Test Match Special - The 2025 TMS Awards

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Andy Zaltzman hosts the, now traditional, TMS Awards looking back at 2025’s best (or worst) cricketing moments. As is tradition, TMS commentators Daniel Norcross and Henry Moeran are on the adjudication panel to help Andy decide who wins ‘favourite wicket of the year’, ‘worst loss of the year’, and the prize everyone wants to go home with: The Noosa Award for commitment to the cricketing cause.

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from BBC Radio 5 Live. Hello and welcome to a very special TMS podcast looking back at the cricketing year via the now traditional TMS annual awards. It's the second time we've done it which in this fast-moving world qualifies this as a much-loved age-old tradition. I am TMS statistician Andy Zaltzman

and joining me to gaze backwards through a now defunct crystal ball at the year just gone. Daniel Norcross and Henry Moran. Happy old year to you both. Thank you very much, Zolt. What a pleasure it is to be here in this now annual celebration of all things cricketing. Well, I mean, yes, it's about as much of a tradition as the Boxing Day test match

and the New Year test match, which became a tradition after one test match, did they not, in about 1991? Yes, is that not how old traditions start, just with one that becomes a second and a third, the fourth and the fifth? Oh, yes, I suppose like the longest journey begins with a single step. So the oldest tradition begins with the first test match and then everybody becoming really, really unnecessarily wedded to doing it forever and eternity. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, what a year 2025 has been in cricket, a year that will surely go down in history, as indeed do all years, of course. But for the first time in the Bas-ballistic era, England's men have lost more tests than they've won, falling short and dropping short and dropping and dropping and not batting long in Australia after a dramatic summer series against India that they very, very, very nearly won but didn't

so we've had one all-time classic series and won for me this ashes that is right down there on the anti-list of cricket's biggest anti-climaxes England's women had a bad year demolished in the ashes in January then under new management beaten by India and losing the one match that really mattered in the in the World Cup all in all not a vintage year

from an English international cricket point of view no but we're going to i think try to move away from the english international cricket points of view i mean this year is not just about english women's and men's serial failures disappointments and absolute catastrophes all down under there have been other things that go on and we're going to touch on domestic cricket we're going to touch on women's cricket that was good as opposed to the women's cricket that was terrible it's not all just about making memories for close friends and family, as Siverbrunt famously said,

with England 12-0 down and one match to go. It's about much, much more than that. And I think there's plenty of things for us to get our teeth into. It was still, in some ways, a vintage year. It was. There was great moments, iconic moments. I think we'll talk about Chris

Wokes and his arm. Oh, yeah. We will talk about big innings, small innings, and everything in between. Mediocre innings. There's been plenty of them. Yeah, but I can't, I can, can't talk about catches because I just can't remember them all. Don't ask me about catches. Well, let's start with innings since you've queued that up. And I see we're going to go for our best innings of the year. Dan, what is your nomination for this?

Well, it is a crowded sort of scene, isn't it, really? Because there's an awful lot of people that bat. And there's a heck of a lot of cricket. So if you win this, you really have done brilliantly. And I'm choosing one that I see. saw alive in Guwaharty. And I'm not telling tales out of school if I say that we weren't 100% happy to be going back to Gua Hardy. We've been in Gua Harty for quite a long time.

Quite looking forward to a semi-final in Navi Mumbai, but no, England ended up going back to Gua-Harty to play against the South African side that they had demolished, destroyed in their opening game in the tournament. In Gua-Harty. In Gua-Harty. They had bowled him out for 60-something, one by ten wickets.

It was amazing, a perfect performance from England's women. So now they go back to the semi-final against a South African side, you may remember, who are renowned bottlers, right? And you would hope that they would bottle at this point if you're an England fan, and especially if you're out there to cover England's women. And rather than bottling, South Africa's captain Laura Wolfhardt played an innings of quite startling brilliance. she began going pretty hard in the power play but allowing Tasman Brits to do a bit of the hard work with her as well they were going around five and a half six and over then she moved into a kind of third gear

wicket suddenly felt Anna Kibosh went for a duck sooner least went for one Marizan Cap came to join her at that point South Africa were in more than a spot of bother perhaps on what was a very good pitch she then found a level that I have never seen in women's cricket People talk in reverential terms about Chamorietta Patu's innings in the 2019 World Cup and 2017 World Cup,

beg your pardon, and Holman-Preek Corr against Australia, which I didn't witness. I saw this firsthand, and it was, it was fantastic. She just took England apart. She cleverly played Eccleston, got rid of Eccleston, then the last 10 overs they went to nearly 12 and over, 117 runs they got. In women's cricket does not happen. She ended up with 169 from 143 balls, 24s, 4-6s, and it got to that point when you're watching this innings when you're sort of watching things onto a PlayStation and what have you,

where you know that this next ball is going to be pumped for four or six. It just is. It doesn't really matter. And there's going to be a bewildered-looking Lindsay Smith and a slightly downcast looking that's ever-brunton, completely almost disinterested. Sophie Eccleston somewhere at Long On going, what's going on? And everybody's just going to be absolutely like shell-shot. It was that.

And the crowd went berserk. And although it was disappointing from an England point of view, it was the best women's knock I have seen. And it was the best knock I saw alive by quite a distance, I think. I'm also going South African Zoltz. And I can't decide if this is the best innings or the worst innings of the year. Because Vian Molder is on 367, he's captaining South Africa for the first time. This is the second test between South Africa and Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in July.

