Test Match Special - No Balls: The Cricket Podcast - Hundred playoffs and Alex has a little announcement

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Cricketers Kate Cross and Alex Hartley are together to talk through a busy few weeks in the Hundred. And as Alex made a promise to No Balls listeners, you heard it here first...

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That is absolutely outstanding. The Players Channel. Listen on BBC Sells. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. Hi, everyone. The BBC have told us that we've got to issue a warning. We swear too much. Henry does beep it out for us because he's a good man.

It is actually so that your family can all listen. Your kids can listen. But we will say... Sugar. That's not. I mean he said a really bad one. Cross comes in round, the wicket. Boulder, Lover, leaving a ball alone, Litchfield.

I think it's the wobble ball, and it just nips back. It jags back. It's the nipbacker. That is a beauty from Kate Cross. An absolute seed. That is a beauty for cross. Hello. Welcome back to No Bulls, a great podcast with me, Alex Hartley, and in the same room, you, Kate Croft.

Hello, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. We're actually in the same room. How are you? Yes, and well, thank you. The reason we are doing this episode, emergency. Emergency episode is because we forgot about the podcast for four weeks, and we thought we'll just pile loads in and make people see those. Yeah, we just thought, why don't we do two a week now? It's actually not because of that.

It's because we're both through to the final. Yeah, he's getting Wayho We're going to have to play each other So we've got basically a warm-up game For the knockout tomorrow Will we play each other It's really likely

The Eliminator's going to be Welsh 5 versus Northern Supercharges Unless Manchester can do us a favour tomorrow Yeah And we need to really beat you well To get our net run rate above Southern Braves So it's likely we're probably going to be At the Oval on Saturday

Yeah Can your run rate get above ours Because Oz is better than Braves Yeah but we'll have more points than you if we beat you Yeah of course that's how it works yeah that's yeah sometimes how it was um so we both somehow somehow with the eliminators gone from losing teams to winning teams and now we're playing

finals qualified how good big cue big cue and there's something else isn't that there is something else so you've got a little bit of news that you want to share with everyone yeah i'm hanging the boots up crossy it's official i am officially retiring from cricket and you said you would give the no balls listeners the first dibs on it and you have so there we go I can't believe it I feel so good I was going to say how do you feel like so good so I told the girls yesterday I text you I knew you were playing I'd like tactically text the thunder girls as well because I knew everyone was playing so I couldn't get overwhelmed with my phone and I told the fire girls Breezy's like anything else anyone wants to say and I was like yeah and I just burst into

tears but ever since then like I'm so happy so how did you do you do so how did you Because we've kind of alluded to this for a few months now, but you knew you were going to play the 100, well, you were hoping to play the 100, and then you knew you were going to try and come back to a Thunder game and retire with the Thundergirls because you wanted to do it at home. Yeah. But now you've changed your mind. Because I've absolutely loved it at Welsh fire.

Like, loved every single second of it. The staff had been really supportive. They've been great over the last month. And I don't want to play 50 over cricket. Yep. There is. It's not waiting for that. If you've got said that, I'd have been like, you are lying.

I said to when I was crying yesterday and I was like, I just thought I want to play a 50 over cricket again If anything's going to weigh the dizzy, then So, I mean, to be fair to it, there's a great chance that you could go out Either with a trophy or if not in front of 25, 26,000 people Either the Oval or at Lourdes And that is an unbelievable way to power out. Yeah, yeah, I'm really, really excited.

I'm going to really miss it. I'm going to be really sad. But it's right, isn't it? It's so right. You're so ready. Cut the cordial. It's been too nice. years. You've been talking about it for two years.

