Oborne & Heller on Cricket

Peter Oborne and Richard Heller are joined by Tim Wigmore, cricket correspondent of  the Daily Telegraph and author (with Freddie Wilde) of Cricket 2.0­ a comprehensive history and analysis of T20 cricket which was chosen as Wisden’s best book of 2019.

Peter and Richard vent their spleen over the absence of cricket in the government's fifty page document outlining what sports can now be played. Then turning to literature where again, cricket has been overlooked. 

Peter Oborne and Richard Heller talk to Nathan Leamon, performance analyst for the England cricket team for ten years and author of the cricket novel The Test: an insider’s view of the stresses and strains at the top of the game.

How in lockdown are professional cricketers keeping themselves ready to resume major cricket? How they might react to playing international matches behind closed doors? These are among many topics discussed in a wide ranging and sparkling conversation.

In their fifth podcast to help the cricket-deprived journalists Peter Oborne and Richard Heller reveal a series of astonishing stories, which show the importance of cricket in British politics.

They argue that cricket wrecked Boris Johnson’s chances of becoming Prime Minister in 2016, reveal John Major’s fear of being described as a lame duck in a match with Commonwealth leaders and describe how only weeks into his leadership of the Labour party, Keir Starmer faces a make-or-break challenge, because of cricket.

In their latest cricket podcast Peter Oborne and Richard Heller discuss the prospects of seeing or playing any cricket in season 2020, in Britain and worldwide. They analyse the health and political obstacles that must be overcome for cricket and other sports to escape from lockdown. They speculate on the adaptations cricket might have to make if social distancing is still in force (matches with no live spectators? all fielders outside the circle? no on-field umpires?) They describe the financial threat to local community and social cricket clubs from the lack of match fees and bar receipts.

In the first two episodes they previewed and then reviewed the new Wisden Cricketers Almanack. In this one they find they’re not yet done mining the rich seams of gold within its pages, talking about cricketing and the environment – how some of the most important matches are played in some of the world’s most polluted cities – how the game is gradually shifting to become more of a winter game, with the season starting earlier, and they celebrate the fact that the game is being played in new and unexpected places, such as Mali and Lebanon.

They embark on designing their own fantasy Philosphers’ eleven, celebrate a new Afghan record holder, and discuss the recent interview in the Times between Mike Atherton and Nathan Leamon, the official data analyst for the England cricket team. Statistical analysis is being applied to cricket as it is to any big business.

In their second podcast Peter Oborne and Richard Heller root for truffles in the rich soil of the new Wisden Cricketers Almanack.

In the first, they anticipate the imminent joyous arrival of Wisden Cricketers Almanack, all the more joyous for recalling the most glorious English summer of cricket in living memory. They guess at its nominees for Five Cricketers of the Year and the Wisden cricket book of the year. They share memories of the notable cricketers who died, including Bob Willis, the great West Indians Basil Butcher and Seymour Nurse and, especially, their personal friend, Abdul Qadir, the Pakistani genius who reinvented legspin bowling. They also recall Gary Sobers scoring his last Test century with a monster hangover. They constantly exchange the esoteric facts beloved of cricketers, including Bhutan’s astonishing win over the might of China. In the present crisis, when cricket is banned, they wonder if illegal cricket matches will be played in secret and imagine the easy tactics the police could use to suppress them.