record. Yeah. But do you know what? They jettisoned them before they got that bad. Even Martin Guptal, who had a poultry average as an opener, didn't play that many. I think he played 40. So nobody in history has played as many tests as an opener as Zach Crawley with as poor returns across the board, across years and years of doing so. How is this news? How is this something that wasn't figured out that even keeping Oli Pope at the start of the series where he

30:27clearly wasn't in a position to play well? And then you've got Liam Livingston blowing up during the week talking about how he was completely left out in the cold as soon as he was out of that set up and how he wasn't given specific coaching support when he was in the team and asking for help. You've got Johnny Best, though, essentially gesturing to the same thing about how he was treated as soon as he was punted. None of this is news to anybody. None of this is fresh. But what does it mean? I know it looks like lip service at the pain to the county gain. I mean, they have your Zoom call. Apprendans are going to zoom in from New Zealand to check to the head to cricket and all that. Yeah, I know. But because that's under the microscope, I think they might look at it. They might actually reflect on the fact that they went all guns blazing, providing cars. It paid all five test matches. You didn't get dr. Lee coin. But they didn't put Josh tongue at the side right at the beginning. And he was very effective when he did play. And it was

31:28no surprise to those of us who'd watch County cricket. He basically won Nottinghamshire the County Championship in the head to head between one and two when Nottinghamshire played. Sorry, he pulled an absolutely brilliant spell. He was hugely effective in Nottinghamshire throughout the season when Josh time is bowling to Surrey. And he's got burns, simply, Pope, Lawrence. I mean, it's a test playing lineup. And he's playing them on their own ground. And he's putting in a match winning spell. It might be because you know what, he's really, really good. And it might be that Brydon cars is poultry average in County Championship cricket does speak to something which might be a lack of control. I'm not saying Brydon cars shouldn't play for England. I'm not saying he shouldn't have played the first test. I understand fully where they went in with Archer wood and cars in that first test. It made a certain kind of sense. But the lack of flexibility was there maybe because there's going to be so much scrutiny over, well, are you picking County players?

32:29And there was that chat about, you know, or we've seen a bit of Acer tried with the look of him. It's almost like they're kind of giving you a little bit of meat. Maybe his performances could catapult him into the site. Time will tell. And that, but that will be one of the big debates. And what they'll actually do, whether they mean it or not is the little make the first seven rounds. Very interesting because suddenly we will be looking out for an open place. That's going to be a real place. I mean, I mean, Ben McKinney, there will be a connection between what happens in that first test at the start of June and what happens in County cricket over the next couple of months, at least for some spots. It feels like that that's unavoidable now. They have to do. When he alluded to Sam Cook as well, didn't he? I mean, I think he gave Sam Cook a little nod. And England, you know, they do play half their text matches in England. So having a bowl of a bowl is quite well in England. Isn't a bad thing to have. You don't just have to be constructed your side over who you think might go mental to Brisbane or Perth once every four years.

33:31Yeah. That's one opportunity that they get. So that part is interesting. This summer, I think, is interesting. There's a kind of expectation that all will go well. They're already setting up 2027, the ashes in England as the end of the redemption arc. That's not it. You know, if England go and win next year, which they may well do at home, that doesn't mean that everything's cool and that all of the problems that have happened over the previous few years didn't happen. You should be winning series at home. You're supposed to be winning series at home. They've not done so. They've had a couple of cracks at ashes, one home and one away and haven't been able to do it. This means, I think, that so Richard Gould, who's someone who I do have regard for in the job that he's doing, has ankle-chained himself now to McCullum and Stokes for this 2027 thing. If they fail, he goes because he's backed them in at this point. He said they're going to stay. Right? He could have made the call to get rid of them. So I don't think the way the cricket

34:32programs go on is necessarily down to him. He's not hands-on involved with cricket stuff today. But by making this call, he has made himself change to the cricket program. And all the chat about 2027 could be moot if things don't go well in the next few months. If they drop a couple of tests against New Zealand or Pakistan, or if they go to South Africa and get beat up at the end of the year, then there will be immense pressure to move on the coaching staff. Then it could all go wrong a long way before these random McCullum might not get the chance to coach against Australia in 2027. They have to nail everything between now and now. You're totally right that there are two test series at home in England. Then there's one in South Africa. There's one in Bangladesh, and that's not forgetting. England's still down out in the spinners. And the last time I played in Bangladesh, they lost there for the very first time. I was there. The idea that you're entitled to win games of elite sport against other teams is frankly preposterous. As I said earlier, India and Australia are very good teams winning away. As you just said, you're supposed to win at home.