And at 367, having faced 334 balls, found the boundary on 53 occasions going at a strike rate north of 100, history beckons. Brian Lara is quaking in his boots. Well, so are all of us, to be briefed, always with you. What does he do? He declares. That's it. He said, no, I've had enough. I'm going to sacrifice things for history.

You think, well, fair enough, okay. Well, obviously, the match situation demands this, because there's got to be enough time in the game to make sure that you win it. That is your primary concern as captain. They won by an innings and 236 runs. He could have scored 600. How long left? It was about day and a band left, probably. There's definitely more than a day left at the end of the game, I think.

Certainly. And so you're thinking, wonderfully selfless, admirable, looking at history and thinking, well, I can't possibly take that record. He's on 367. The messages are going around the WhatsApp groups and the various nerdy chat rooms across cricket folklore. This is about to happen. Tune in to Bulaueuayu, all eyes on the second test. between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Weanmolder, not a bit of it. Interval comes, 367, that'll do me nicely. And don't think

also, oh, how selfless, how I still have to watch 367. It's not, do you know what I mean? Are they going to get that far? To me, this is one of the great acts of sporting humility in the history of all sports. I think we should give him an award just for

declaring on himself. as a player we and Mould have had quite a good year but he still averages you take out the weakest teams he's played against Bangladesh, Zimbabwe he averages under 20 against the higher ranked sides he could have taken the record

off Brian Lara he took it off Matthew Hayden who'd taken it off Brian Lara who'd taken it off Garfield Sobers who'd taken it off Len Hutton who'd taken it off Don Bradman that succession of some of the greatest names in batting history And you've left out Wally Hammond as well Yeah, Wally Hammond's in the...

That was against a pretty weak New Zealand team. But let's get Wally Hammond in there. These are some of the mighty immortal names of batting. And I think the world should applaud Wianne Mulder for having the humility to say, it's very nice scoring 367, but I have no business being top of that list. And to me, that was magnificent.

I can't decide if it's magnificent or magnificently annoying. Let's not forget the bowling attack. you wanted to get 500? Oh, yeah, by that point. It's a bit like when a football team's 7-0 up at half time, you think, oh, you wait for the second half, and then they win 7-1. And you're like, oh, well, no, no, no,

because then it becomes impossible ever to break that record, doesn't it? Because no one can ever do that yet, unless you can line up, unless we can give, like, the Cameroon team test status and allow for Brian Lara to come back and play against them in a one-off game at Antigua. My nomination is also a South African, but innings of rather greater weight for South African men's cricket.

Aidan Markram in the World Test Final at Lords, South Africa, winning their first major global trophy, slightly ironically in the format that they'd almost abandoned. And it's one of the great stories, I think, of the cricket year, South African men's test team. It was the fourth innings, Australia, 212 all out in the first inning. South Africa, 138, Australia, 207. We've seen quite a lot of low-scoring games.

Actually, it's a bit of an advantage to bat in the fourth innings, knowing what you've got to do. 282, the target. Rickleton was out early on, and Markram made it 136 against Stark Hazelwood Cummins, Lyon, under, you know, having the weight of the knowledge that South Africa had not won a world title before,

a chance to do something that will live in South African in cricketing, immortality, and he played just beautifully with a great deal of restraint throughout his career. He's been a talented player that maybe is one of the victims of the modern cricket schedule hasn't been able to focus on test cricket in the way that he would have done in previous generation. So his test career has been quite up and down, but he's done a few amazing things in his career, and this will always be the pinnacle, 136 off 207 out.

They just needed another six to win when he was out, which is ideal. played in and things like that, you want to be able to walk off on your own and lap up the applause? I was very fortunate enough to commentate that for an Australian radio station. So it was really good fun because he did it against Australia. And to be on their radio crowing massively at how this had happened. There were a couple of things that were slightly to his advantage. One of them was that it was a classic Lord's pitch where Australia abatted first and it was spicy to begin with. And they'd made a fatal error.

they bowled South Africa out too soon in South Africa's first innings if you recall so when Australia went back out to bat the pitch still had something in it out the way you've got to do it in those ones is you're better off letting the side batting second get a tiny lead you know get ahead a little bit about a little bit longer

instead unfortunately it all went it all went a bit pear-shaped for them but it was so much fun to watch and there was this lovely moment when he got his hundred do you remember and he actually sort of paused and drank it all in and he talked about it afterwards didn't he said that he did he knew that they were going to win at this point he knew the picture flattened out he was completely confident and he was just going to soak up

the atmosphere of knowing that he'd got south africa basically over the line we've got to choose one from wolf for molder and mark crum we're not molder molder mold is our win there's gone yeah i'm not even convinced by my not mesh so that rules it out i'll tell you what, I would say that I would say that because Markram won the World Test Championship, then he would get the nod for me over Wolfram.

