Episodes
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy reflects on a rare summer without cricket, and Toby enjoys Mark Ramprakash's insights into England's woeful World Cup
"To lose me and Sir Alastair in just a few weeks would be a lot for the nation to take."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (13'48): The Greatest Australian Cricketer you've never heard of: Greg Mail
"Perhaps the secret to his success is not being quite good enough."
THE REVIEW (26'18): First of the Summer Wine by Harry Pearson (2022)
"A breeder of canaries and pigeons, and a champion clog dancer, as a keeper he often purred 'Well bowled, Honey' from behind the stumps."
Recorded 5 November 2023
Wednesday Sep 27, 2023
Wednesday Sep 27, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy makes a first visit to Nevil Road and Toby reflects on post-captaincy careers
"In my head, Misbah-ul-Haq had to go for it. In reality, he could have done it in singles."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (12'10): When Warne and Dravid met by the Solent
"He is eventually undone by legspin - but not by Warne."
THE REVIEW (22'10): The Englishman Abroad - BBC radio play by Christopher Douglas
"Much like that Australian top order, I might have had enough of Bodyline by this point."
Recorded 24 September 2023
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy plays cricket in a field in Kent, and Toby enjoys Afghanistan v Pakistan
"The other great advantage: compared to a proper game, the wait for a post-match pint is much shorter."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (07'50): A potted history of cricket in Japan
"And then the penny dropped, and I realised that all along he had been talking about croquet, while I had been talking about cricket."
THE REVIEW (17'15): Edging Towards Darkness: The Story of the Last Timeless Test by John Lazenby
"We were disappointed to be robbed of the opportunity [to win], but at the end of the day I'm afraid few of us cared what happened."
Recorded 27 August 2023
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
Tuesday Jul 25, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: For the third episode in a row, Andy visits Lord's, and Abdullah Shafique pulls off an impossible catch
"Maybe short legs around the world are cursing Shafique for resetting expectations for what short legs can be."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'20): Ted Alletson's 189 in 1911
"Play restarted at 2:15 and Alletson was out at 2:55. In those forty minutes, he scored 142 runs."
THE REVIEW (21'40): Stumped (2022) by Shomit Dutta
"We've all played in games of cricket that don't really matter, but they do matter to us. And so it's extraordinary to watch a Nobel prize winner anxious about scoring runs in an amateur village game."
Recorded 23 July 2023
Tuesday May 30, 2023
Tuesday May 30, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy visits Lord's again, and a vintage cricket story on Twitter
"This is the most awful team I have ever had, the batting is awful and the bowling, my god. I have not got a bowler. . . . If anyone would like to take on my job they can have it. . . I hope it rains for the rest of the season."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'00): Fowler's Match: Eton vs Harrow, 1910
"In the whole history of cricket, there has been nothing more sensational" - The Times
THE REVIEW (19'15): Gilbert: The Last Years of WG Grace, by Charlie Connelly (2015)
"It'll be a while until the next episode of Reverse Swept Radio, while Andy and I set about writing a new series of historical fiction novels to plug this gap in cricket literature."
Recorded 30 May 2023
Friday Apr 14, 2023
Friday Apr 14, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Visiting the Lord's pavilion and Leicestershire win a remarkable game
"You can't really have everyone wandering around with pints."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (10'20): Ian Botham v Andy Roberts in 1974: teenage Botham loses his teeth but wins the match
"I spat out the last fragments of teeth, took a few sips of water, and let the 12th man assess the damage."
THE REVIEW (19'20): Caught Out: Crime, Corruption, Cricket (Netflix documentary)
“Sport is meant to be unscripted. It’s the unexpectedness that makes it special. If it’s scripted, it takes away everything that sport stands for.”
Recorded 9 April 2023
Monday Mar 27, 2023
Monday Mar 27, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Discovering ICC TV, and rediscovering The Nightwatchman
"Watching Zimbabwe is pure nostalgia for me: in Harare I made a very elegant four."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (09'10): The Curious Case of the end of Bobby Peel's Career
"Pissed at the wicket? Most probably. Did he piss on the wicket? Probably not."
THE REVIEW (19'50): Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 Revolution, by Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde (2019)
"There's a theme which could almost be used by businesses as an organisational psychology piece."
Recorded 25 March 2023
Monday Feb 27, 2023
Monday Feb 27, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Duncan Hamilton fears for the future of cricket writing, and Australia's test players learn from their predecessors via the media
"Ian Healey sets himself up in front of the pedal bin in the SEN Office, and did a piece for camera that looks suspiciously like it was filmed on a phone."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'50): The Rise, Fall and Rise of Chris Schofield
"This is the feature that Andy has just admitted he has been looking forward to for several years..."
THE REVIEW (22'10): Cricketers All (1949)
"This remains utterly bonkers to the point I thought that it was a wind-up, but at the end of the day some poor man has to go and set off some rockets: two for a draw, one for win. I have so many questions about this..."
Recorded 26 February 2023
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Ricky Ponting has a plan to save Test cricket, and the MCC take a mis-step when issuing their clarification on the Mankad.
"It goes back to that thing called 'the Spirit of Cricket', and the MCC don't contribute towards a debate pro-actively about the Spirit of Cricket when they use language like this"
FROM THE ARCHIVES (12'00): Pakistan vs Bangladesh in Multan, 2003
"They decide not to call the batsman back - which is odd, given that it's the captain who has dropped the catch."
THE REVIEW (23'15): Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page by Richard Thomas (May 2021)
"Archie MacLaren was a limousine salesman later in his life. "By all accounts, what he tried to sell to his customers what they wanted or needed." A wonderful way to prick the pomposity of a man who is very much seen that way...."
Recorded 29 January 2023
Wednesday Jan 11, 2023
Wednesday Jan 11, 2023
THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Listening to the Aus SA series from an English winter, and re-learning cricket's self-control
"When you're watching cricket, you can swear at the umpire as much as you like. But when you're on the pitch, you have to switch to see the umpire in a very different way."
FROM THE ARCHIVES (11'00): "An innings played with one eye and one leg" - The Nawab of Pataudi's 75
"As well as having double vision from childhood, he's nursing an injury from the first test - he comes in with a runner and can't play front-foot shots."
THE REVIEW (21'50): Ben Stokes: Phoenix from the Ashes (Amazon Prime, 2022)
"I don't want to labour this point (while slightly labouring this point), but you need to enter into the experience of watching a documentary like this with the understanding that a deal has been struck: access has been traded for a certain narrative."
Recorded 09 January 2023