Test Match Special - Snow Balls: The Christmas Podcast - It's your Festive Special!

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

As Christmas approaches, Kate and Alex put up the tinsel and see what Santa has popped in the No Balls inbox. Plus, a look back on a tough start to the M-Ashes for England...

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Partly balls. Down the track comes scoring this time she connects. It's either six or out, it's six. Hello and welcome back to Nobles, the cricket podcast. With me, Alex Hartley, I forgot our name then, and you, Kate Cross. At least you didn't forget your name, which you have done in the past. With me, Kate Cross and you, Kate Cross. Welcome to our Christmas special, everybody.

Merry Christmas! Well, I wish it could be Christmas every day. Okay, that's enough of that. When the kids start singing and cross, he starts to play. Badaum, bum, bum. What's your favourite Christmas song? That one, I do like that one. Oh, okay.

What about yours? Some good ones out there, actually. There's a few belt in Christmas tunes. It's a shame they only get played from... August onwards. I like Steppin' to Christmas by Elton John. Step into Christmas, that one. It's joined together.

Forever and ever. Yeah, that one. Good tune. Bit in Mariah Carey never goes wrong. Classic, classic Christmas. I just saw her on the TV singing Christmas songs. How are you doing? I'm very well, thank you.

How are you? Yeah, I'm good. Currently down in London. So I've lived in a hotel room now for four days because I'm doing some work with BT on the Mashes, which is, it's been all right, it's been fun. The show has been all right and fun, not the Mashes. You've got a good gig, though,

because you're on telly for 40 minutes, and that's it. And 10 minutes of that is the highlights slash low lights of the Mashes, so it's great. I know, I know the Mashes, Crossy. Before we go into Cricket Chat, it's the Christmas special, we know our fans like it, we've not done it for a few weeks. Shall we do Trough and?

Peak of the week. Beak of the week. Should we do it? Yeah, should we do peak first? Yeah, let's do our peaks. I'm going to be honest with you, Al. I deleted my sticky note by mistake, so there's not much one here for me to chat about.

Oh, you're being honest there, are you? Yeah, I'm being honest. Or have you just not done your homework? No, genuinely, my sticky note had gone. My to-do list was still there, but my podcast sticking out disappeared. Well, I'm going to be honest with you. I have not written any notes. You never do.

Yeah. That's, you know. You do the hard yards to this podcast. Anyway, what do we say we'd start with? Peak, yeah, you go first. My peak of the week is Usman Kowager. Yes, just him as a human. Him as a human.

He was two stepping on the boundary yesterday. I mean, probably sums up where Australia are in this test series. But more importantly, he must listen to the podcast. Grossie. Tell me what he's done. He came on as 12th ma'am, and without even getting near any other player, he already was hat-stacking. He came on with a floppy and a baggy green. So a floppy and a baggie on top of each other for no real reason.

So I think he must listen to this podcast. He must do. He's gone, you know what, I'm going to make it onto their podcast. He must know about the hat-stacking raw cup. Because who's floppy? He's floppy, but who's baggy green? Because you're not putting both your caps on. on. It's like you putting your ODI cap on over the top of your T20 cap.

Exactly. Hey, there's one for you. Well, it could be Dunkin. It don't give me ideas. Oh, yeah. So, peak of the week, Uzi, like absolutely, hats off to you, right? We applaud you, but not hats off, hats on. Put more on. Thank you. Your peak of the week? We do. At my peak of the week. So, mine actually goes back a few months. In the summer.

Okay. In the summer, somebody got hit in the, the danglies The Crown Jules And Ebony Raymford Brent was commenting and said Oh, it's hit him

in the goooly-wooly-woolies Alex Hales friend with the podcast Yes, it was Alex Hales Thanks for the memory To which we found hilarious The goooly-wooly-wooly

And I was watching BT today Your friend that you were commenting with Which his name is Steen Steen said Oh yeah, am I

In the goooly-ooly-wooly-woolies Yes Because you, you teed him up to say it and you said, I'll give you 20 quid if you say it and I said, I'll double it and give you 20 quid also. So he's got himself 40 quid, but he also added to goooly-wooly-wooly-woolly-woos. Hopefully it should get trending on Twitter soon.

It should, and we've both got clips of it, so obviously they'll go on the internet. Speaking of goooly-wee-wool-weeas, how much did you just want to wrap Joe Root up and put him in a little blanket and just protect him at all costs? Oh, Joe Root, without Joe Root, how bad will England be?