Well, there we are. We have a winner, Aidan Markram. I know you're listening. Congratulations. You've won the TMS best endings of the year. I'll make a little trophy for you. Right, our next category, favourite wickets of the year. Now there's been a lot of wickets in cricket. You mentioned there's been

a lot of runs in cricket. Also a lot of wickets. So often the case and a year's worth of cricket, a lot of runs and a lot of wickets. But just choose your one moment. Henry, you take the first one. I'm going to go Gus Atkinson, Bowled by Mohamed Siraj at the Oval to win that test match for India by six runs because it had it all. There was the drama of wokes at the non-strikers end, injured. There was the closeness of the match and there was the celebrations because it was pandemonium. And as always, when India play anywhere in the world, but particularly when India play in England, it's brilliant support home and away,

and it's a fabulous atmosphere. And, you know, it's, and I know you'd agree with this, Daniel, it's not quite the prestige of it happening at Lords, which would be the most sort of, the second oldest test found in London, yeah, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it was spectacular. And it was just one of those very, I think, special moments that you could see what it meant to the Indian side. You can see what it meant to their supporters. And it was just high drama and everything that we love about test cricket. Do you know what was amazing about it as well was that, do you remember the night before and there had been just a bit of rain and there was only whatever it was, 30 or runs to go? And I remember being livid

that they couldn't find a way of getting back out there and finishing it because the atmosphere had been so incredible on day four. You know, everybody had been really seized by the drama in the narrative of what was going on and to have them all have to troop off with this uncertainty with whatever it was three or four wickets left and need be 30 odd to win but I was so wrong because the following day

there was Slate Grace guys and it was packed before the start wasn't it the first ball and I was outside with Ellie Aldroyd doing the Five Live stuff and the noise was unbelievable it was just so so exciting it was

frustrating as well because you thought, if Chris Wokes had been able to bat and bowl in that match, then England would have won it easily. And then this nonsense about how they haven't won a five test series against the big side would have been completely forgotten. But that way, we would have missed the incredible drama of it. Natkins had batted so well to kind of farm the strike and do the right things. And Wokes running that two, you remember, when he ran the two to get back. And he was almost growing up. And you're growing up. And six that he had, that nearly won it. That was his only boundary, 17 from 29. He's got,

It was, yeah, it was high drama. It was fantastic. It was, I think, up there with the greatest hours of cricket I've seen, and I've watched a lot of hours of cricket. And, yeah, it encapsulate, like you say, everything that makes test cricket great because not only was the end of the fifth morning of that game, but the five tests that had preceded it

and the amount of cricket we saw, and the contrast between the summer's cricket, these long games on quite flat pitches, and what we've seen here in Australia, of very abbreviated games on difficult pitches for batting and I think we had a much better contest in the summer and it was the closest ever finished to a test series in terms of the final test when a series has been live

there'd never been a closer finish than that in the final test of a still live series so that was unquestioned a great moment Dan well for me I think it was the silliness of the dismissal that I've chosen here But it also won a test match in the same series. So this test match at Lords followed a very different pattern from most Lord's test matches, in that both sides scored heavily to start with England.

Battened first got 387. India weirdly got 387. That got us all on our toes. Then England bowled out for 192. It didn't feel like enough. They've been 193 in the fourth innings at Lords. But England bowled really, really well. and picked up early wickets, got injuring, all sorts of bother,

82 for 7, needing 193 to win. You think they're going to win this. But Jadaja then did this 181 ball epic, and he just defied them and defied them, and the ball was getting softer and softer. And Aynne was struggling partly because Sherr Bashir, who was going to be vital, you thought on that last day,

had broken his hand, and badly as well. I mean, he was out for the rest of the summer with it. It wasn't just like a pinky that had gone. had a really bad fracture. He has to have been out for most of the winter as well he has been out for most of the yeah I don't think it's because of that though so he came out to field and there was this wonderful bit when he fielded remember he took one out that deep deep square leg along the ground and the wints of pain when it touched that hand so he was this sort of like

injured hero and he bowling and bowling and bowling and I mean I suppose the logic would have said that England were going to get this final wicket anyway but 22 runs be feels like a large enough margin of victory, but Jadaida was never getting out. And Siraj had discovered a way of batting. It was on his 30th ball. And Ashir bowls this thing, and it's completely innocuous,

he's back of a length. It's been basically perfectly defended by Siraj, except that he's angled his bat ever so slightly. And then the path the ball took from the bat onto the crease, it went to the leg side, and then for reasons that I want, still to this day never understand

presumably physics and geometry which I was never any good at school, it diverted itself between his legs and hit the base leg stumped and the bail just flicked off to consternation, madness, mayhem and

Shura Bashir running around like a lunatic at the same time trying to protect a morbidly broken hand from thoughtless large English men who wanted to grab him in bear hugs and give him high tens and get off, no, no, don't touch the hand, but yes,

it's brilliant, it's brilliant. It was wonderful, it was a really, really hot day as well, and everything about it was just drama, theatre and magnificent, and for it to be show up to win the test, always, it's you know, he's kind of a sweet, cutty, cunning guy, so wanted it, liked it.

My wicket of the year, I'm going to go for Marco Janssen catching Mohamed Siraj to seal South Africa's victory in the second test in India in a series victory. 2-0. It was a comfortable victory, so they'd won anyway. But he took this ridiculous running, diving catch near the boundary, kind of over his head, stuck out of hand, and it stuck in.

And it was just a glorious moment from a fantastic cricketer. So we've got to choose our winner. So we've got Siraj Bowling-Ackinson, Bashir Bowling, Siraj is involved in all three of these, and then Siraj being caught by Marco Janssen. Well, since I was going to choose the Atkinson, myself. It's got to be that, isn't it? I think for the moment, for the actual moment

that it happened and for the pandemonium that it unleashed and the tension that built up to it, yeah, it's got to be poor Gus being sent on his way. So do they share the trophy? They have to, you know, yeah. It's got to get them together.