Everyone's probably thinking, oh, I thought she did retire. I thought she was having a break. Yeah, that's it. Oh, she's playing. Oh, no, right. I'm going to, I sent you a message yesterday and I was really caught off guard because I came off the pitch and I had this message from you saying, I'm retiring. And you know I had my phone in, so you know I wasn't going to read it before the game. And I was trying to muster this message up on the bus, but then people were talking and I was like, I just really need to concentrate. So I'm just going to try and say it now. But what I was trying to explain to you in my text is like, you basically have changed.

the way that a lot of people play cricket. You played with a smile on your face. You always owned your mistakes, the fielding mistakes. In fact, I think your first ever mistake was in your day. It went through my legs before. First ball, you fielded in international cricket, you went through your leg. When you absolutely owned everything that you did,

you've set a career up for yourself after cricket, so regardless of what you've done, what you've not done, stop crying, because I'll cry. Regardless of what you've achieved on the, pitch you're always going to have been you've set yourself up for your next chapter you should be so proud of yourself to that why am i crying you should because it's a big part of life i said this to you like we often say you're not defined by cricket but you're a world-cut winner that'll always be yours you're going to have to put that shirt back up at some point you're still not you're going to

take your medal off at some point as well cut the corner it was six years ago um but yeah you can be so proud and i actually said to you my message that the messages you're going to get on the back of this are going to be the closest thing to knowing how people feel about you without you dying. Yeah. I might not get any. No, you will. You absolutely will. But yeah, no, I've, I've loved loved it. I've hated it. But I am really proud of what I've achieved. Give me a hug. Oh. And you don't have to do any more warm-ups. You can drink beer when you while you do that, you can carry on

go into Heidi's whenever you want to go. I'm not going back there, she's ruining me. She's killed, yeah. And you can just enjoy yourself now,

be a normal human being. I'm looking forward to like just having more time. So at the minute it's like work cricket, work cricket that don't ever have any days off and I'm looking forward to like

I don't see no school friends for like a year. Yeah. Because I just never have time. So like, oh they're all coming tomorrow actually which I'm really excited about. Yeah.

But like just to just be slightly more normal, I guess. I know my life will never be normal. I'm incredibly lucky with what I do for work, but I'm never going to play cricket again after Saturday or Sunday. You'll be involved in a charity game next week, I bet, are you? For a bit of cash.

Yeah, sure give you some cash, you'll be there. Brown envelope, please. I might just do that, no. Just fly around in the pro-amcom. But no, it is mad, like, you think, I don't know, I've just been thinking about it for ages, haven't I? Like, ages and ages. And, like, that little girl,

When we used to play a lot together. Like, as if I played cricket for England. Like, it's weird. It's mad. But you'll not, like I said, no, I can ever take that away from me. So, yeah. It was my end of 200 champion. Oh, my God. I'm going to try and stop you.

No, just let me. No. That's so, so, so. Do you know what I think? You're not retiring, I'm really thinking. But last night, your last professional game, we could be against each other. Yeah. We've played our last ever game together.

I knew. We knew. We couldn't tell anyone and we knew. and then now it could be against the seat, although, which is kind of fitting. I like that. And it's the Battle of the Spuds tomorrow. I'm not even spoken about it.

Oh, my God, yeah. Yeah. So one message it does on Instagram be like, can't wait for the Battle of the Spuds. I've got to get at the team. Yeah, you do. I've been very, you know, didn't bowl well yesterday.

It's a road ahead in there as well. Absolute road. Spins a little, though, didn't it? No. I couldn't even get the ball to swing yesterday. I was not even ball in swing anymore. What's going on? Right, so just going back to the retirement

because we need to do this justice, but let's go through what has been your ultimate, ultimate highlight, or on field, off field. Just achieving my dreams, I think. Just everything that I've ever wanted to do. Go to you didn't play test cricket. Yeah. But I'm one of those why I use it. If you're not good enough, you're not good enough, are you? Yeah, but also a lot of people coming out of retirement for stuff like that now. So you might just hop back. You never know. We might play a game against Bangladesh. Ben Stokes. Yeah, Ben Stokes, won't we know. I think. I think

We're proud of the moment is just achieving what I have. And do you think you're more proud of the on-field stuff or the off-field stuff? Oh, off-field, without a doubt, off-field. There's a young girl yesterday with a sign being like, it's my dream to meet Alex Hartley. And I was like, why? Was it grey? Yeah, it got it grits. So I gave her a shirt and she was like, oh my God.