Well, Joe Root but just Joe Root his meat and veg going into the third test match I mean he went for a scan in the morning because he got hit there in warm up and then Mitchell Stark hits him again

during the game in front of that did you see him shoeing the spider cam away when he was about to check them? Yeah like do we don't want to see that it's like no Joe we don't either no I mean there's been a few people tweet us saying that he's really wants to come on this podcast and take that ambassadorial role off Ben Stokes

because he effectively is no balls. Oh, poor Joe Root. Oh, poor Joe Root. Oh, anyway, have you got a trough of the week? If you've got one, you go first. Okay, I've got a trough, crossy. Okay, go on, hit me. I'm ready. I've got COVID.

Are you okay? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I mean, how I've not got it sooner is really a miracle. but I am now isolating on my own until the 28th of December. God's sake. So you've single-handedly ruined Christmas. You like the Grinch. That ties in quite nicely with my trough of the week actually

because I saw you on the Wednesday. And technically I'm your close contact because I'm double-jabbed. I've had my booster, which, by the way, everyone just go and get it makes such a difference. Just go get your booster. Well, does it? I had mine Friday. Yeah, but you've got COVID on the Tuesday. You've got to give it a bit of time, Al. You can't just get COVID and then go get boosted

and hope it gets rid of it. But yeah, so I'm now a little bit restricted with what I'm allowed to do. All my tests have been coming back negative, so I'm all right. But yeah, my trough of the week is that I'm a close contact with you. Yeah, and you're not allowed back to the house. The irony of it was, though, we were just saying, weren't we, that if I'd not come down to London to do this work,

I'd probably have COVID as well and me and you'd be having Christmas Day in the flat probably cooking Augusta or something if it shambles. At least we'd have put the tree up. Yeah, we could have done. We could have done like a live podcast from the COVID flat. Yeah, anyway, so I feel all right.

I know there's people that have been really poorly with it. I'm young, I'm fit. I've been double-jabbed, half-boasted, shall we say? And a half-boast, yeah. Yeah, so I'm fine. I just feel a bit tired is all I feel. I actually feel like this is a really nice time to talk about COVID a little bit in general because I feel like there's a lot more anxiety around Christmas, COVID.

I feel like there's a lot of people isolating as well because of like pretty much effectively your story seems to have happened to a lot of other people. So I guess if you are listening to this and you've got COVID, I'm going to play a song for you. We're in it together. Next Wednesday. Yeah, I mean, well, we hope you're all all right. No, genuinely, I do wish it could be Christmas next Wednesday.

Yeah, so do I, actually. It does a massive favour, wouldn't it? So you aren't allowed to go England cricket training tomorrow, are you, because of me? No, so they're just really precautionary We're obviously so close to flying to the ashes now It's just not worth COVID going through our camp Because we need to be on that plane on the 7th of January We've seen

A bit of Mashi's chat We've seen how difficult it is without the proper prep To go over to Australia and play well and win So I think we've got in the back of our minds That as well Like we know it's going to be tough Yeah, have you seen a member of the broadcasting team has wiped out loads of people as well.

No way. Do we know who? No, somebody's got COVID. Nobody knows who it is, but has been a close contact to everybody and basically nobody was at the ground. It just goes to show, doesn't it? It's literally so rife at the minute. But other than that, are you all good? Yeah, I'm good, thanks. It's bit strange. I feel like I'm like away from my family and friends at a time when I probably should be around them around Christmas time and obviously we're going away for three months. No, but I mean because I'm working down in London

but also like I had loads of plans to do stuff with people and catch up with my friends that I've not seen for ages and everyone's got COVID now so I've literally sat in a hotel room for four days other than when I've been live on the telly. I know it's weird isn't it? I know so many more people this time round that have got it than I ever have before. Yeah, same. So anyway you can come home on the 28th of December. Yeah, nice.

Nice, thanks. Really kind of you that. Mashes. Mashes. Did you watch? Have you been watching? Yeah, yeah. It's been the thing that I've noticed that it's frustrating as an England fan

is that we seem to be losing the game in the same way. Yeah, we do. It's just so frustrating when you, I mean, it's hard enough when you're in the team and you are doing that. And you know that and you try and change it and you can't change it and it happens again. But as a fan, you can't implement, you can't help, you can't do anything. It's like, stop doing what you're doing.