35:36Why should England be supposed to win in India and Australia? Similarly, why should England be supposed to win in South Africa? It's just the manner of how you do it, how you're communicating to the fans and actually through pundits so that they're not sitting there writing, skating, excavating articles. We need to get to a break. Before we do that, the step one winner for this week of the clobber could be a pack of jocks, could be whatever else you want to choose off the website. But this week is James Hall, who's up at thighs, will be taken care of via step one at James. Someone will get in touch with you or you can email info at finalwordcricket.com to figure out how to get your kit, get your bamboo breathable jocks so you'll never have chasing problems again. You can get the X cup if you're playing cricket to put your box in, or you can get whatever else you want to get off the website. If anyone else wants 15% off, go to the show notes, find the code there. Step one, doing great work. A word for seabuss,

36:39super as well. Before the break, you have learned more than you thought you would ever know, Daniel, about payday super. I am sure. But if people are not aware of it, basically people like not paying you because if they keep money for longer, then it's in their interest. That's why some organizations don't like to pay their freelancers in voices for a year because if they can hold on to that money for a year, then it costs them less when they eventually pay it out. And in the meantime, they could have it sitting in some account, earning a few percent, and doing better for them. So employers historically didn't have to pay superannuation contributions when they paid your pay packet. They might pay them into your super account later on. And so that meant that you got less chance to earn money on your super. And they got more of a chance to earn money on your super instead because they hadn't paid it in. The new legislation in Australia from the next financial year from the first of July will say that when pay packets land, the corresponding amount of super is paid into your superannuation account on the same day, which means you have more

37:40time with that money in your super account to earn money for your retirement. So if you want to find out about that, and find out if Seba's super would be a good fit for you. Given those changes and given what they will mean, sebasuper.com.au, you can find the PDFs and the TMD, the documents that will tell you more about whether that is going to be the right fit pass performance, not an indicator of future performance, of course, in any investment scenario. But Seba's super, looking after people in their retirement for going on 42 years now, a fine stretch of time. Check them out. We'll be back in a moment. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home. And not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads America cures. Let's tell Washington to keep

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39:43fiber products at a store near you. Protein is now at Starbucks and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein, cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or Marcha. Try it today at Starbucks. This is the final word. It's season 19 coming to the end of season 19. It's episode 37, Jeff Lemon and Daniel Norcross having gone through almost all things England related. There's one other bit which is the role of the national selector, which sounds bizarre having one from an Australian context. It's always selectors. You're always angry at selectors, which means it's vague enough to an extent. You don't know whose fault it is. The chair cops the heat obviously. But one having one in England always seemed weird, but that role is being turned over, Daniel.

40:45It is because Luke Wright has stepped down and so they've advertised the role, but they've advertised it so late that the national selector is not going to be in place for the start of the county championship. We mentioned earlier that the county championship is going to be quite an important competition for the first seven rounds. I'll be keeping their eyes in it. Now the national selector in England for Australians who may not be aware has lately been a slightly younger person recently out of cricket back in the time when England was number one in the world. It was Jeff Miller, the former England all round the spinner. As I said earlier, he used to dedicate himself to going around and set up structures, England lion structures. There was like a proper progression model. His brilliance as a national selector was kind of highlighted by the time he got it wrong. We had Darren Pattinson selected and he acknowledged that the reason why it was wrong was not because Darren Pattinson wasn't good enough that he was completely unprepared for it.

41:46The idea of that national selector was to create a pathway and to ensure that when players arrived in the test team, they were very much ready for it. That was what it used to be. Then the two most high profile selectors recently have been James Taylor, former England middle order batter who had to retire early because of our condition and then Ed Smith. What's intriguing about both those guys is that they've been taken from the media, from commentary. This is sort of where they're looking again. The names of people like my colleague Stephen Finn have been touted. Mark Butcher has been touted and it's made good reasons why you would think that a national selector commentator might make a good national selector because they watch cricket. I don't watch that so much. County cricket, although the sky boys do. I think Nick Knight has also been suggested. The problem is that the experience of previous national selectors is the having had quite a nice