And then there was a young girl, she's 18, she loves the podcast. She was working at Cardiff. And she was like, can I have a hug? And I was like, she was like, I love the podcast. I love you and Crossy. Like, you've done everything to help me in my mental health. And I was like, you know, that's pretty cool. Oh.

You don't need to cry. I was like, I'm human. She went, but you're amazing. I was like, I know. I think the amazing thing for people is like, you're still going to be at cricket. Yeah. Like, people still see your commentating and you're still going to be around cricket. So it's not like you're going anywhere.

I'm going to disappear. People have to be familiar with that. Yeah. People must be quite happy. They don't have to watch your goal anymore. I don't know. So once said, the pigeon that landed on. The wicket?

The wicket, the other day. So I was like, that's all the crumbs from Alex Hartley's pies. I've just landed in this lot. Oh, God, it's good. Yeah, so no more pies for me. No more Alex Hartley pies. Oh, my God. Every second, you've got three more games.

Three more games of pies. Well, if I'm playing. If you're playing. It's really weird. Everyone's like, do you want to just play next year? I'm like, no, because I'm not. I'm running the drinks now, like, and I'll definitely be running the drinks next year. What are you going to do about a fare break?

Yeah, no, I don't know. Okay. Depends how much money they're going to pay. You might be retiring. Someone said to me, could you know, just go like around the world playing in the franchise stuff? I went, what? I don't even get picked for Thunder. I'm not going to get picked up in the CPL.

You might. I might. You might? I might. I might, might not. We're all going to miss you all. I know you've not died. But we are going to miss you.

We're going to miss you. We're going to miss seeing that smile. face. I'm going to miss seeing you field at 45. I'm going to miss seeing you make shots up with the bat and miss watching you leave straight ones. Obviously going to miss taking to the field with you. I can't believe we've done that for the final time. We've played a lot of cricket together. We've got a lot of memories together. Not about me. It's about you. No, but we've had the best times. Cricket has made our friendship, you know. Crickets's made us. It's made the podcast. Like, are we thought be No Bulls the podcast or should we just be Nobles the podcast now?

Oh, yeah. You play. You play. You play. like without cricket i wouldn't have you that's very true imagine what life would be without us it would be so bad i'm so proud of you i'll thank you you had an amazing how many years 17 i think i've played 17 years with playing cricket cut the cord cut the cord no more you're done i've retired it feels so good feels so good and have another hook okay thank you um while we're here and we didn't touch our emails last time should we just fire through a few. Yeah, let's do a couple.

Hello, my favourite spuds. Oh, who are we going up with us with us? It's your last game, Al-Hu. Do you want to go upstairs with? It's got to be Amarancy on it. Alex Wolf got hit. Oh, yesterday. Crunched back at him. Cuck-cunched.

I can't remember he was batting. Hit it back. It smacked him in the ribs. I nearly ran onto the pitch. I was like, honey, are you okay? Every time I see him now, I'm embarrassed. It's not good, isn't it? Hello, my favourite spuds.

