No Balls Cricket Unfiltered Episode 55: Crashed Down Under
India's decade-long stranglehold on the most fiercely-contested trophy in Test cricket has finally come crashing down. And at the end of this long reign, we come to bury everyone, not to praise them. Apart from Jasprit Bumrah. And maybe Rishabh Pant.
The last two Tests of the tour of Australia occasionally raised hope that India might still pull off an unlikely win, but reality hit harder than Rohit Sharma hit a ball all series. Rohit Sharma's mid-Test interview after dropping himself hit harder than he hit a ball all series. And, quite frankly, that interview didn't hit that hard. At the very least, nowhere near as hard as the edge of Virat Kohli's bat hit the ball outside off-stump time and again this series.
The jokes write themselves, and we get through a few of them while recapping the Melbourne and Sydney Tests. Plus, we finally have an ending to the entertaining saga of the Champions Trophy, and even more reason for Sid to hate on Bangladesh. Here's Episode 55!
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1:06:20
No Balls Cricket Unfiltered Episode 54: Thank the Gods for Rain, Ashwin, and Bumrah
There was no repeat of the last miracle at the Gabba, but India not losing that Test might be its own version of a miracle, helped by the rain gods and a rollicking innings from "bowling all-rounder" Akash Deep. Given the state of India's batting, he might get a promotion to bat in the top 7 at this rate.
The Test ended up being more notable for what happened off the pitch, with one of India's greatest-ever cricketers bidding farewell to international cricket. We pay tribute to Ashwin, and look ahead to the rest of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
India had another nightmare pink-ball Test, but it included a moment that is our podcast's raison d'être: a wicket off a no ball.
The past week was a banner week for those, which made for an awards section we were eager to get to...but not before we asked the real, tough question, the kind that we've become famous for: does KL Rahul have a Jay Shah sex tape in his possession?
That, somehow, wasn't the only sex tape mentioned in this episode. Who knew cricket was such a...fertile breeding ground?
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1:17:14
No Balls Cricket Unfiltered Episode 52: The BCCIA and TOOTH-E
Just how powerful are the BCCI and Jay Shah? That question was important enough to ask even when we had a magnificent India win to review. Would you put it past the new ICC president to engage in some destabilizing of Pakistan that had nothing to do with cricket just to come up with a less controversial reason to move the Champions Trophy out of the PCB's home base?
Oh, and there was that Test win. We talked a bit about that, but it can really be boiled down to this: Jasprit Bumrah is a genius.
Also, this entire episode features a silent but pretty cool guest: a dental assistant robot, dubbed TOOTH-E, fresh off of helping Sid do wild stuff in Aditya's mouth. No, it doesn't do cricket analysis, but it's part of the NBC family now.
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43:32
No Balls Cricket Unfiltered Episode 51: The Return
We're BACK (again)!
We could make some overwrought metaphor about how we gritted it out to get to 50 and then retired hurt, but are now back to complete the innings. We *could*. But we won't.
Instead we'll just say we're here to laugh at everyone, as always, from our favorite targets like England, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, to new punching bags like Gautam Gambhir. All that, just in time for what could be a shocking BGT.
Here's Episode 51!
South Africa