It's just so frustrating. And do you know what? Australia is just the better side. That's the crux of it, isn't it? Just the better side, yeah. The only person I can forgive for getting out in the way they did was Joe Root. Yes, he snicked off, yes. Normally he probably would have left the ball or defended it, whatever.

But he'd just been hitting the googly-wooly-woolies in a bit of pain, not had the best day. and he completely got set up by Stark like Stark bolt so well at the end there do you know what that I was I was been saying this all week we had a really similar situation in the 2019 Ashes at home where we couldn't win a game and it got to yeah you're a bit you're a bit worse actually than the men oh thanks did you not get bored out like 50 in an ODI game I mean we challenged them in the first two games so there's already a bit bit of a difference there but yeah then we did get absolutely wiped out of Canterree although

I got my first international boundary that day so it was quite a good day for me personally Top scored as well didn't you? With eight. Double figures. You've lost my train of thought now. Sorry. Mashes Australia Stark.

Australia is better. I've been saying like how do you keep asking me how do you motivate yourself or the team when you're in this situation and you know it's going to be hard to win and there's nothing that you can do other than take your personal pride

into that game and say right well I'm going to do X, Y, Z and hopefully that'll be the 5% the team needs to make the difference. But it is just so difficult when you're under the pump and people will have lost confidence. The saving grace for me was that I know Haseeb got out early in the second innings of this test

but Rory scored some runs and it wasn't many, it wasn't a big score but he stayed out there to get a bit of confidence get a bit of time in the middle. So now hopefully if people can start piecing it together to put into the boxing day test match, then we win that game and it might just bring the series to life.

Oh my God, Olly Rob. Let's talk about Olly Rob. Bowling, spinning and sunglasses. Off spin, international seamer just bowling off spinning his sunglasses. I actually messaged me today saying, yay or nay, about the sunglasses. I was like, absolutely. You love it, don't you?

You love bowling and sunnies. I feel like it's a thing that the England team do. Yeah, the spinners. should bowl his sunglasses? He actually, I learned today, does bowl spin for Sussex quite frequently. So he'll often in the first innings when it's seaming around and nipping and swinging, he'll both seam. And then it's not just like he's doing it in the nets and then just rocked up today and had a bowl.

Oh, and then when he's a bit tired, it's hot. He's a bit unfit. He'll bowl some spin. That's a classic Seamer's career, actually, isn't it? Like, just suddenly start bowling off spin when they turn 32. Yeah, if you dare, we don't need any more. I would turn the ball more than you as well. You're probably what.

I'm working on it, Crossie. I'm working on it. You were about to say something serious before. Oh, the bat him. I think the thing for me, you say, you said the name Stokes, Butler, Pope there. They've not got big runs, well, they've not got runs yet. They're due. They're like, they need time in the middle.

So you think if they can fire now, they're still, we're not even halfway through this series. Like, if they can start firing, hopefully it will bring the series to life. Yeah. Josh Butler taking worldies dropping sitters Mad, absolutely mad I saw a thing that Matt Pryor did today Have you seen it? It was amazing, wasn't it?

And how when he's ready to take the ball His left heel is already off the floor Therefore all his weight is through his right leg Which is why he's taking worldies to his left But then he's struggling to go to his right And it makes so much sense I saw everything that prior had done earlier in the week as well It's just obviously I've never listened to any kind of wicket-key

coaching because you generally kept away from the wicketkeepers and they kind of do the one-to-one stuff with the coach. But he was talking about how wicket-keeping isn't done with your hands. So when Joss dropped that catch off Anderson in the first innings, he made it look like he dropped a sitter, but it was actually his feet that hadn't done the work. So there's so much that you don't really know about. But obviously that's why the insight of Pryor is so fascinating

because he just delivered it and let us know why John. is dropping those catches. Yeah, it's been good to listen to. We did go into this day-night test thinking, got a bit of faith. We've got Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Wokes, can all swing a pink ball. We are missing a bit of pace.

We need a bit of wood. You like a bit of wood. I do like a bit of wood. Yeah. Yeah, I'm missing him. Just bring something extra, doesn't he? Like the lengths that he hits. And that's just something that I think England

haven't done that well. For long periods of time, You've got to have the energy, you've got to have the endurance. And Mark Wood has shown that he can do that. Get him in. Get Wood in. Get him in. Any more Mashes chat?

