Cricketmas 2024: Two greats retire and we wrap up England v NZ and Australia v India

The Top Order Cricket Podcast

It's Cricketmas time again on the Top Order Podcast! This week we have a very special episode* wrapping up recent Tests in Brisbane and Hamilton.

Firstly to the Brisbane Test between Australia and India [0:00]. With both top orders struggling, we try to decipher which team has more rocks or diamonds. In amongst all the analysis and breakdown is the shock retirement of Ravichandran Ashwin that broke just minutes before we recorded on Wednesday 18 December. We pay tribute to a true great of the game and lament his non-availability for what promises to be two exciting Tests in Melbourne and Sydney with the series on a knife-edge at 1-1.

Then it's time to wrap up both the England v New Zealand series from Hamilton [33:56] and the retirement of the great Tim Southee. Raj wants to maximise the remainder of Kane Williamson's career (don't we all) and we contemplate if Will Young has done enough to hold his spot going forward. On the England side, our northern hemisphere analysts discuss whether Ollie Pope has done enough to keep his spot, and how good Jacob Bethell could be going forward.

From all of us at the Top Order Podcast, have a wonderful and safe holiday season!

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You can also dip back into our guest episodes - including conversations with Mike Hesson, Shane Bond and Mike Hussey, current players such as Matt Henry, Sophie Devine and Ish Sodhi, coaches Gary Stead, Jeetan Patel and Luke Wright, as well as Barry Richards, Frankie Mackay, Bharat Sundaresan and many more fascinating people from all across the cricketing world. And if you'd like to reach out to us with feedback, questions or guest suggestions, get in touch at [e-mail].

Thanks for listening.

* We're not sure how it's special. It's special like all Christmas episodes are special we suppose. Except we don't sing. We truly value our listeners too much to do that...

0:00 Introduction

1:20 India v Australia - questions for the Aussies after rain disrupts play

21:55 Questions for India

27:40 Ravichandran Ashwin's retirement

34:00 Black Caps v England - NZ win the third Test

46:20 England's tactics and approach

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