THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy reviews his highlights of 2021, and enjoying Iceland on Twitter.

"The memory of sitting in the sun, at the top of the Radcliffe Road stand, stuffing my face with Scotch Eggs, will be one to keep me going through the winter months."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (7'45): Chris Martin, the King of Tailenders

"Seeing a tailender desperately backing away to leg is perhaps the only thing that we can all relate to in test cricket. So thank you Chris Martin and Alan Mullally for giving us that."

THE REVIEW (18'05): Project Ashes (BBC podcast)

"The problem is encapsulated in the title of the podcast itself. We shouldn't have a Project Ashes, after all."

Recorded on 11 January 2022

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Listening to TalkSport's coverage of India vs New Zealand from a covid sickbed, and Tom Latham's remarkable innings.

"You often think that you have to reinvent yourself to do well in the subcontinent. Latham's great skill was to do less."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (8'30): Betty Wilson: the first test cricketer to score a century and take ten wickets in the same game

"Her father was a cobbler, so it was only natural that he should make her a pair of cricket shoes."

THE REVIEW (17'30): The Cricket Match by Hugh de Sélincourt

""'The seats bore the strain very well, awaiting without impatience the quiet, steady contract of elderly posteriors.' Whatever your views on flowery language, your tolerance has to be considerable to think that's an acceptable way to describe sitting on a bench."

Recorded on 3 December 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Tim Murtagh returns for another year, and Australia's plan to return to Pakistan

"The England and New Zealand cancellations seemed to reinforce the idea of the haves of the game treating the have-nots with disdain."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (7'45): The First Six in Test Cricket

"Get Joe Darling into the same team with Graham Onions and you'd have a headline-writer's dream."

THE REVIEW (16'30): Sport's Strangest Crimes: Allen Stanford, the Man who Bought Cricket

"The parties, the yacht, building a castle in Florida which he then pulled down: there are big themes in this podcast, but there are plenty of salacious anecdotes as well."

Recorded on 14 November 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: The retirement of Gareth Batty, and Shikha Pandey's wonderball

"There's a lingering attitude that large swing is vulgar, somehow."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (8'15): Cricket at the Olympics: Paris, 1900

"The British team was a bunch of amateurs on a jolly to the Continent, and they ended up playing in the Olympics purely by accident."

THE REVIEW (17'30): Cricket on the Continent by Tim Brooks

"If I was the president of the Vanuatu cricket association, I'd sit down with this book and use it as a blue-print."

Recorded on 15 October 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy finally makes his Trent Bridge debut, and Toby enjoys a flight of fancy about a rule change.

"I was wondering whether it was Sherwood Forest in the distance. Which may be completely geographically inaccurate."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (6'45): The cricket career of Lord Byron

"His captain wrote 'Byron should never have been in the XI had my counsel been taken'."

THE REVIEW (14'00): One Test Wonders podcast, hosted by Brian Murgatroyd

"Tony Pigott comes up with the wonderful assertion that if he had been playing in the previous test, England would have won."

Recorded on 21 September 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Back at Lord's post-pandemic, and rediscovering the joy of net sessions in lockdown

"It's the grabbing by the scruff of the neck that I particularly like. It feels like exactly the right way for an MCC member to express their disgust."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (8'00): Cricket and excuses

"The match reports talk about the excellence of the bowling, not the fact that none of the batsmen could lift their arms because their shirts were too tight."

THE REVIEW (19'05): Cape Summer and the Australians in England by Alan Ross 

"Describing the pitch, Ross reaches for an unexpected metaphor: 'perhaps as for tired businessmen who like a night out, a single frolic sufficed for a long time'."

Recorded on 30 August 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Watching The Hundred, the changing language of cricket, and marking the death of John Woodcock 

"Would I go again? I would go if asked by people I wanted to spend the evening drinking with."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (9'10): The history of Vigoro

"If you're a fervent cricket or a fervent tennis fan, perhaps it was hard to see how this new hybrid fitted into your life, and quite why you need it."

THE REVIEW (17'25): Spinwash '93 (Sky Sports, available on YouTube) 

"If you want to know how you can eat a creme caramel in one gulp, it's worth watching this."

Recorded 7 August 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Andy rediscovers the joy of bowling, and Toby enjoys a 'shock' England call-up

"These days, like so many batsman who don't really bowl, I attempt offspin. Much to my astonishment, my second ball turned and hit middle stump. I had so little faith in my bowling, that I didn't celebrate but assumed that the keeper had knocked the bails off."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (8'25): Samuel Beckett, the cricketer

"I recently read a theory that Waiting for Godot is all about cricket. At the heart of the play is the question of how you keep an audience glued to their seats while everything happened for several days? A perfect description for cricket. ."

THE REVIEW (17'15): Sweet Summers: The Classic Cricket Writing of JM Kilburn, edited by Duncan Hamilton 

"Toby, where do you rank him on the curmudgeon spectrum? Andy, that's called leading the witness."

Recorded 10 July 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Controversy at Windsor Great Park, and two intriguing tests  

"We had a lovely afternoon that degenerated horribly in the last ten minutes. To the extent that many didn't shake hands at the end."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (7'30): Dennis Lillee's Aluminium Bat

"Lillee didn't pretend that this was anything other than a promotional stunt. Unlike in baseball, this wasn't about enhancing performance. It was about getting product on TV just before Christmas to boost the sales."

THE REVIEW (15'25): John Arlott: Cricket's Radical Voice (BBC radio documentary produced by Mark Whitaker)

"Arlott could take people with him who perhaps others couldn't. There were many who would shrink from what would be seen as a left-wing militant cause, but would see Arlott's support and then follow it."

Recorded 17 June 2021

THE TEN MINUTE FORTNIGHT: Twitter chooses a favourite county, and bamboo bats  

"Most persuasively, support Worcestershire because the pavilion has a choice of 20 homemade cakes. Interestingly, many encouraged supporting any county but Surrey."

FROM THE ARCHIVES (8'50): Charles Studd's remarkable journey from midwicket to missionary

"Perhaps there is some crossover between the energy and drive that makes you become an international sportsperson or go around the world as a missionary."

THE REVIEW (16'50): David Townsend's Do They Play Cricket in Ireland

"Your appetite for the book depends on your appetite for Irish cricket and for drinking based anecdotes and other stories."

Recorded 13 May 2021