I think, should we leave it there? Because it's been, I've actually... There's also, sorry, there's also a lot of TMS podcast all talking about the same thing. Yeah, okay. Well, that's our little insight into cricket, everybody. And the depressing state of the Mashes. But there's still three more games. to go. I would absolutely love it if they won at Melbourne, took the series 2-1, how good would

this series be? Oh yeah, that'd be class. That'd be class. Bingers crossed everybody. Come on, England. Right, we need to go upstairs with somebody. Who would you like to go upstairs with? Because I picked the wide signalling umpire last week, so you pick. I would like to go upstairs with him, but with a Santa hat on both feet. Yeah, right, Christmas after all. Here we go. This one says, hello Kate and Alex. You might not see this email to 2021,

but since I'm sending this before Christmas, I both wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It works. Amazing. Having listened to this week's episode with Kate's dad when you talked about the Christmas giveaway, it got me thinking, throw back. You two have made a lot of people happy with this giveaway We're not doing another one

For me, I feel it's not just about the mug Although it looks great But this act of kindness And how you have lifted a lot of people's spirits During this long year It got me thinking As well as donating to charity I was thinking I could offer to give you something back

Oh, he's offering to give us something to the podcast Yeah, send it Ignored him Send it Yeah, send it We'll have it I've actually got an up-to-date one here found one that we didn't go through last week

says hi Kate and Alex your correspondent asked whether coloured shoes look right on a cricket field do you remember this chat? Yeah I have to admit they have a point but from a scorer's point of view they're a real bonus when it comes to telling players apart when they're all wearing the same kit obviously

and the shirt number isn't visible so I say keep them of course most players wear white shoes so we have to get more inventive and recently I've started noting the colours of the souls of the shoes Kate is particularly helpful because her soul shoe colour is less common than most. So my question is to Kate, do you know the colour of the soles of your shoes? Because I do. Why? Who's that from? I admit that this sounds like an

LBW, but I maintain its really hopeful knowledge. And that's from Mike, who's an occasional women's international cricket scorer. Do you reckon he has you down as crossy blue sole? Well, that's my answer. I do think I've got blue souls. Well, that's why I said it. I think you've got blue soles as well. Yeah. How can I find this out? In fact, I do have blue soles because my new balance logo is blue on the shoe, isn't it? So yeah. Yeah. Crossy blue shoes. Crossy blue so. Blue soles.

It doesn't quite well. I mean, there's been so many times where I have had a blue soul. It does. It does work. Not just on the cricket pitch. It's not just my shoes for me. Hey guys, great podcast. I always look forward to a new one each week. I had a genuine question. Of all the teams you have played against, domestic and international, which team would you like to play for? So you're not allowed to pick a team you have already played for. All the best, Martin.

Played against. There's not really that many in the hundreds that I'd want to play for. Mm-hmm. I mean, the obvious one is like playing an IPL team, but I've not played against any of them. So that's a really tough question. Maybe I wouldn't mind playing for one of the Melbourne teams in the Big Bash and WBBL. Yeah, nice.

What about you? I'll play for anyone, whoever wants me. 100 worldwide. I just like playing cricket. Just take yourself global, play a bit of franchise cricket around the world. Yeah, yeah. Nice, just not superchargers. No, I would go to them.

Would you? You've played in purple before, actually. Yeah, I'd play for anyone, Crassie. I would play for anyone. Beggars can't be choosers. To be fair, we do well in that headingly as well. Exactly. Morning Legends, a few questions on commentary.

Ho-ho. There's quite a few, eh? Ho-ho. Ho-ho. Number one, there always seems such a big turnover of commentators on the radio being rotated. What are you doing when you're not on air apart from finding ice cream?

Depends the format of the game. So test match, I'll sit down, lie down normally, have a little snooze, just play on my phone, knowing that in 20 minutes when you're back on air, probably not much has changed. I feel like when you're not on air, you almost need to listen to who is on air because I've noticed, or I can tell now, particularly with radio if I'm in the car, you can tell who's not listened because you end up repeating stuff but not crediting the person that's been on before. Like, you know, if you'd said something, I could be like, oh, as Hartley mentioned earlier, but you can tell the people who haven't quite listened to what's being fed through the radio.

So I feel like that's a bit unprofessional sometimes. Yeah, my bad. Well, I'm not saying you do it, but I think people probably should do it more. Yeah, yeah, they should. But it's also really hard to be switched on for the whole day. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Yeah. Question number two, do you get to spend any time with the players when you're on a commentary day?

