The Chaser Report - Matildas' MASSIVE Win + Ben Stokes' Different Strokes

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Dom is on cloud 9 after the latest Matildas result, meanwhile Charles shares his observations on Ben Stokes' change in attitude towards the 'spirit of cricket'. Worried it's just a sport episode? Fret not, there's an update on our 6Million Listener Giveaway as well! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. I feel so sorry for you. Why? Because you don't have any daughters. I have two daughters. You have no daughters. That means I have a potential to Matildas in my family.

Unfortunately, they will have my genes, so there's no chance to them ever being good at sport. However, how amazing were the Matilda's against Canada? That's the first thing I want to talk about. What an incredible game that was. We'll briefly touch on the cricket, which is a little bit of a sore point. And I need to get stuck into England for being shocking sport. Cheats. Cheats, but also bad blokeeps.

Cheats. They finally actually worked out what the spirit of cricket it is. Which is to cheat. There's a heaps to talk about in today's episode in a moment. I just don't know, Charles, what happened between the first two games with the Matilda were, I mean, competent. Well, look, I think in the first game, they actually had possession of the ball,

I would say most of the time. Yeah, and Steph Cattley took an amazing penalty, absolutely clinical and won the game. Yeah. Second game, I just don't know what happened. I don't know. I think it's because they're in Brisbane. Never go to Brisbane.

I think also they were just playing a team that's slightly better than them. In Nigeria. I mean, on the day, yes, they were. They were clearly outplayed. And a little bit crap. And it turned out. And isn't it also that the Matilda's only really have one good player, which is that, you know...

Sam Kerr, the world's greatest player. No, they don't. They've got... Who literally just limps around. There was also Mary Fowler who came back. She had a concussion on the second game. So basically, of the three most famous forwards in the team, none of the three played in the second game. But then Mary Fowler played brilliantly last night, including a goal that was disallowed, for the most bullshit of reasons.

And then they scored again within a basketball. Okay, so whenever anyone ever scores when I'm watching soccer, which is only ever during World Cup, I only watch soccer during the World Cup, I have a joke where I go, offside, right, because it's always offside, right? And then during that goal that was then disallowed because it was offside, I didn't even bother making the joke because I just saw it was so clearly not offside, I wouldn't even bother making this joke. And it was offside, I don't even understand how is that offside? How are you not allowed to get near the goal? And shit, what a fucking stupid game! I am a certified soccer referee. Oh, really?

I am. When we were at school, I did it so I could, you know, ref on the weekends and stuff. Oh, so you didn't have to actually play. No, I played. I did it for the most pathetic reason. I wanted to get a thing called House Colors, even though I was in the worst sporting team every time. And I worked out if I did referee, I'd get, which is kind of a joke,

because I was a shittest person that's boarded out a year. Anyway, so I know the offside rule pretty well. And I think you have to be a pedantic asshole to call that off. Like, her back foot dragged a little bit. It was admittedly a sort of Johnny Besto-esque level of foot drag that was on there. But then they scored again five seconds later. But who's foot dragged? So the other player.

Because that's the other thing about the Channel 7 coverage is they don't explain anything. I watch the Optus one, for which they somehow have a British commentator. I don't know how that works. No, one of the players had her foot. foot dragged back. I couldn't remember it was. I think the Channel 7 commentators probably don't know. No, they wouldn't. In Channel 7, right?

Yeah, that's it. No, it was fairly bullshit, I thought. No, but that doesn't matter. They won 4-0. Catley even got another penalty just for the hell of it. It's the biggest win at a World Cup they've ever had. That was also a bullshit penalty. I'll tell you, it's a reminder how bullshit the game of soccer is.

I love soccer. It's just literally about, because when I used to coach soccer, did you and yeah when they were really tiny I was by far the worst no no they don't have offside until the under 10s I used to coach these little five and six year old kids and we would do at least five minutes of training in pretending that you've been hurt oh yeah well that's a good skill it was always very funny about halfway through the training you'd get all these really you'd say okay you got to okay so pretend that somebody's kicked you even though they haven't and roll around in complete agony.

And it was really fun. And there'd always be other people, like, looking from other, you know, parts of the field, like other teams. And they're going, what the hell is? It's like, you need that. You know what they've started doing now, which I like, though, which is they often replay those moments in super slow-mo on the big screen. And so there's like a name of shame.