Wasn't sure who to mention first. Long-time listener, second-time email. Just wondering your thoughts on Mark Chapman's Sky comments about why the women's games... I did this so long, can you do it? Just wondering your thoughts on Mark Chapman's Sky comments about why the women's game have been sacrificed due to weather when teams have a match date of eight hours

and three are lost to rain. Why not split the five hours between the both teams? I only ever watched the Women's 100 and I've been looking forward to seeing Lauren Filey's progress post-washes. I was good to see Alex drop for the fire game and whilst I appreciate sport is all about tomorrow, it would be nice if the women that have given their all to the game were able to have their moments too. So how do you feel about? I don't know how I feel about it because for me it's just the way it is. And it's also really complicated because there's times for

cricket, like if everyone had an eight-hour window to play, but there was rain forecasting four hours and it didn't come. Yeah. Like cricket's just, weather's just part of cricket. and we just have to accept that there's going to be rules that need to be in place for that. Yeah, I'm not against it. I don't hate it. And if there wasn't a men's game after it, you wouldn't think anything of it, wouldn't you? Exactly. It's just, they have to have laws whatever in place. Thank you both for an excellent podcast and Alex.

Troll episode still lives with me. Sincerely hope that has changed for you both. Car regards and an appropriate expression of love, Ross Miller. P.S. Please bring back peak of the week. Peek of the week. Or at least contract Alex to say it along with yeas, which kudos to Kate still gets an honouring mentioned. Very good. Very good.

Hi Kate and Alex. Feel free to transpose depending on who's reading this. It does actually say Kate and Alex. First time email up, but long time listener. I listened to the BBC podcast in reverse order, but the original was the correct order. But I'm not alone in doing that. We've got a new photo.

Yes. Yees. Yes. And we've got, we think we might have a new name. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. We also, all our old episodes have been deleted off Apple. Oh, have they gone?

Yeah. Oh, goodbye. Yeah. For the best, probably. The zoo episodes are gone. Yeah. I always gone. Yeah.

Manhole cover's gone. Gone. Oh, my God. Oh, no. I might still have someone on my laptop, you know. I deleted mine. Oh. Anyway, we do have a new logo, so you might have to properly search for us now.

But we'll check on the name thing because it's not going to be no balls. No, it's meant to be no balls. Sorry, it just says the cricket podcast. Yeah, I think that was a mistake. I think it was a mistake. Anyway, first of all, just want to say, I love the podcast and the way you usually make me laugh. Even when dealing with deep issues,

you really do a wonderful job. Please keep going, we need you. Secondly, I went to my first live 100 game today at Headingley. I've not been to many other live games to compare it to, but what a lovely day. Great crowds, superb atmosphere and top cricket, both men's and women's game. A great cotton ball from Kate,

although I have to begrudgingly say Sophie Eccleston's was better. Next on the ambition list is to see Alex play live, but I also love to listen to you on the radio and TV. I hope the remainder of the season and the year goes well for you both. She's retired. And I look forward to hearing updates on the podcast. Take care. Bernard. What name? Bernard, you've got three games to see him play. Yeah, Bernard. That's it. That's it. You're coming tomorrow. Hello, ladies. Love the pod, as always. And I have a question and a comment for Alex. Firstly, why isn't Frey Kent bowling at the minute? I have noticed that she

hasn't in a few games now, even though she got a ringling call up for bowling. She's got back stress fracture. She didn't get her England call. Oh, she did get her England call up for bowling last year. But yeah, she's got, she's coming back from a stress fracture. So she is bowling again, but not fully fit yet bowling. Secondly, I noticed as a slow-no video of Alex's action on the 100 website and wondered if you'd seen it or not. I don't know what the ball was, but it looks like the umpire thought it was a good one. I've not seen it. I'm not seeing that. I'll have a look now. Okay. Was that it? No question.

No question. How's it going, girls? This subject says, They say never meet your heroes, so I don't know that this is good or bad. So I'm not one to get star-struck, but yesterday at the Trent Rockets versus Superchargers game, I definitely made a right n-with myself when I desperately was trying to get a photo with Kate after the game. I'm a fully grown adult, and my cousin, Joe Gardner, actually plays for the Rockets, so I should have known better and played it way cooler, sorry, because. Just want to say a huge thank you for taking the time to come back for the photo, even though your manager was desperately trying to pull you away.