No, not anymore because of COVID. Used to be able to. So you always used to see the England girls come over and chat to us, vice versa, but nothing now because of the COVID. Just a bit restricted, isn't it? Normally you would, you would though. Number three, do you prefer commentating on the radio or the TV? Ooh, good question.

I think the radio I can be more myself. But I like both. They're both different. Yeah, they are different. I actually find the radio easier. than TV, because not that this happens a lot, but if you make a mistake or you say someone was caught at midwicket and they were caught at square leg or something like that,

the listener can't correct you. Whereas if you say something wrong on the TV, that clip generally goes out on Twitter, and if you've made a mistake, it's obviously obvious because people can see the play. So I feel like radio's easier in that regard. A bit more forgiving. Yeah, good, good word actually

And I found going from radio to TV The best bit of advice I got given Was that you have to be comfortable with silence Yeah Whereas when you're on the radio You have to fill silence Because you are explaining absolutely everything That you can see

So I've found that really difficult to be quiet almost Yeah, yeah I do like both though, they're both completely different aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they're both good fun Question number four Who do you like to co-commentate with? My favourite person to co-commitate with is Henry Moran. Yeah, you too have got really good chemistry, haven't you?

Yeah, we've got a really good, like, working relationship where we can just be ourselves and have a lot of fun. And a lot of people always say it's best when we're on together. So I'm always like, buzz on together. I think it's always good when you're working with someone like Henry as well, that you trust him to be, not that you would, but to not stitch you up, to not, like, put you down a rabbit hole where you can't get out of, like, the trust that you two have in a friendship

obviously relates to your co-commentary relationship as well. He does like to set me up in certain ways that I'll just say something a little bit inappropriate and then he'll look at me, wink at me and carry on and I'm there, like, laughing, like, this is not okay. Yeah, I love working with daggers. Yes. I have some of my best days with daggers.

But it's a really similar thing, though, like me and him understand each other. He knows my cricket knowledge well enough to know what to ask me, what not to ask me, etc. yeah question number five is it hard to have to say when things go wrong for example a bad shot a drop catcher and missfield especially when they might be a friend i wonder what she's talking about no it's not i think with me and you if i'm playing your commentating vice versa it's just part of the job isn't it like if you drop a dolly i'm sorry but i'm going to have

to say you've dropped a dolly yeah as well i'm never going to listen to it so say what you want I'm not going to go back and listen to the radio again this comes back to the TV bit I might see the highlights of what gets said on a TV because I'll watch the videos but I'm not going to go back and listen to four hours of radio Yeah

I know you've got better things to be time Not now you're isolating though Sorry about that Question six Do you get more nervous when you're commentating or playing Ooh Ooh Good question

or depends on the cricket game itself and always always the first TV game of the summer I'm physically shaking, I'm that nervous. Really? Yeah, like my knees are like clattering together and I'm like, oh my God, everyone's going to see the microphone shaking. I always worry about, whether it's commentating or anything,

I always worry about people seeing you physically shake because obviously you do get nervous but even like doing any type of public speaking, hate having to hold a microphone because you can see it, whereas at least if you've got the microphone in your ear or slash near your mouth and you don't have to touch it, you can't see the shaking. Yeah. Do you get more nervous playing or commentating? Again, it depends on the game.

I think I do get nervous playing, not as much anymore, but my thing with playing is that I generally don't impact the game or influence the game until at least 10 overs in. so I find that quite difficult because I'm waiting for either the ball to come to me or me to get the ball to bowl and obviously I don't open the ball in for England so I found that I get more nervous

because of that I think yeah I know what you mean when I used to play for England obviously used to do fine leg to fine leg and would come on in like the 17th over and everybody knew that I was quite an anxious player and got quite nervous so always after the first over

somebody would throw me the cricket ball so that I could just be like, oh, right, I've got it now, relax. And I've got this thing about, like, getting my first throw-in of the game, you always want it to be a good throw. And you think if you don't field the ball till the 9th, 10th over, like, you can't get yourself relaxed. So I don't think I get, I probably would get more nervous for playing than commentating.

I don't really, that doesn't stress me out too much because I just think I say what I see in front of me that day and that can change. You can't plan for that. And whether or not, yeah, and whether or not people agree with it, It's up to them, isn't it? Yeah, and generally, like, we always do our homework with commentary, so it's not like you're going to get found out or anything.