Yeah, it seems only fair, doesn't it? The next category, worst shot. I feel there are a lot of candidates here. I'm going to put mine forward first, I'm going for Jacob Bethel shot at the Oval in that run chase. Oh, yeah. Which is a bit harsh on Bethel, but I think that showed a lot about maybe some of the fractures that we've seen in the Stokes-McCullum, England this year that Bethel finished last year, magnificently batted brilliantly in New Zealand at number three, then ended up not playing in the summer because it was the IPL, then being brought back with no cricket, finding himself in this incredibly tense situation with the series on the line.

and it all got tens even root and scored 100 at the other end started looking a bit edgy and Bethel just took a massive moe and was bold and it felt like the moment that the doubts just exploded in England's in England's minds.

It was horrible but they were all doing that at that point because they were exhausted in their own different ways if you think Jamie Smith played about 19 of the worst shot of his entire career in that innings because his feet was stuck to the ground after having wicket kept Let's not forget for longer than anybody in England since 1960.

Well, it was the most overs, England had bowled in a five test series since 1951. At home. At home, since 1951. So he was exhausted. There was mental frailty everywhere. The difference between Bethel and Smith was that Bethel just hadn't been allowed to play cricket because it was decided it was better for him to wander around like getting the vibes, wasn't it, rather than actually playing cricket.

Whereas Jamie Smith was told, yeah, you don't normally kick. So, can you please keep with it for eternity? And then at a really, really crucial moment, you know, get on with it. Henry, what's your worst shot of the year? I'm going to go Harry Brook at Lilac Hill in the warm-up match because it was the sort of shot that did the rounds of social media, charging down the track, bold, the third time he'd attempted it. And it just belied a sense of such a lack of care and respect

to the one warm-up match that England had ahead of the action. had ahead of the Ashes series and you think, oh, well, that's how I play. Well, time in the middle is so precious. What are you doing? And it just, for me, it created noise around the England team that has followed them all way through the ashes. I thought it was a horrible. Yet, ultimately, it was a meaningless shot in the context of the game in the sense it had no long-term impact. However, I just feel that it was such a horrible visual. And if you're Australian at that point, you're thinking, who are these guys?

That is absolutely ridiculous. Well, I've got Harry Brooke, but I think this is a superior shot of awfulness. Honestly, if I could get somebody to invest in a museum of stupid and I could open it in central London and have a big turbine hall, it would be Harry Brooke playing his first ball in the twice. against Mitchell Stark at Brisbane. We spent nothing but about 11 days talking about how crucial this test match was

and how the single most important moment of the test match was going to be Mitchell Stark, the best bowler with a pink ball bowling in Twilight. He faces his first ball against him with England, 177 for three, I think, in really quite a decent position. It is six feet wide of his off stump. Mitchell Stark can bowl 30 balls probably in this period. He might face 15 of them. You're supposed to say at that point, 14, fetch that, bowl me another, make it straighter, I'm not going to touch it.

Harry Brooke said afterwards, he thought maybe he shouldn't have tried to hit it for six. Maybe shouldn't have tried to hit it for six. It was the single most appalling act of stupidity I've ever seen on a cricket field. And in my museum of stupid, an AI-generated, awesome Wells voice is explaining the exact circumstances on a continuous loop. for Encourages Les Oach. May that never happen again. Yeah, that's a good shout. I mean, you could, if you could go

for more than one shot, the Pope, Brooke, root, three wickets and six balls at Perth. If they were all packaged as one. Driving outside off stump. I mean, basically biased, possibly, but Gus Atkinson at Brisbane. That was absolutely abysmal, but I'm telling you the circumstances of Brooke

in that moment. England, we're back in the series. and then they were instantly out of it. And you know who had to come in next? Ben Stokes. And you know who he has most trouble with? Mitchell Stark. And when was he bowling in the twilight?

I cannot express enough how fundamentally situationally stupid that shot was. Right, well we've got to choose one of those. Don't you dare? Don't you dare choose a different one? I'm scared. I think we're going to have to...

We'll go with that, Daniel. And, you know, he's had a year that in classic, Brookian style has mixed the unfeasibly brilliant with the unfeasibly inexplicable. Moving on, best bowling spell of

the year, Dan, what's your... Well, I'm going to go a little bit left for, because people haven't talked about cancer cricket enough this year, and I'm saying this with a heavy heart, because many people will be aware that I'm a Surrey fan, and Surrey were after the quad peat, if that's even a word. They'd done the

three peat the year before, they'd done three other three and they were big talk about trying to emulate the great 50s team when surrey won seven in a row and nottinghamshire sort of came not exactly from nowhere but but a bit of a surprise package brilliantly led by has he made and they were taking surrey all the way surrey went into this game against nottinghamshire top of the table had they won the game they would have won the championship it was a tight game they conceded a first in izada 58 but they needed 315 to win on a pitch that gets better as we all know. And Josh Tung produced a magnificent spell of bowling from a position when Surrey were right back on top. Tom Curran had come in, put on a big partnership,

a partnership with Dan Lawrence, and it looked like they were going to get over the line, and that would have been the end of it. Tung came on and wrapped it up, as he had done this summer, wasn't he? Was he the mop or the hoover, whatever would they call him? He said, mop up the tail, and he did that and he did it in the County Championship match and he won Nottinghamshire the County Championship and although it does pay me to say it because I'm a proud Surrey fan it was an exceptional, brilliant display of bowling. Henry?