42:47role in broadcasting when you go off and become the national selector. There isn't necessarily that role there for you when you come back. I don't know whether that's going to be a fruitful place to go, especially given how lucrative broadcasting can be, especially if you're on the TV, or if you're an ex-player and you're being molded for greater things long-term. So the risk is quite large. You're never going to be national selector for 20 years. If you get your foot under the broadcasting table, as many people will attest from John Arlett to NASA, say, then Mike Afton and beyond, you can do that job for 25, 30 years, David Ga outri of both. And that is a far more attractive prospect. And at 150,000 pounds a year, finding a current broadcaster to take on the role of national selector for what could be probably top five years, could be as little as two if the project falls apart. Lincoln lose the ashes in 2027. I don't know whether that's really

43:50the way to go about it. So I do wonder whether they need to look at national selector slightly differently. Maybe the way they're describing the way Australia does. Because to me, there isn't an obvious candidate. Lames like Ravi Papara have been touted. And that is interesting. Mohin Ali. But Mohin Ali has said that he still wants to devote himself to playing cricket for a couple of years. So in the immediate noun of I think they've got a bit of a problem there. And I don't see the obvious solution. So do get in touch with us. Let us know who you think should be the national selector. It could be you. I don't want to do it because I know that if I went to be national selector for 18 months, I would never work in radio again because a shiny new model would have come in and taken my place. And I'm currently trying to elbow everybody out. And that's kind of my point. Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a sense that they want. They want someone with name recognition because that implies credibility rather than appointing somebody. Some honest,

44:52worthy type from the county coaching circuit who actually knows more about what's going on with well, that's the thing. Jeff Miller was an after dinner speaker. But he was never a broadcaster. And but what he was was somebody who knew the county game inside out. And that was what you kind of thought that the selector was supposed to do was to tirelessly go around the domestic game finding cricketers and watching cricket back was kind of what the selector used to do. Whether that is the role that they want, I don't quite know. So it'll be interesting to see how that washes up more broadly in terms of what's been happening through the bombing of around the closure of the straits, the fuel crisis and so on. The Sri Lanka Afghanistan series got cancelled entirely. They just decided it was too difficult to try to make that happen. Given all the effects, the knock on effects on travel in that part of the world, we've had colleagues who were in India for the T20 World Cup have only just managed to get home in the last few days. The Pakistan

45:53Super League will be played behind closed doors. And this is because the Pakistan government have instituted a COVID style locked down on movement. They've asked people to work from home wherever possible and and to travel as little as possible to conserve fuel because they're anticipating a real crunch coming up in the in the weeks and months ahead. So moving tens of thousands of people around to go to games and leave games is not viable, which means that all of that revenue is going to disappear. They've moved the PSL to be hosted in two grounds rather than the half a dozen or so that it was going to be hosted in order to cut down on travel requirements, fuel requirements to make the teams travel. It's been a couple of Australian players pull out, sort of citing personal reasons in theory, but Spencer Johnson pulled out and then signed an IPL contract. So I guess that was a very personal reason, isn't it? He would have posted a reason wanting a lot more money. Yeah. Jake Fraser McGurk has pulled out as well. He

46:54hasn't bobbed up on an IPL list yet, but a lot of Australians going to the PSL. I'm not sure why there are so many not not many English this year, but Zamp is going, Warner Smith Maxwell, Labeshane, Raging Ashton Turner, Peter Siddles going, Ryan Philip E. Krull Intentions is going Raleigh Meredith, Ben McDermott, Sam Harper, Aaron Hardy. So this huge Australian contingent in theory going, although I wonder if we'll see a few more of them start to bail out. But such a blow for the PSL where they're already up against the IPL, there's already all of this antagonism in the India-Pakistan situation, the two leagues going head to head, players who go to one, whether or not that'll be held against them in being signed for the other in future years. And now this thing where they can't even have crowds show up to the to the games. It just speaks to the fundamental asymmetry and cricket that is so they're creating so much resentment among some countries, isn't it?