Yeah. Last one. Have you got any good, embarrassing, on-air stories? Something as good as Crossy singing on the BBC breakfast would be great. I've got loads. You literally, every time you go on the radio. Charlie Dean made her international debut this year, and her ODI debut I think it was

you were playing at Worcester and she took her wicket and she went down towards fine leg to go towards the crowd and I said oh now she can relax and enjoy the crowd clapping her but I actually said cloud crap her

got my words muddled up muddled up yeah can happen tongue twisters are probably my favourite I can't think of any that I've done actually other than singing on BBC breakfast yeah I've said I've honestly go through my Twitter I've had loads.

I've loved women's cricket for a long time, but this summer has been something else. I feel like it's developed decades in just 12 months. It feels like people have finally taken it seriously and the inspiration that you've created is going to be very, very special and thank you for everything you both do towards that too with the podcast.

It's not just the next generation though. I gave up playing when I was younger because I was self-conscious and embarrassed of always playing with the boys. I felt ready to go back to it this summer and 14 years later I'm playing again. Thank you for making me a love playing and training again and not just being on the sidelines for each of those small-minded

whitts, sorry BBC, that give you grief on social media, there's a 30-year-old me that is inspired, don't stop fighting. Much love to you both, Ellie. Yes, Ellie. I love that you've started playing cricket again. That's amazing. Well, I've got one here. Dearest Kate and dearest Alex, thank you so much for the podcast. It's been the highlight of my weeks during in lockdown. Here is my question, which are better? Bats, the cricket equipment, or bats, the creatures? Marks out of 10 for both, please. Bats, the creatures are vile. They look really cool against the night sky, I'll give them that, but otherwise, what are they doing? They just hang upside down. You tell me one purpose of a bat that's not a cricket bat. I was about to

say that, like what animals do bats eat spiders? If they eat spiders, love them. What does a bat I can surely do. What good the bats do, here we go. From pollinating our favourite fruits to eating pesky insects to inspiring medical marvels, bats are heroes of the night. No, they're not, they created corona. True, very, very true. Basically, they just pollinate seeds and stuff.

Why do they do it at night? Why are they so secretive? Yeah. They're like burglars of the animal world. Hmm. so therefore animal bat zero and a cricket bat ten yeah yeah i'm happy with that evening you two not emailed in a while but this has been bothering me henry's pronunciation of tortoise he gave the example of a porpoise which i also pronounce oise does he pronounce turquoise as turkus

are we sure it's a north-south divide or is henry broken anyway you two are correct he's not lots of love, Andy. Andy, Henry is definitely broken. Torquess. Is that the colour? Yeah, turquoise. Yeah, it's not turquoise, is it? Turquoise.

But he, ah, right, okay, so Andy's saying that he says, porpoise, he says it as porpoise. I think I say, oh no, I say porpo. I don't know. I don't know what porpoise is, what's the word? Dolphin. It's a posh word for a dolphin, porpoise. See, I would just say dolphin

Yeah Interesting We didn't get as much Well actually we did get a lot of responses from that But I don't know geography well enough To know where people were saying they're from To put it into a map Someone could do it for us

That'd be great Yeah I mean somebody did say They say tortoise And they were from Yorkshire So it just ruined the whole thing Yeah we gave up quite quickly Dear Kate and Alex What is your favourite Ash's memory

this question is for both of you and which Aussie girls would you love to invite on your podcast love to hear some ashes rivalries and banters maybe with the washes we'll try and get some of the Aussies on

yeah we can definitely do that what's your favourite Ash's memory to play in or to watch do you think no let's got to play you're a player it probably has to be winning it in well retaining it technically when we went to the back-to-back ashes over in Australia and we'd won the test match I think we won the first ODI but then we just needed to win one more game and it took us a while to get that win it was the probably first T20 or second T20 in Hobart

and I remember Lottie and Sarah Taylor having this amazing partnership and I think Lottie hit the winning runs which was really apt and then we all legged it onto the pitch and I've never been part of one of those huddles on the pitch

where the players on the side run on and it was just amazing we had one of the best nights that I've ever been involved in that night in Salamanca down at the bay in Hobart Oh my God I love Salamanca we went to a bar called Cargo

and what a place cargo is and I think we were pretty much the only people in there because we won it on a Sunday So, like, Australia is generally pretty quiet on a Sunday, isn't any, but Hobart especially. And I don't know why we were doing it, but someone would just start shouting down from 10. So it would just be in the middle of the, like, dance floor, having a dance, and someone go, 10, 9, 8.