I have struggled to look beyond Alana King, the Australian leg spinner at the Women's World Cup. Seven for 18 in a 50 overmatch against South Africa against indoor rather. It was just phenomenal. It was ridiculous bowling. And the control, the skill, and in a week where we've been remembering a leg-spinning king in Melbourne, the leg-spinning king from Australia doing the business was...

Wasn't she like five-for-one at one point as well? It was outrageous. We were watching that in our hotel in Visigipatnam. And I came down, and I just saw that her figures, I couldn't make out. They got this the wrong way round. She was like, she was like five for one, and six for three or something. conceded a few runs at the back end but also a leg spinner

normally will bowl enough loose deliveries just by the nature of the art that the fuel will go flying away just phenomenal Australia didn't win the World Cup surprisingly but she was brilliant and a real start I am going to throw in though just as a little bit of a wild card

somebody that snuck in on December of the 30th Bhutan's Sonam Yeshi who was recorded the best ever figures in a 2020 international all 22 years old, taken eight wickets in a game, four overs, one maiden, eight for seven.

Look past that if you can. That's, I mean, statistically, that's going to be hard to beat. I'm going to go slightly left field. I'm going for a spell by England in that win at Lords. Briden Cars on the fourth evening at Lords. Came on, India, only chasing 193,

as you mentioned earlier on. They were 35 for one, eight overs left in the day. and it wasn't just what he did he got out Karen Nayir and Shubman Gill who'd been basically immovable in the first two tests

LBW then Stokes got the Akash Deeper the night watcher before the close of place though 58 for 4 suddenly their chase becomes really difficult rather than relatively

seemingly straightforward chasing 193 if they're only one down two for 11 in four overs but it was how he bowled and it was the tracking data showed that at that time it was the second fullest pitch spell by an England seamer of four overs or more in terms of the average bounce position.

And we think of Bridencast, often bowling sort of short, almost like this enforcer role that we talk about, but he bowled to a different plan and it turned that game in England's favour. There's over 4,000 overs in that data set. Joffat Archadley bowled an even full of spell later in that series. But, yeah, it was a kind of dramatic moment. We often get these kind of phases towards the end of play where the crowd's really into it after six, seven hours sitting in the sun.

And it was a brilliant spell of bowling. And also, I think when we look at this ashes now and after seeing how England bowled in Melbourne, albeit in helpful conditions, pitching much fuller, think back to that cast spell against Indyrit Lords, I think they might have bowled the wrong lengths by quite a significant margin in Australia.

Why? Why? And why? Since you can bowl there, why? Why do they have to be this way? So we need to choose a winner. we've got a few slightly left field calls here so we've got Josh Tung in the county championship against Surrey Alana King 7 for 18

against South Africa in the Women's World Cup and Bride and Cass Well it's a tricky one actually because none of them actually won something at that point for me

one of the reasons I've chosen Tung is that his spell they won the game by 20 runs and it broke a hegemonie and it gave a title to Nottinghamshire for the first time in a long time. Cars' spell, good though it was,

was a couple of wickets, and lots more stuff had to happen. Yeah, fair point. But Alana King 7 for, and there was a point at which, like I said, he was something like five for none. It was utterly crazy. I suppose in terms of just like being weirded out

Alana King's spell, although I do still think that, you know, Josh Tong did basically win them the counter championship in that spell. But I don't know. I don't know. Well, I'm happy to go with Alana King just because I absolutely love leg spin

and it's an art that doesn't maybe get quite as much airing in international cricket as would be ideal. So that's our winner, Alana King. Do report for BBC to collect your commemorative Silver Salva. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Bring more gear, carry more passengers. face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender,

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Hear live ball by ball commentary on Fife Sports Extra. And get analysis and reaction of every day's play with the Test Match Special podcast. The Stamps out of the ground. Test match special at the Ashes. Listen on BBC Sounds. The worst loss of the year is our next category. Dan? Well, for me, I can't look further than Perth

because of the what ifs. And this was an awful thing. So series after series, 2013, 2017, 2021, England, I've lost, we know that. They've been pummeled, we know that. They've never looked like getting close to winning a game,

which has been part of what's made it so incredibly difficult to watch. And we'd had this first day in England. It got 170-odd. And we thought, oh, no, same old. But then a five-pronged bowling attack and bundled Australia out, giving England the lead of 40-odd. And it just felt at that moment that, oh my goodness, we've got the West Indies pace attack from the 1980s. And this is going to be so thrilling.

It's so un-English as well. And all we had to do is hold our nerve. And for the first session, England held their nerve. They did it really well. Duck it batted really well. I thought in that morning session after I picked up that 10th wicket. And they went to lunch, and was it 99 ahead, one wicket down. And two sessions later, they've lost the test match.

How do you do that? How is that actually physically possible? I still calm the numbers. Don't add up, they don't make sense. You've alluded to them already, the three drives on the up. You know, I literally walked 10 minutes to somewhere else, didn't know what the score was, with a degree of confidence and happiness and sprightliness in my step and then was confronted with misery and doom

and even then setting 205 because there was some good later order hitting wasn't there from Atkinson among others you thought on a tricky pitch you know high score of the match to win to be blasted out by Travis head because they've gone for a really ridiculous short ball ploy rather than bowling in exactly the same way as they had bowled the same time the night before it was mind-boggling and that it happened in two days and so there's all sorts of other things that go with that as well

I was doing lots of events for people who had flown over just for the Perth test match this was one of their bucket of these things to do and they got two days and they had to go down the Margaret River or whatever it is, you know, oh great there isn't, whenever anybody says about Perth it's hot Croydon.