47:56And we saw it played out in a different way over Bangladesh's participation in the T20 World Cup and Pakistan then saying they weren't going to play India then having to negotiate the way around it. What it comes down to is that it just feels unfair. It feels unfair for Pakistan that they've got this tournament which they've done actually really well in bigging up of like more and more money's been flowing into that. I've talked to my colleague, I've got it, who was about this. And look, it's not, it doesn't rival the IPL for money yet. But it's a big money league. I mean, there's more money coming into it than it's been going into the big bash league. And if you consider where Pakistan was, six, seven, eight years ago, a pariah nation still playing in the UAE to being able to develop its own domestic tournament. And it's so necessary for the Pakistan players as well because we've seen this, yes, I know that Abraar Ahmed has been picked up at the 100. But there are a lot of Pakistan bases where his

48:58side side of Abraar, for example, leading runs scored in the T20 World Cup. They don't get these opportunities. And the Pakistan board is not a particularly rich board. So if a Pakistan players is tougher and then that just makes it harder and harder for those players to develop and to then represent that country adequately on a world stage. So you just get into a spiral. And as a sport, when you want to be helping rise everybody so that you get better competition and better quality, this is just a step yet again in the wrong direction. In this case, through absolutely no fault of their own Pakistan, we're actually trying to mediate in this crazy war situation at the moment, trying to get Iran and America on the table. I'm sure the reason for that is not because they want to get the PSL back on. But it's just, it just so happens to be one of those sort of poignant aspects of it all that the war is really affecting Pakistan. And it doesn't seem to be affecting the IPL at all. They'll be flying around between venues left fighting centre for two months.

50:00And you know, I'm not saying they shouldn't be because we all watch the IPL as well. I'll say, oh, I mean, that's what I said earlier. I do. But you know, we don't want to be intense at I do as well. Yeah, exactly. So we're on the same page there. But you know, it just feels unfair. And I know sport isn't there. I know a sport that starts with a toss isn't there. And I know that was meant to be there. But you are supposed to at least create an environment in which players can compete fairly. And it feels like we're just going backwards again. The border Gavisca test schedule has been released. It is, it is the end of March 2026. The start date for this series is the 21st of January 2027. And nothing can or will ever lessen my shock at the fact that we actually have a test schedule, not just venues, but dates bona fide goddamn dates for every match for all five matches in the series for a series that

51:01will not start for almost a year. Now, I'm pretty sure the last time we went to India, I think we got the dates maybe eight weeks beforehand, something like that. And then they moved one of the test halfway through the two or anyway. I'm sorry, Alex. No, yes. I'm sorry, I'll have moved down to indoor, which was greatly expensive for everybody who had to change their travel. And somewhat deflating for all of those Australian tourists who had gone over there thinking, let's go to the glory on the grandeur of the Himalayas. No, no, no, no, no, you're going to go to indoor and you're going to appreciate the work of, you know, of AH Carter and the early Vanguard of Indian cricket, who came to India. It's the cleanest city in India though, stadium. That's the world. We did see the cleanest city in India. That is true. We got to relish that opportunity. Now, so we've got the dates. We've got the venues. This doesn't mean I, I hastily add that these will not change between now and then because there is always a decent chance that they will, but remarkable that somehow we've at least got an idea. We've got a, we've got a map of how things are supposed to be at this

52:02time. That's great. Very, very happy about that. Less happy about the lineup because in terms of historicity, if I have that a word, I don't know, maybe I'll do. We know what you mean. In terms of what sings, in terms of the stories of the game, what resonates? You look at this list and you go, Chennai, yes, Madras, 1986, Dean Jones, Tide Test, great. You go, you can sort of go, well, Nagpur, there's a bit of history. There's Damien Martin in 04, hitting one under the roof of the press box and we went there last time as well and Robert Sharmer's Marvelous 100 that he made on that in conditions where it was difficult and Todd Murphy's debut. Nagpur, Chennai, they started off. Guwahati, third, yeah, great for Assam to get a test match, a small state, a small cricketing state. Ranchy, nothing much there in terms of history,

53:05yeah, Australia played there in 2017 and batted out a draw, Hanske and Marsh on the last day, Pajara made a double and Armadabad, which has to host the big things now because it's Armadabad and because the Modi Stadium is there and because it's pretty big. But we saw one of the more tedious tests that I've watched in my lifetime during the last two are there on one of the flatest tracks, available as Virat Kohli crawled to that drought breaking 100 that had very little satisfaction to it. Cameron Green made 100 on that deck and he hasn't made a stack of those. So Nagpur, Chennai, Guwahati, Ranchy, Armadabad, come on, where's the history, where's the heft, where's Mumbai, where's Kolkata, where's Eden Gardens, what sings in the history, where's Bangalore of the Australia, India relationship, the great matches that have been played in the past. And it's not that every test has to be played at the big venues and I don't mind