And it was basically, you've got 10 seconds to get on the dance floor. So if you weren't on the dance floor, you had to get on the dance floor. And we had this silly little dance routine that we would do. It was like a mob, like a flash dance that we just created ourselves in Hobart. back because we've won the ashes. It was amazing, genuinely amazing. Was that 2015? 2015, we went over there. Yeah, because we haven't had the ashes since then. Do you know what? I was saying to my mum and dad the other day, because Ash's selection, the squad came out the other, when was it, last week. Congratulations, by the way. Yeah,

thanks. This is my first overseas ashes that I've been picked in since I made my debut in 2014. Wow. And I was like, have I missed one? And I've not played Ashes cricket in Australia since I played in that test match at the Wacker. Wow, that's mad. I know. Well, you're the good luck omen then, so you better bring him home this year.

I hope so. I've played in two at home that we've lost quite significantly. But I'm hoping that... Maybe you're the overseas good omen. I'm the overseas, yeah. Yeah, nice. I haven't really got her a good Ashes' memory because in 2017, we lost,

and then in 2019, I didn't make the squad sound. Maybe making my so-called ashes debut Never made my test debut So me and the ashes are not friends Do you think Genuine question Not like a leading question Do you think that too much is made of the ashes these days

Oh Do you know like all the There's a lot of Yeah the hype and the theatre And the rest of it Do you think it's beneficial Or do you think it's got a bit too much No I think it's beneficial

to, like, get fans engaged and, like, ready for it. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be media around it, but the amount that goes into, like, just the build-up talk of it from the players, from everyone. Like, you don't get this for New Zealand playing England in an English summer. But it's the ashes. Yeah.

I just think since 2005, it's become, like, something different. It's become theatre. It's become, like, entertainment. more than a match. Yeah, it has. But then, so I am genuinely thinking out loud in my own question here, but careers are genuinely defined by these types of series, aren't they? So like Ashes series, World Cups,

they're the kind of things that people remember you for. Like, how many hundreds has Ben Stokes scored in his test career? Do you, like, everyone will remember the one at Headingley? Yeah. Like, Will Joe Root loses captaincy over this ashes if they get absolutely whitewashed? yeah yeah it's like that's what people are talking about and that's like it's the ashes yeah it's it is interesting isn't it it's as a player you want to play in the big moments and you want to be a part of that and you want to have the career defining moments but i don't know i just i think i've seen it from

a like broadcasting point of view this week and how much pressure is put on the players and like that jo root is a good example if he doesn't do well then the captaincy might be gone and yeah i don't know i don't know i actually don't know how i feel about it Yeah. Well, in your head, don't big it up. It's just a series and you go out there and smash it. Oh, yeah. I'm the good luck charm for the overseas. Like, what's the problem? Exactly. Exactly. I feel like we've not had much fun today. Should we try and find some fun ones to finish? I've got one here. Hello, both. I'm a very big fan. Question, would you rather celebrate a wicket on a free hit? Oh, God.

or go out to bat doing your full warm-up sidesteps and everything when the innings has finished that is from Eleanor Threlkeld It's a great question and I'm really delighted actually that she's brought up

because you've done both those things multiple occasions we've definitely talked about this before I'm sure certainly the warm-up bit yeah I have done both of these on multiple occasions and celebrating a wicket on a free hit on the international stage

has got to be a career low light. Thankfully, I mean, you did it in a game where there was no one in, in India. No, no, just probably, you know, your casual 5,000 people in a massive stadium in India. No, there was no one in that day. Was there not?

Nagpur, no. Absolutely, there was literally not one person in because that's why we could hear you celebrate it. Oh, so embarrassing. Which one would you rather do, though, Crossie? I think we've all celebrated a wicket on a no-ball, haven't we? We've all had that moment. For me, what's even more embarrassing

that happened to me in O Man is being at Deep Square Leg and the ball spins past you when everyone shouts spin. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, I really was embarrassed about that. For anyone that's not heard me going out to bat doing my full warm-up side steps and everything, Crossy stitched me up in a warm-up game.