If it's clear that the defender went nowhere near you, yeah. But there was one with, there was one with. last night where the Canadian right near the goal, I think it was the one where it was disallowed, right? She was riding around in agony. I swear the stretcher came out to take her off, you know. That's part of the theatre. Yeah.

And then, literally, two minutes later, she was running back onto the field. Like, it's just, there should be some sort of, like, if you overact that much, you've got to be at least 20 minutes off the field or something. Yeah, actually, that wouldn't be bad. Oh, oh, my legs. Oh, my God.

Sorry. Everyone... Yeah, you studs out. Dom is not going to be able to participate in the rest of this podcast. How could you send him off, ref, send him? I'm fine. That's fine. And look, it was great.

I tried half to the game. Talk about a fair weather fan. I spent fully 45 minutes trying to get tickets to the next game, which is in Sydney on Monday at the Olympic Stadium. So 80,000 people sold out. I'm still going to try and get in. But I'm going tonight to watch the massive battle between France and Jamaica. Right. So you've got Jamaica

and then you've got the French people who Jamaica up all their injuries. Oh, God. So that would be interesting. That would be fun. I'm going to go to that. But no, I want my daughters to be Matilda. I'm not going to, they don't have both have to be, just one of them.

I must say my interest in soccer only extends as far as Australia is playing. Yeah, but the good news is now that women's soccer is so big, there are two World Cups that Australia can pay attention to five minutes and then give up the rest of time. Oh, the women's pisses all over the men's. But the men's always lose. Yes. No, I was at the World Cup game where we went the furthest we ever got in the men's World Cup,

which was in a place called Kaiser Slatern in 2006, when Australia did incredibly well, got through the second round for the first time. Yes. And Italy cheated, basically took it away from us and we fucked it. And that was just heartbreaking. So, yeah, forget the men's game. Forget men's sport. I mean, the ashes.

Well, let's just talk about the ashes. Talking of cheating. Talking of cheating. Because we're women's sport all the way now. Because we won the women's ashes, right? It's won all. Mind you, like, the Australian cricket team is so far ahead of every other women's cricket team in the world. It was actually almost close this time, the women's ashes, for the first time in living memory.

But no, what happened at the fifth test at the Oval, what happened was, for the first time in history. No, it wasn't. For the first time in history, Bushman, Kowager and Dave Warner actually had a good opening stand, right? Yes, yes. The first and the last time, because presumably they're going to be. it's getting dropped. And my guess is, because apparently, I didn't know this. Usman Kowager and David Warner used to play cricket together when they were young.

Did they? Yeah, they used to be like openers back when they were like eight years old. Were they good together then? Because they've been one of the worst opening partners. Like, I don't know, but like back when in that sort of style of cricket, I always remember one of the funny things would be, especially if you were, you know, mates with the person you're batting with, getting them out was always the most hilarious.

Oh, yeah. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe they've got a contest that started at the age of eight to run the other one out or something. But no, look, they've had a shocking series essentially as a pair. They just don't stay in, except for the most important test. Like, no one, only one Australian team has ever scored more than 400 innings, four, 400 in the final innings to win an Ashes test in England. It happened many years ago, and they were looking like becoming the second.

And then what happened was England changed the ball. Yes. England changed the ball. They do that, I think, pretty much. every game. They constantly beg for a new ball. And it's because the quote unquote rules in England, well, there's two things.

First of all, the balls are all handmade, right? So some of them don't even work. Like, they're the sort of sewing that you or I would do to make a bigger ball. It's because it's called the Duke's ball. Does that mean it's an old-fashioned and antiquated and stupid's ball? Yes, it's a completely stupid. Oh, because it's got a royal name. As if Prince Harry had put his mind to.

making cricket balls. Ah, yes. That would be more useful than what he does. But the rule is, it's not like in Australia where you've got this briefcase of balls and like there's a ball for every type of over that's been bowled. This one's been bowled for 19 overs. This one's been bold for 20 overs, right? And it's very scientific.

Instead, it's like, here's a briefcase of balls. Pick the one. Pick the one that's going to take you a wicket when you cheat. Yeah, no, no. But it's the umpires who choose. the ball and the umboes are just fucking cheats. Well, that's the thing. It's supposed to be similar.

Like, the rules are still the same. It's supposed to be as close as possible. But none of the balls are in any way. Like, that ball was far harder. They estimated that it's seen, and I think that it's study, like the television worked out. It moved twice as far. Yes.