54:07getting a Guwahati or somewhere thrown in here and there, but that should be one of the five, you know. The other four should be using these major centres and so much of this, of course, it's down to politics of who is owed what, which state association out of the many, many state associations is owed what, by who on the BCCI and so on. But this is such an underwhelming schedule in terms of the heft, the weight, the feeling of this series in terms of significance. This just looks like someone threw a bunch of darts at the map and went, okay, this is where we're going. Yeah, I think it's massively disappointing. And Guwahati, they had a test match against South Africa, just recently gone. And they had, they played a very prominent role in the women's World Cup. You can tell that something's going on in Guwahati, between Guwahati and the BCCI. In the same way as it was with Himachal Pradesh, you know, 10 years ago, also where suddenly everything was in Durhamshire. Exactly. So it's taking a lot of credit to Guwahati, the 405th

55:09cleanest city in India, according to the latest index that I saw. And it's considerably out of the way tantalizing the Guwahati and Ramchi are within, in Indian terms, a stone store of potkata, which would have been a great place to have a test match. No, can't go there. Well, the central, the federal government doesn't like the state government. No, I mean, it could be that. It could be any number of other reasons, Jeff. It could be, it could be, let us, let us not presume that Bengal is not a BJP stronghold and most other bit. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's really disappointing. And it's not just because, you know, someone says, well, the test cricket is not as big as T20 cricket, so go to the smaller grounds. Well, that would be fine if they didn't end in Amitabat, the biggest ground in the world, apparently. So it's, it's not consistent. And that would be fine. If one of the iconic images of Australia playing India in test cricket is Eden Gardens overflowing dangerously over

56:11a flow of people setting fire to the ground just about when they won in 2001, of course, you can get people in for test cricket if you set it up. Well, I know, I know it's just, look, all of it. And what they've done is they give with the one hand, they tell you what's up, that you live amongst the birds, you go into a ranchy and go a holiday. Well, you mentioned Abra Ahmed getting signed in the 100 before, which, which it felt like, it felt maybe that was tactical. One Pakistan player got signed by one team, which means that the that the ACME could say, well, look, Pakistan player got signed by one team. And nobody else did, which is a little bit curious, one might think, but, you know, hard to put anything more concrete down than that did get signed by a team with IPL links via the sunrises with Daniel Vittoris running the show there. And even though it was only one player getting signed in this

57:15league, that's only where only half the teams are owned by IPL related conglomerates, there was still discontent notably from Sunil Gavaskar, who is often the standard bearer for what would you say, the most state aligned opinions are often tend to be ones that emanate through his column. He's got a column, of course, because everybody has to have a column. That's that's anyone who played in the 1970s has to have a column in which he drew the logical link that said, if an Indian company pays money, however, indirectly it is to a Pakistan player, that Pakistan player then pays income tax in Pakistan to the government, which then uses money to kill Indians. And thus, the owners who signed the player were killing Indians with their money, which, I mean, it's a fairly long logical link to draw that. You know, there are people who withhold income tax as a means of protest against the way that in which you think

58:20spent, but you know, probably tenuous to blame Arbra Ahmed specifically for being the one behind militant funding militant actions that caused damage in a cross-border way. But nonetheless, that was the argument as it was laid out. Yeah, it's absolute bullshit. Unless Sunil feels so strongly about it that he's going to give up commentating for companies that also paid watching macro and local units, Rami's Roger, any other variety of Pakistan people play, in which case, I mean, fair enough. If you want to be that crazy about it, do, it's one of these things where it's never enough. It is just never, ever enough to keep on beating and beating and beating. It is sensationalism. It's nonsense. I have a lot of respect for Salon Gowls because it comes to cricket. I think this does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny whatsoever. And like I say, I'm sorry, you know, boycott getting paid by an Indian company when you are

59:27sat there commentating alongside a Pakistani commentator then. If you feel that seriously about it, and it seems that what he feels seriously about is Arbra Ahmed not getting paid, not himself, not getting paid. Yeah, and the ICC tournaments that everybody works on and that Gavaskar works on are the tournaments that that's how the funding is brought in that gets divided up between the test playing nations, the full combinations and Pakistan get their cut and the money that comes into the PCB obviously ends up circulating around the Pakistan economy and making its way to the government in tax and all the rest of it. It stands up to no scrutiny at all. As an argument, and I know we have to talk about it, but I kind of feel it deserves no more mention than this because I'm infuriated by it, but also it's so infuriatingly wrong after a nanoseconds discussion. Well, the only consistent approach would be to cut Pakistan