Was that this year? Last year, one of a warm-up games for the KSL last year. I had just come back from International Duty so I wasn't playing in this game, so I was a bit bored on the sideline. And there was one ball left in the over and you had your pads on. And you'd asked how many balls are left,

and I said two, and a wicket fell. And so you got off and proceeded to do your entire batting routine out to the middle only for all the players to be coming the same way. Do you know, now I'm really conscious about it so I don't do my side steps for anything so I'm definitely out in the middle and there's people not walking off the pitch. Oh, I loved it.

And everyone knew, everyone but you knew. Oh, I just wasn't concentrating. I think I was so excited to have you back from international cricket that was just giddy from the whole day. And why would you not trust me? Yeah, I've learnt my lesson there, haven't I? Speaking of stitch-ups,

how about you the other day when I came back from Oman tried to scare me and you didn't even have the light switches on. Yeah. And all you said was all you said was you could have helped me

my bags, mate. Honestly, I was absolutely flagging. I'd had like an hour's sleep, travel for 22 hours, dragging a coffin of 36 kilos up three flights of stairs. I know, I wanted to scare you and I forgot that the telly was on,

the lights were on it. It just wasn't set up for the occasion, was it? No, it was, yeah, it was poor effort. Right, I've got an email here. I think. Last one? Yeah. Yeah.

It says, Love the podcast, here to share embarrassing DM stories. Oh. Fingers crossed. Hey Kate and Alex. Karan here,

Indian living in the US, in the land of Starbucks and Grey's Anatomy. I love your podcast. It's so refreshing and funny along with being informative. I apologize if this email is too long, but I had to write in

after binging with so many things I wanted to email. Speaking of weird D.E. to Stuart Broad. Do you remember? I forgot about that. So as a backstory for anyone that hasn't listened to that episode, you sent me one of Stuart Broad's Instagram stories?

Yeah, listening to Radio One, which is fiancé co-hosts. Molly King was working on. And it was back when Instagram had the function that if you clicked on it, it took you to your DM with that person. So I suddenly found myself in Stuart Broad's DM not knowing and thinking that it was your DM. And I sent him a message saying it was great to see you his supporting his message.

Oh God, the embarrassment. I didn't even know his till like four days later, did I? I will never forget walking around saying this breeze and laughing and laughing and laughing because you were like, oh my God, I've just sent Stuart Broad a message saying nice to see your support in the misses. I didn't notice until four days later

because I thought I'd sent it to you. And then I went on my Instagram DMs. And I was like, why is Stuart Broad in my inbox? And it was me. I'd messaged him. I didn't know. Anyway, speaking of weird DMs to Stuart Broad, here I was unable to contain my joy

at seeing your podcast finally have an Instagram page that I didn't realize my second DM to you guys was a load of auto-corrected gibberish. Don't worry about this, Karen, because Hartley sends me gibberish literally every single day I do and there's nothing worse than sliding into someone's DMs

someone actually did it to us the other day on our podcast one it was meant to go to a friend and I think it like they sent us a message being like I love these two like check out their new podcast they just sent it to us love that though that makes us feel good so I'm happy about it

yeah yeah keep sliding in crossy Holly it's Christmas It's Christmas time There's no need to be afraid Yes Al Right I'm listening At Christmas time

What did you want to say to me I say crossy It's Christmas Oh is that it? Yeah And I did want I had a message for our listeners as well For anyone that is in my current situation

That's isolating over Christmas On your own Our podcast is there to get you through If you don't have anyone you've got us Mine and Crossies' DMs are always open So please send us a message if you're struggling over the next few weeks. It's a tough time of year for everybody and I'll be on my own so I can keep people entertained. Well said. I've got nothing to add to that.

Hope you all have a lovely time with your families if you're able to see them. If not, FaceTime's an absolute godsend. So it is. Enjoy. It is. Merry Christmas, everybody. See you. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And cross strikes in the first over. It's what England we're looking for.

Party balls. Down the track comes scoring this time she connects. It's either six or out. It's six. BBC Sounds June 2008. Across the London skyline a helicopter emerges. It lands at Lord's Cricket ground. Emerging from a helicopter is a tall, brash Texan called Alan Stanford, and he's come with a load of money and a revolutionary idea to change cricket.

One night, one game, winner take off, 20 US million dollars. What was to follow was one of the most extraordinary stories to ever hit sport. This guy, it smells, heaven. He fooled important people. I'm Greg James, and you can hear Alan Stanford, the man who bought cricket by searching for sports, strangest crimes on BBC Sounds. Why are you laughing?

Just in the Christmas spirit, crossy. All right, okay, nice.