That's all it is. It's tiny and it's hot Croydon but you know I thought that was it was awful and from being so excited we were suddenly back in the depths of despair going well they can't afford to lose at Brisbane

which is not where any England team needs to be it's going to be hard to beat Henry what's your nomination well on a purely statistical level West Indies all out for 27 we mentioned it a moment ago day night test

in Jamaica in July Mitchell Stark takes six for nine in just seven point three overs. The innings is done in 14.3 overs. There's seven ducks in the innings. It's horrendous. He would have loved it. And Zoles, wouldn't he? I don't know.

But for me, it was just dispiriting because you just, sometimes you see a performance. You think, oh, that's exciting. A team's played brilliantly, but then I don't know there's this just, this sense of, oh, this is bleak. And this for the long term future, the game's no. dreadful pitches in the West Indies as well, weren't there? They were really, really spicy for out. The West Indies kept on bowling Australia out quite well. It sees a scorecard.

You go, ooh, they bowed Australia out for 200. Then, oh, this horrible response. But 27? I mean, 27. One more than the 26th that New Zealand got against England in 54-5, which is the lowest score in Test cricket history. I don't think we're going to beat Perth. My nomination was England losing to India at Edgebaston

on one of the flattest pitches that we've seen in in England in decades India 587 England 407 300 of them in one partnership between Brooke and Jamie Smith 303 with collapses either side

India 427 for 6 declared Shubman Gill scored was it 430 runs in the match that's a lot of runs to score in one thing was the second most ever in a test match England then had to bat for

basically an hour plus the 90 overs on the last day on this flat pitch. Akash deep ball brilliantly, but they lost three wickets, classic England, 72 for three off 16, and then lost comfortably in the end with over 30 overs to spare. And it, you know, it wasn't just the fact that they lost, but the fact that they lost on that pitch with so much time to spare when it was quite a, you know, a straightforward task. India, people say, why have India not declared? Why have they gone on so long? And I think they wanted to remove any hope. We've seen particularly the early years of

Basball, England really brilliant at chasing in fourth innings, the big chases against New Zealand, that amazing 370 plus chase against India at Edgebaston in the delayed fifth test, a couple of near misses against Australia in

23. So they'd been really good in fourth innings. India just removed hope by leaving England's 608 to win and England just dealt with it really badly and I think we're talking about the accumulation of scar tissue denting the confidence of the basball England. I'm going for Perth, Daniel. I think Perth walks this one was a defeat that I think was hauntingless cricket. Also, just a very quick point on that, the Australian media

and fans have turned on Australia because the Usman Cowan rounds and golf and once that happens, we saw it in 10-11. Once that happens, you're so on top in the series. England had it. It was there in the palm of their hand and then like an empty can of VB crushed John well that's what that's what Bazball does do it really hates being on top

it was like it was like when Lion walked off injured at Lord in 2023 it's like oh everything's working in our favour now basically you need to throw it away it's James Bond when the baddie has got Bond locked in a room

and says rather than finishing the job off now. Yeah, I'm going to go and have a cup of tea and I'll pop back in 10 minutes. Oh, he's got away. Oh, he's done it. Oh, Azzie. Oh, there you go. Perth wins are worst. Defe of the year. Let's have one more positive category now. Come back of the year. My nomination for this is the South African men's test team. Yes. Test cricket in South Africa has taken an absolute battering over the years. They sent a pretty much a third choice team to New Zealand during the world test cycle that they ended up winning because they made their top players play in the...

It was very much sending the kids out for the Carabot Cup. It was. Players who played their only test of their careers in that series, there were several of them. They don't play much at home. When they came to England in 2022, their batting was terrible. They always had good bowling, but they had a real struggle. They were heavily beaten in Australia.

And in really quite a short space of time, they regenerated into a really effective team. Now, there was a lot of complaints before the World Test Final. They hadn't played the top sides or they played India at home, but they hadn't played England and Australia. But they won a lot of games aside from that. They won in Asia. They beat Sri Lanka. In Asia, they won under pressure to qualify for the World Test Final. and they made it there

and then they beat Australia really well with that brilliant innings by Markham fantastic bowling from from Rabada in particular I think had nine wickets in the game and it is just one of the great stories that it's almost like the players have kept that flame alive

their administrators almost marginalising test cricket in South Africa and they put together a batting line up without really any absolutely elite level stars but with lots of players who made contributions throughout that cycle. They had an amazing number of players, different players, score centuries in the 2024 calendar year. And this fantastic bowling attack, you know,

Rabada and Marco Janssen, definite sort of world 11 candidates. And I just thought it was, and the, a brilliantly led by Timber Bavum as well, who is a really interesting cricket. He doesn't have amazing numbers, but plays a lot of really high value innings, not necessarily centuries, but he did the same in India. Henry, what's your comeback of the year? I'm going for Jimmy Anderson returning to T20 and 100 ball cricket after an 11-year absence from the last time he played in the T20 blast because if nothing else, the man's commitment to continue playing is so admirable. I love it.