You really are, I shouldn't be reading this out about myself. You really are a tree legend and a credit to the game. I've been to many a cricket match supporting Joe, playing for the sunrises and in the 100, but I've never got that tongue-tied or excited as I did when I met Crossy. Prob's going to get myself kicked out of the friends and family area to that one. Anyways, my question for you both is, as an adult, have you ever been so strung-struck by someone that you made a complete of yourself? Who was it? What did you do and what was their reaction?

All the best for the rest of the 100, Kelly. I had a good one. Hi, Kelly. I met I met Kelly last week as well. She said, tears, don't worry, Alex. probably fan girl you on London. Yes, you're going to please don't about my cousin out like you did in the warm-up. I got her out. Got her out as well.

Alex Griff had one last night. Really? In Hyde's. And I don't know what I was stood with Stephen Finn and Owen Morgan and say hello. And I was talking about retirement. And Griff came over and I dipped my finger in my drink and I put it in her mouth and she sucked my finger. Then she went, I've got to walk away now. for him, Morgan, I don't know what's wrong with me.

And I was like, me neither. Yeah, weird. Yeah. Weird thing to do. Weird thing for you to do in front of other people. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. Like, I've never had a starstruck moment. Probably have.

Probably with friccators. I'm not sure. I was a bit awkward with Stuart Broad the other day, you know, at an interview and he was there. And I was just like, hello, you're right. Yeah. I don't, star struck hard, awkward. Yeah, we're quite awkward. then I hate it when you hug people

because it means I've got other people I like it when someone's tall and I just nestle 8 I think is for maintenance and 12 is for growth Okay I hugged a big octopus all day on the bus today Did hug the big octopus Should we do one more? Yeah Do you want me to read? Yeah I can't speak All right this one's called Basil Ball

Hi Alex and Kate first time email it It was really good to see Alex playing again Especially in the flesh at the Ageos Bowl on Friday night As we have had Bazball all through the masches, I've got a question. With the current success of the Welsh Fire in the 100, should this renaissance in their form be put down to Basel Bowl, with Tammy Basilbrough Bowman leading the Welsh fire, do we call it Basil Bowl from now on?

Wish you knew both success in the coming 100 matches, Andy Mill. I've had to reframe from calling her Basilberg. She didn't like it, did she? No. But Sarah Bryce also doesn't brush her hair. I think Tammy brushes her hair, but Sarah Bryce doesn't. so I was like oh we've got basil and someone that actually don't brush the hair in the middle

back together I was like oh I can't even say it to her right but you don't understand this because you've got thin straight hair but if you've got curly hair and you brush it it goes big and fluffy so I can't once I've washed my hair and brushed it I can't brush my hair again really and I don't have that curly hair so imagine what Tammy's like yeah that's yeah you can't brush it you can't there you go right should we go get some dinner on that note

yeah I'll treat you to a post-retirement well not yet we'll have to do something nice for that but I'll treat you dinner. Thank you. I, um, I'm done. You're done. Alex Harley over and out. Alex Hartley, the ex-c cricketer. Former cricketer. Former cricketer, Alex Hartley. I love it. It's got such a nice thing to it. Not yet. Three more games. So, if you want to get in touch with us, you can on no ballspodcast at bbc.com.com.com. It's so good. So good. They said it twice. I can't forget. Sorry. And remember to take the f*** out, Henry. Bye.

Cross comes in round, the wicket. Boulder, Boulder, leaving a ball alone, Litchfield. I think it's the wobble ball. It just nips back. It jags back. It's the nipbacker. That is a beauty from Kate Cross. An absolute seed.

That is a beauty from Cross. Fantasy Premier League is back. Fantasy 606 podcast with Alecester Bruce Ball, Chris Sutton and Statman Dave. We have plenty of former footballers who play their FPL. I was slow, so slow. I've got Virgil Van Dyke in my team from before he was injured. And occasionally an impressionist, or should we say treble winning manager, drops by. I think, Manchester City is so so so beautiful.

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