And so, Kawaja and Warner got out straight away. Yes, yes. Mind you. I mean, it's entropy. The rigor. Yeah. It's normality reassertic yourself. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, it was certainly for Warner. So that was bullshit. Yeah. And then the catch. Then Ben Stokes, I can't remember who... Steve Smith. It was Steve Smith. Yeah.

And so Ben Stokes, he sort of reaches up, he grabs the ball. Very impressive. And then immediately drops it, right? And just drops it, right? He brings his arm down. His arm scuffs against his leg and he drops the ball. Yeah, yeah. Which I've done.

And it's just a complete drop. I was watching it and it was like, oh, that's a pity did he drop the ball? Because that was a real chance, right? And then there was, and it was clear. on his face that he knew he'd drop the ball. He dropped the World Cup. He looked like Herschel Gibbs. Really ashamed.

Even though it wasn't the World Cup. He looked totally ashamed. Yes, he was embarrassed. It was a ridiculous thing to do. And then there was a sort of huddle amongst the British cheats. And they decided, oh, well, we should review it anyway on the off chance that reality doesn't exist. Does that mean? I love the review, actually.

I really enjoyed that. The first question was, had Smith touched the ball? And everyone thought that he hadn't. But it had. It caught a little. bit of gloves. Everyone knew that he caught his...

The theory was that the umpire had thought that he hadn't even touched it. So it caught a little bit of glove. That was clear. And then Stokes

caught it. The umpire was like, he's caught it! And then it looked as though he was about to give it out. And then the frames kept playing. The umpire didn't even realize that there was an issue

whether he controlled the ball. And then as he clearly doesn't control the ball on its way down, the umpire goes, oh no, the ball's not under control. Not out! Yeah,

and it was very enjoyable, I must say. But he clearly knew, he clearly appealed knowing, like he did exactly the thing that, you know, two or three test matches ago, Ben Stokes said was against the spirit of cricket. Now, at the time, we all went, no, the spirit of cricket is to appeal everything and to fucking win against your opponent, right? So it would be hypocritical of us to say that this is against the spirit of cricket.

Sure. And I think this is true. I think that Ben Stokes has finally discovered the spirit of cricket. which is to try and fucking cheat your way to victory. But the point is that you can't because you're too shit and you lost the ashes anyway because even though you drew the series, we already had the ashes so you can fuck off. They're ours.

There are ashes. You never getting them back. So it was a little bit sad. I thought we'd get there. And I feel for Steve Smith particularly, who for the last, you know, several times in the series, basically had to tonk a bit because these were out of partners. And so he, I think, would have got to.

a century. He's already got two centuries. No, he's already had three centuries of the oval. He would have got number four if the others had stuck around. So that was a shame. The Chaser Report. More news. Less often. Look, I think this opens up a very big question mark over Australian sport. Yes. Which is, should we stop paying men to play sport? Well, I think what we need for the next men's ashes is on merit, half women in this. team. Just kid them this. I mean, they know how to win. That's the thing. They crashed England. We haven't beaten England in a series. In fact, it's a weird little bit of trivia. For the past couple of decades, neither team has been able to beat the other

away. And so, yeah, we drew the series. We nearly got rid of that, that hoodie, but we didn't the last minute. Yeah, right. So we keep, I mean, we've drawn a few series in England, but I think you've got to go back to the Steve War days. Yeah. When we just won a series over there. Because he was such a cunt. Now, Spirit of Cricket. How far are we into this podcast? Do we need to, should we save the scoop for the next one? No, there's no, there's nothing, there's been no work if it's done in this podcast. There's nothing interesting in this podcast.

We're just men talking about sport. I know, this is a terrible podcast. All right, well, people are 15 minutes. But, Charles, do you want to save your scoop for a time when you're not already 15 minutes in the podcast? We should at least come up with something funny to say. We're just with us talking as though we were at the pub, basically. Yeah. That's all right.

That's what most podcasts are, isn't it? Oh, okay. Now, so, well, I'll tell you what, to round off this episode, Dom. Yes, of men talking about sport. I would just like to apologise that we still haven't got our six millionth listener on. I lined him up. Yeah, that's unfortunate. We've identified who it is.

