The No Balls Cricket Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Our esteemed podcast has managed to do something Jonny Bairstow wasn't able to do during England's tour of India: get to 50. In a series full of milestones – including a 100th Test for Jonny himself, along with Stokes and Ashwin – we've brought up this special one of our own.

So we paid homage (to ourselves) in a few different ways: taking a trip down memory lane, and even bringing out an OG pod member from before our video days.

And as a bonus, the cricket gave us enough reason to celebrate, and engage in one of our favorite pasttimes yet again, twisting the knife into England as BazBollocks was sent home packing.

England nearly had it. Everything they wanted. A vindication that their stupid marketing gimmick is actually good cricket (even though they only got to this point by dropping the gimmick to play actual good cricket). And then the real England, the one we all know and love and love to make fun of, turned up.

And if you think England's cricket is mad, wait until you hear what happens in the Ranji Trophy.

Having come back after a long time, we've decided that we need to freshen this podcast up by doing something we didn't know we're capable of: sounding smart. So this pod has Siddhant busting out stats, Aditya talking about "process-based analysis", and...a lot of shit-talking about the teams we like talking shit about, still, because we can't not do that. But we did smart analysis too. We think. We'll let you decide.

WE'RE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK! After a long hiatus as we moved around in the world, we finally figured out how to do a long-distance pod. Just in time for the men's ODI World Cup. Sort of.

Anyway, your favorite duo, Siddhant Pradhan aka the club cricketer and Aditya Devavrat aka the respected journalist, is here to make fun of England and Pakistan (and maybe look at the rest of the World Cup after the first two weeks). Welcome back to the madness!

This may or may not be the last episode of No Balls Cricket. Are we being dramatic and dumb? Would anyone listening to us think we're capable of such behavior? (Don't answer that.)

What exactly we mean by that, is revealed in the episode, where we also discuss Sid's cricket "escapades", Ashwin's latest tactical controversy, and of course, more of our favorite pastime...dunking on England cricket. Welcome back!

As always, listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, and watch us and subscribe on YouTube.

No Balls Cricket: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts
Aditya: Twitter
Siddhant: Twitter

Cricket had its own version of March Madness last month, with three Test series going on simultaneously and the month culminating in the Women's World Cup. We'll review that thrilling tournament in a special episode, but for now we're focusing on the Test cricket that we saw, or didn't see, given how some of it put us to sleep.

Can you blame us? India were dominant against Sri Lanka as one would expect, and the first two Tests both in the West Indies and in Pakistan were absolute snooze fests for the most part. The third Tests were where all the action was, as England did England things in the West Indies, and Australia gave us a special performance in Pakistan that also produced memes galore.

Here's our review of all three series, along with a special tribute to the beloved Shane Warne.

As always, listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, and watch us and subscribe on YouTube.

No Balls Cricket: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts
Aditya: Twitter
Siddhant: Twitter

We mentioned last time that, in true No Balls Cricket fashion, we were releasing a preview episode just in time for the start of a tournament or series. Well, hold that thought. We may have gotten the Women's World Cup preview out ahead of the tournament starting (or rather, on the day it started, and after the first match had begun), but we have outdone ourselves with the next one: our preview of the three men's Test series going on across the world simultaneously. With the first Test over in two of those series.

In fairness, it's not entirely our fault. Some blame lies with Sri Lanka, too. If they had put up a better fight in the first Test against India, this episode would be going out at the end of the match, rather than two days after it had already ended. Maybe India need to follow the lead of their neighbors, as Pakistan prepared an absolute road for the first Test against Australia, making sure it lasts all five days. (Getting a result, seemingly not as important.) At least the West Indies vs England series hasn't started yet. (It's about six hours away at the time this episode's releasing.)

Anyway, without further ado, here's our preview of all three series as we look forward to an exciting month for Test cricket.

As always, listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, and watch us and subscribe on YouTube.

No Balls Cricket: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts
Aditya: Twitter
Siddhant: Twitter

In true No Balls Cricket fashion, we have yet again cut it fine with a series or tournament preview. Two, in fact, as we've also got a preview for the three Test series that are going on in the world at just about the same time, which is going to be up in a day or two...after two of those Tests have started. In the meantime, we've got a special episode to preview the women's World Cup (which actually began this morning).

Australia are the clear favorites for the trophy, but that was true in 2017 as well, until Harmanpreet Kaur happened. So while we're in awe of how stacked that side is, there are plenty of candidates to pull off the upset, and we run through them all.

Speaking of Harmanpreet Kaur, India have had a tough go of it in ODI cricket in the covid era, as has she herself. And of course, they're not helped by BCCI being an utter sham of a cricket board when it comes to supporting women's cricket. So, you guessed it...it's time to rant!

As always, listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, and watch us and subscribe on YouTube.

No Balls Cricket: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts
Aditya: Twitter
Siddhant: Twitter

For those of you who are regular listeners, you know we have a long-standing joke about being "respected" journalists. Aditya has worked in sports content for most of his career, which has included some journalistic work, and Sid...well, Sid is a dentist/surgeon but recently interviewed a cricketing legend, so we'll give him his due there. It's clear how much we love this particular running gag.

So imagine our delight when our exact phrasing – "respected" journalist, with the respected part meant completely sarcastically – found its way into the tweet of an international cricketer. See for yourself: https://twitter.com/Wriddhipops/status/1495076230713917441 

We would like to extend an invite to Wriddhiman Saha to join us on the podcast whenever he feels like it and deems us worthy of interviewing him. In the meantime, in our latest episode, Sid and Aditya have much to say about cricket media in India, not to mention summing up all the cricketing action from around the world – including a few incidents that have done our pod name proud.

As always, listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, and watch us and subscribe on YouTube. And if you haven't watched either part of our Mohinder Amarnath interview, be sure to check it out on whichever platform you're using!

Links:
Joy Bhattacharjya's thread on Indian cricket journalism: https://twitter.com/joybhattacharj/status/1496011738986295296
Mitchell Starc's no ball: https://twitter.com/SportsJOE_UK/status/1493526170670968832
James Faulkner's tantrum: https://twitter.com/ESPNcricinfo/status/1495023462393561094
Spirit of cricket: https://twitter.com/ICC/status/1493904109568765952

No Balls Cricket: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts
Aditya: Twitter
Siddhant: Twitter

We've come to the realization that our podcast is sort of a cricketing grim reaper. Apparently, the two of us, without even trying, have an outsized influence on events in the cricket world, an influence that ends up having some severe repercussions on high-profile cricketing figure (again, please remember that this is without us actually trying). 

Why do we think this? Well. Our episode releases just happen to have coincided with resignations and sackings in the last few months. So we've decided to give ourselves an award...along with handing one to Kevin Pietersen. But, before that, there's an actual episode to get through, one where we talk about all those England and Australia resignations and sackings. We promise we take this newfound great power we've discovered with great responsibility. (Was that a deliberate Spider-Man reference, or did we just stumble upon it? We're revealing nothing.)

As always, listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, and watch us and subscribe on YouTube. And if you haven't watched either part of our Mohinder Amarnath interview, be sure to check it out on whichever platform you're using!

No Balls Cricket: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts
Aditya: Twitter
Siddhant: Twitter