1:00:33out of international cricket entirely, which I'm sure there would be some across the border who would be very, very happy to do if that suggestion were tabled, so probably not one to run with. Well, they wanted that game to take place a lot. Sorry, so there would be many who'd be very happy if everything got cancelled. If every match was foregone and if Pakistan were excluded entirely, so that's not an argument that's not being made. I'd say, many times in other news in India, a couple of franchise sales for staggering amounts of money, which is interesting when you've got the ECB talking up the 400 and something million pounds that they're getting from their sale. You've got cricket Australia, who'd be maybe hoping to get a billion extra Australian dollars from their sale if everything went well. Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals just sold for 1.6 billion USD

1:01:34which includes their SA-20 and CPL teams and then Royal Challengers Bangalore sold for 1.78 billion meanwhile. So the original franchise was bought for 110 million, the men's, and then 15 years later, they bought the women's team for the same price, basically, a different amount of money given it was 15 years later in terms of what it was worth, but 110 million USD for each of those two teams. So, yeah, 220 million was spent upfront on those purchases and they've sold that for almost 1.8 billion dollars, so 8 or 9 times the original purchase price, which gives you a sense. That's just one one team apiece in the IPL that sold for these sums, which gives you a sense of the financial engine that is about to roar into high gear when the IPL starts this Saturday. It does and it tells you exactly why the 100 sell-off happened. It tells you why the big bash is considering an injection of money from elsewhere. It's because that's where all this money

1:02:36is and to think that we've just talked about a Pakistani cricketer getting a relatively small amount of money to appear in the 100 and yet the background noise that we're talking in terms of billions of dollars just goes back to what we talked about earlier. It does that creeping sense of asymmetry. Creeping, I'm not really creeping, does it? It's like an amdell of asymmetry. Yeah, it's coming crashing down the line and touching. It's the music man. It's the closing scene of the music man when it leads everybody out of the courthouse and down the street of the town, clashing symbols and blasting trumpets. It's that of asymmetry. It is. There's nothing that can be done about it and some might argue, well, anything can be done about it. It's in some sense a sign of the health of cricket in terms of the amount of money it can generate is always a corollary of the amount of interest that there is

1:03:39and it's through various things like sponsorship advertising and so you don't need to go through the entire model of how sports make money and you know it's kind of interesting when you try to have an argument in England with people about oh cricket it's a meaningless sport that's not that money in it and you point out will actually the second richest league in the world of any sport whatsoever behind the NFL is the IPL and I get to eyebrows raised and it reminds people that there are literally billions of people who love this sport and there are literally billions and billions of pounds being spent on owning clubs and I don't quite know how much Manchester United is worth at the moment I don't know if it's worth 1.6 billion dollars yeah but you know I mean that's kind of an interesting notion isn't it when when one thinks about the ubiquity of football shirts we've all been around the subcontinent in the far east what have you and you see English Premier League teams of Real Madrid and Barcelona and these massive sporting entities well now there are other massive sporting entities and they are domestic

1:04:44cricket clubs which is amazing to think where we've come from whether it's desirable or not I leave for other people to decide but there is a broader picture that this tale is telling of probably speaking the success of a sport yeah I'm just entirely speciesly on a on a Google it's saying Man United at about 6 billion so it's what three and a half RCBs would be a Man United that's a pretty good exchange route I would have thought for cricket versus you know the most recognizable football identity perhaps in the world last on our agenda this week a brief mention for the South Africa New Zealand white ball series and the South African New Zealand white ball series because the men and the women were playing at around the same time they're still three ODIs to come for the women but the men's team played five T20s South Africa one at three two in the final match which looks thrilling as a score line three two coming down to the last game none

1:05:45of the games were thrilling they were all bell sings in one direction or the other the only interesting bit being that Connor S the highs and made 200 runs in five hits an average 50 and people are getting a bit excited about that Shukri Conrad the coach would not would not be drawn on describing it himself as in his words fully fledged international cricket he said the you could debate whether that's what it was which means if the coach isn't prepared to say that it was then that means he probably thinks that it wasn't given the under strength nature of both those teams the New Zealand women played South Africa's women in and won the T20s four one which is a big result against a decent team given that New Zealand have been subpar for a long time even they did win that tournament which is not the long ago they're defending champs 18 months but it always seems a bit incongruous that that's the case and merely occur though since taking on the captaincy we mentioned her making a T20 ton a month ago against in Barbway relatively weak team