We've identified who downloaded the six millionth episode using very high-tech techniques to really hone in on that one person. Yeah, if you're thinking of doing it for your podcast, for your six millionth listener, The thing that you do is you just get people to send in a bunch of emails and pick the one that you like the most. That's the scientific way to work out who was number six million. So the thing is, I've got to send him that avocado, even though he's begged me not to. Which was settled it, didn't it? It did need to demand not to be set the avocata.

Well, he wanted to, no, I think he wanted the contest bags, which are actually still available and very good at chaser shop.com. We can't afford to give those away. They're actually, people want them. People want them. But generally people who work for Virgin Australia. But the thing is, I also promised to send him a novelty oversized check for $6 million, right? But the whole point being that it would be post-dated to beyond when checks are valid.

There's a point where it's cut off. Which is, I think, October or something. Should we do it print your own check kit that only begins in October? We should. But anyway, so the point is, I will do that. I will do that. This is my commitment to the podcast. I'm just saying it now that.

that I will, this afternoon, I'm going to ring up the sixth million list of. We will get him on air, we'll have a chat to him, you know, what it's like. Yeah, you know, the honour. The honour and the momentousness. But also, I want to get, for social media, I want to get a photo of him standing with his novelty over the last cheque. Do you want to know something crazy? So we may actually not broadcast that episode until sort of next week.

We haven't forgotten about it. Do you want to know something remarkable? What? We're at 6.1. I know. There's a 7th million person. isn't going to be far away. So it could be, you keep listening, people.

Yeah. You could get a historical oversized check. Should we go order a few? It'll definitely be before the end of the year. Yeah, I'd say so. We'll go past seven million. Oh, no, I mean, just keep this going. For some reason, people keep listening to his podcast.

It's an accidental juggernaud. I don't know. I don't know how this is possible. Yeah. But it will, and it's going to be even more. I don't know, you can't see because this is an audio. A medium. But we are sitting in the middle.

of a construction zone because we're building a new studio. There's just mess everywhere. But once we get it working, we'll be able to do little videos on it. And the other plan for this podcast is what we're going to do is every time there's a really breaking tragedy that needs to be mocked, you know, like a submersible. I can't believe you said that. Charles is going to be here on his own just during his career in real time. we will be able to do is we'll be able to run into the studio.

Yeah, set up a video live stream, because we've got a couple of cameras and things. Yeah, we're going to broadcast for real. We'll, yeah, we'll record the podcast live as the, you know, just way too soon. Maybe we should have a special, the too soon edition. Does that mean that are we going to stream it in such a way that anyone can listen to it? Like, if you're a defamation lawyer, can you listen in live or have people got to find a way of making people promise not to sue us if they listen in? Yeah, no, we do. We've got the live streaming audio through Triton, but we've just cancelled our contract

with Triton. Yeah, we will work out the... Yeah, you're right. We'll probably put it on, you do it on Twitch and YouTube and you do them all at once. You can do it on Discord. You can also do it. I mean, yeah, we've got OBS. We've got all the equipment to do it everywhere.

If only we had the content. No, but it will be possible. Maybe we'll get Craig to come in and make a cameo so that people actually pay attention. It can come. in and just lecture us about our lifestyles. Yes. You know, we were actually hanging out with Craig last week. This is just the very end of the podcast.

We're hanging out with Craig. I brought a water bottle. And I thought very carefully about his judgment, right? Yeah. And so I got a water bottle that said on it 100% biodegradable. I thought, you know, it's fine. I'm bringing it. I disposed a water bottle.

And he just looked and I went, that's not biodegradable. And he took photos of it. Wow. Yeah. He's going to use it as evidence. He's going to use it as evidence for something. So I felt, I felt disgusting. I felt like a piece of shit, which is normally how I feel when I compare it

myself with Craig. Have you composted your plastic bottle yet? It's just going to degrade itself. It's currently sitting in my office along with a collection of many other biodegradable plastic bottles. We should totally do a science experiment and see how long it takes and prove Craig wrong. That could be another podcast. That would be very enjoyable. Prove Craig wrong. It's taken 25 years. Try. Yeah. The war in supportive waste. That's right. We actually should do that. We should contact all the polluters and ask if they'll fund us to make a series. Yeah. Giving the balance side to defend waste. Coming soon.

To Sky News. We'll set up a channel for us. Can you actually pitch it? Let's write a letter to Sky News today pitching that series. I really want to make it. Okay, we'll do that. Agir is remote with part of the Icona class network. And our bottles are clearly not biodegradable.

There you.