If he hadn't been dropped on the test side, there's no way he would have elected to retire. He would have been desperate to be at the ashes. It's not a bowling coach anymore because you can't have a bowling coach who thinks he should be in the team ahead of the other bowlers. And arguably should be at times. Anyway, coming back to playing the T20 blast, 11 years away from it. The last time he'd been playing in it was around about the time Freddie Flintov made his comeback, ended up with 20 wickets in the competition, got a deal with the Manchester originals in the 100,

and showed that he's high class in the format, still got it. And I just thought, good on you, Jimmy Anderson, for giving the crowd what they wanted. And if nothing else, what is sport if it's not? not for spectators to have something to go through the gates for. It was great fun, and he didn't just sort of come as a novelty act. He actually performed really well, and I thought, good on you. And you know what else he is? He's now Lancashire's the Under-Champership Captain next year.

Unbelievable. So here's a scenario. Jimmy Anderson leads Lancashire to championship glory. Ashley's four years' time. He's captaining England in Australia. You heard it here first. Get it. Bring that on.

Dan, come back of the year Well, mine's a great one But it was just, it was the moment And it was Joffra Archer's comeback at Lords And we've been waiting, waiting, waiting for Joffra Archer To be back ever since he played in that summer of 2019 And then again in the COVID summer of 2020 But he hadn't been in front of crowds, had he, since 2019

And Jopra or Jofra, as he said, He wanted to be called at one point in this year Is he's sort of totemic he's something that we can all entirely get behind he's quick he's just languid he's skillful he's brilliant and there he was and half of us were thinking oh no please don't let this be like horrible say please don't let his arm fall off please don't let it all just go horribly wrong and instead in his first over he gets yeshazvi jaiswell who has been a scourge of england for quite a while caught at slip and it was just a moment where there was to

this burst of relief and joy and also fair play to him because people for whatever reason they question the commitments of cricketers whether they really want to do test cricket and Joff Raj has been a little bit under the spotlight for that is he only really in it for white ball cricket he's so obviously desperate to play test cricket

and he worked so hard to get there to do it and to see him do it and to see the joy on his face and everybody else around him it was that was my comeback moment of the year but I'm not sure it can really beat South Africa winning the world

test temperature it was a beautiful ball as well lovely wasn't it so what are we going for as our comeback of the year I think South Africa got to be South Africa well I mean they've actually won something

for once so let's let them have something else but it's like London buses so yet more silverware for the bulging trophy cabinet in South Africa One final award, the Nusa Award for Commitment to the Cause, the heroic devotion to duty that was on display in Nusa. Go on, go on, back, because I know that Chris Wokes has got a special place in your heart.

It was amazing. That was just one of the great things, because I have been complaining my entire, adolescent and adult life about the notion that Colleen Cowdery was in any way brave for walking out to bat with a broken arm and standing at the non-striker's end for two boards. There was 1963 Lord's Testis.

Against the West Indies and it became this totemic example of bravery. And since then there have been a few that have beaten that. There was Malcolm Marshall walking out with a plastic cast on his left arm and batting one-handed, hitting a four through backward point. 84 I think it was.

yet. But this absolutely trumped all of them. So Chris Wokes has disdicated his shoulder on the first day,

needlessly running off the ball. It is amazing actually, isn't it? This England team is incapable, it seems,

of preparing for test matches and playing cricket. But they are expected to run incredibly hard for lost causes. Jack Leach

did the same thing in 2023, you remember at Lords, really annoyingly. We had a concussion replacement. 22.

That's the first first, Bavisball match. Parkinson came in as a congestion replacement. So he's run after ball. He's dislocated his shoulder and it's really bad. It's not just, oh, we'll pop it back.

It's like he's out for the game. It's costing to the match, they've lost by six runs. But in an attempt to save the game, he comes out and he's got like this incredible sort of like, like, he's almost like Ned Kelly with the helmet as well.

He's got multiple jumpers. He's got like some of the armor on him and this arm in a sling and he's having to bat and we saw photos of him trying to bat using it, batting one way and then batting the other way

and all they really needed to do was fire it full and straight and they would get him out because in no way he could touch the board so the issue was that Atkinson had to file on the strike and there was one point when he ran two and it looked like he was going to throw up

the pain is so intense and it was just magnificent. I mean, that was genuine bravery, because his body is not just on the line. It could be career over. Kind of stuff, you know. He didn't face a ball, but he was out there.

He only 20 minutes. I wish he had faced the ball, just to find out, would they have bought him a bouncer or a Yorker? I just, I still don't know. I almost want to like, dislocated again and find out. You know, that was the one bit of his innings that was

missing for me, was just It'd be nice if you'd want it with an insusiously flicked one-handed six over the... Well, Stuart Broad said that. Stuart Broad said if there's any man who could actually go out there and do it. Because people have often talked about Chris Wokes as being the most technically proficient. A.B. DeVille is, isn't he, I mean, because he plays darts and he plays Snooker brilliantly. In terms of commitment to the cause, I had two options beyond Wokes. Firstly, Harry Brooks' commitment to being utterly, utterly brilliant and then playing.

some of the most loath for shots you've ever seen, but we sort of covered that. So I'm going to go with a commitment to the cause that frustrates me more than almost anything else in sport, and that is England's commitment to bowling short at tail enders, which hasn't worked for years and years and years. See Stuart Broad and Edgeburne against Jasper at Bumra, see countless tail end partnerships that have gone on for far longer than they should have done. Because wouldn't you know it, if it's good enough to get the top order out, it might well just be good enough to get the tail lenders out of top of off stump for some reason is ignored by England time and again. It doesn't matter who the bowlers are over the years. We've seen them all have to go at it. And it never works. And if it does work, it's when already loads of damage and momentum has been done. So it just, the commitment to it is so annoying. It makes me really. genuinely angry.