1:06:49turned around did it again a month later 105 or 55 balls striking at nearly 200 and only hit one six along the way 19 innings so two tons in a month she started her career in the T20 team batting at 10 now she's locked in at first drop and not quite doing the thing that spinners do when they become good at batting which is stop bowling spin she turned around and took two for six as well in that game so well it's a merely a carol bust for this T20 world captain well I couldn't be happy because you know as an M.I. London fan till I die you got the tattoo yeah well yeah I had to go over the oval invincible tattoo yeah quite tricky because not very many of the letters were the same so that was quite a painful process yeah real grand platinum process but she's she's going to be playing in the oval which I'm pretty much looking towards each it you remember she burst on the seam that double hundred against Ireland and that had master risk because it was Ireland now Ireland and yeah now pretty decent team now pretty decent team at the time yeah there is

1:07:54a bit of that it was really tough down about eight areas you've got to say yeah but it's still it's still a double hundred and she was very young and she's been getting better and better and better and better and she was a really important part of that T20 world cup winning side and she's a typical kiwi isn't she insofar as I know it's difficult for Australians this they're just so likable they must have made a pact with the devil they do something they drown kittens in this bad time but we never see it there's probably you know like a media blackout like two minutes a year in which all kiwis are allowed to perform accident speakable evil but it's it's described as oh we had a power cut and then they turn and face everybody else and they're absolutely wonderful gorgeous she's all those things but she's she's got a lot because if you're a lake spinning all rounder who can hit T20 international tons let's say for fun then you know you are slapping in the middle of that conversation about who are the best all-rounders in the world Annabelle Sutherland Natsiva Front Amelia Kerr she has to be in that conversation she's never quite

1:09:00felt like she's had the power before and it was an interesting point you made there 19 fours and a six if you can hit 19 fours in 50 odd balls then you don't need to hit some antisexes so you know it does work out okay as long as you can keep doing that be interested to see if she does develop a little bit more paranoid game but we are nitpicking around the edges of the hugely talented cricket yeah yeah yeah we'll see what's that 76 runs in fours gets you a fair bit of away of the way to scoring I suppose that is enough from us this week thanks to step one moris blackburn see bus for being involved with the show thanks to you for listening to the end of the show if you've made it through all of our meandering we love you for it things will continue there'll be story time on the weekend there's need to be with Sam cook Daniel was talking about earlier about his little foray into the England team that one test that he got to play against in barbed wire and then being very much on the outer and now possibly not being on the outer

1:10:02anymore as as a change is going to come potentially for the England cricket team and for its relationship with county cricket in general plenty more coming up on the podcast feed over the next little while if you are curious about the dream 11 thing you can get there app and have a look at what's what's going to happen once we've got a channel set up on there which we don't at the moment and like I said if you want to correspond with us about it we're very open to chatting to anybody about what we're doing with the show and and why what the reasoning behind the decision making is info that find a word cricket.com is how you get in touch with us and thank you last of all to Daniel Nellcross for being such a sterling job as a host of the show plenty of times over the last few weeks and once more to come on the weekend at least in this little bit in fact I think you'll be back next week because Adam's taking a rare bit of time off over the next week or so so you might you might well be that might be news to you but I think you're

1:11:07it's news but you know it's it's welcome news it's welcome to talk about it off off the recording let's be done with it now this has been the final word season 19 episode 37 thank you for your company patreon.com slash the final word if you want to back us in with love to have you that's it we're out of here happy happy L.E. thanks to my future questions my current senses that'll be the same we've been doing for centuries sorry if I ran out to empty broke this so you know what I meant I had to go about it right it out and find it myself and there's some stories I can tell you I had to fail I had to fall just for what I did well and there's some stories I can tell you this episode is brought to you by a athletic brewing no matter how you do game day on the couch in the crowd or manning the snack table athletic brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy bold flavors all game long

1:12:11no hangovers no buzz no subbing out for water in the second half stuck the fridge for tip off with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles available at your local grocery store or online at athleticbrewing.com near beer fit for all times