How angry were you during that incredible moment in you'll remember the test patch? Was it Brisbane or Adelaide when England had the second new ball and Kerry was batting with Stark and they had the field into Stark trying to get him out and then field out

to Kerry and then Kerry got out. So Boland came in and proceeded to have that ridiculously long partnership because suddenly in the space of that two overs it wasn't possible to get Stark out. No,

so everyone had to go out for Stark and come in for Boland. And he thought, this is, this path is just going on forever.

Exactly. Like, Jake Wetherald and Travis Head have to walk out to back with three slips in a gully. Whereas Mitchell Stark gets to wander out

with seven men on the boundary. On the fifth ball. On the fifth ball. I mentioned Rishabant earlier on, came back out with a broken foot. That was joking.

And got quite a few runs. He got a couple of fours hopping around on one. leg. They kept trying to bowl at his foot, didn't they? That was a great thing. They were trying to bowl Yorkers at him. That was good. And they pitched it up.

I think all the England supporters who keep coming to Australia despite the fact that this is now the ninth tour out of ten where the ashes have gone after three out of five tests. I was told by a fan when I asked him, are you all right? I said, when they're three nil down,

he turned to me and said, if you come to Australia, are expected to see England, win a test match, you must be certifiably insane. I believe they sing songs at that effect, don't they? So what's our, I think we've got to give this to Chris Wokes, which is final act as an international cricketer as well, one of the most popular cricketers that England have had. It was most dramatic moment of the summer.

It was. And it resulted in the most dramatic wicket in the end of it of the summer, the most dramatic win in the best race of the year. In the best series of the year. So I've got a few stats, I think, sum up the year. I mean, one of the most extraordinary stats of the year is that Jasbert Bumra has won, two, lost five in test cricket this year. It's amazing.

There have been five tests this year, including Perth and Melbourne, three others, in which wickets fell more regularly than once every five overs, which is as many as they were in the 20th century. If you ignore a couple of games that only had 10 or 15 overs of cricket, It was the one game, the West Indies was abandoned another, just had a little bit before rain. Five matches in the 20th century of Wicket fell more than once every five others. We've had two in this series of five this year.

The contrast between the two series, the two England series, England bowled, like I said, more overs against India in the summer than in any five test home series or the first five tests of a six test series since 1951, the most home or away anywhere since the 86-7 ashes. And they've bowled fewer in this ashes than England have bowled in the first four tests of any ashes series apart from 1902 when two of the first four tests were ruined by rain. And unless if they don't bowl 240 overs in Sydney, which they won't do. They'll bowl their fewest ever overs in an ashes series in Australia.

The India series, 21 centuries, the joint most ever in a test series, four centuries after four tests. in the Ashes, the Joint Feudest in the Ashes series in Australia in the first four tests since 1902. More than half of all test innings this year were teams bowled out for under 200 or scoring 400 or more. It's the 72nd year, which has had 15 or more test in. And it's the first time that more than half of the innings have been bowled out for under 200 or scoring 400 or more. So I think that's, we talk about the extremes we see in cricket. I think with modern batting techniques and approaches. When conditions are good, it's harder than ever to stop a batting side. And when conditions are difficult, they collapse more readily than ever. We saw that

with England and Pakistan last year when they got 800 in the first test. And then on those very spinny pitches, they just sort of collapsed in both of those games. So yeah, we are seeing strange cricket played almost at the extremes of what's possible. So, And just specifically in Australia, the last two Ashes series in Australia, four years ago in this one, 26.6 runs per wicket, the last two in England, 32 runs per wicket. Previously this millennium, it was 33 runs per wicket in England, 35 and a half in Australia. So we've seen a massive drop off. And there's not just an ashes, another series Australia I've played here as well. Cricket in Australia has completely changed in the last few years.

And that is why we've had this weird and not particularly wonderful Ashes series to conclude a, what an interesting but flawed year of cricket internationally. Interesting but flawed. It sounds like, yeah, it sounds like it can be any of our dating profiles. Every year we do this, as in both of the second. But every year that people think about these things, there's always something that's wrong. that's changed, that's different, because test cricket has got such a rich and magnificent history that it's covered

so many different bases. And at the moment, I think we're in a place where defensive techniques are very poor and attacking techniques are very magnificent. And that probably results in a lot of entertainment when you're watching. So they make bad pitches, by which I mean, horrible, slow, rubbish ones.

You're still gonna get fun because players get on with it and you will still get results. The dissatisfaction for purists like us is that on the tricky wickets, the batters don't have the technique to be able to take it deep. I think that's something you want a bit of variety, don't it? Over the course of the series

maybe the pitches against India were too homogenous and here they've been two weighted in favour of the bowlers. But anyway, thank you to Daniel and Henry. Thank you all for listening. That was our 2025 TMS Awards. Congratulations to all the

extremely deserving winners, make sure you're subscribed to the TMS podcast on BBC Sounds for daily podcasts for the rest of the Ashes where you can simply search Ashes to find all our content. Thank you very much for listening. We'll be back in a year with the third

annual traditional TMS awards. Until next year goodbye. My name's Steve Bradnell, a sister manager of Royal Oak FC. You may see me online, going viral. Vinyl sensation. And now the BBC have given me

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