The Last Wicket

Former India captain and current coach Mamatha Maben joins us for a chat about her playing career, coaching assignments with China, Bangladesh and now Karnataka, the evolution of Mithali Raj as leader, development of leadership within the younger crop of women cricketers, and player-journalist dynamics. 

Also features some thoughts on the new IPL format and the Indian test squad for the Sri Lanka series.

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Mamatha Maben (@MabenMaben) / Twitter

‘Mithali Raj is both best and worst…’: War of words between commentator Isabelle Westbury and VR Vanitha over India skipper | Cricket News | Zee News

It is a no-guest episode, as hosts Benny and Mayank discuss the recently concluded Under-19 World Cup that resulted in yet another Indian win. We talk about what the tournament tells us about the future of men's cricket, if these World Cups have really helped young cricketers take a step up to the next level, the players we enjoyed watching, and the reasons why India are consistently good at the Under-19 World Cups. 

South African team physio Craig Govender joins in for a free-flowing chat on his work in both the domestic and national setup, his thoughts on modern techniques in fitness trainings, juggling individualized approaches for different formats of the game, and much more. 

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Craig Govender (@Craig_gov) / Twitter

How New Zealand beat the heat in the UAE | Cricbuzz.com

ESPNCricinfo USA correspondent Peter Della Penna joins us to discuss all things cricket in the United States. We explore the unique challenges the game faces, as well as possible ways cricket can make inroads among the American sporting public. Can cricket displace any of the existing big four sports in the country? Could any of the athletes among these sports be remolded to cricketers in a bid to expand the game's footprint? 

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Peter Della Penna (@PeterDellaPenna) / Twitter

The Stars and Stripes Cricket Podcast

NCAA Softball on Twitter: "What 💪 a 💪 throw! 💪 @kaleiharding 📺 @espn #WCWS x @FSU_Softball https://t.co/qWldSjjpYY" / Twitter

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We were joined by Saqib Ali, host of the Cricket with an Accent podcast to discuss our love of cricket - how we got into it, what we love about the game and what we dislike about it, how our Indian cricket fandom has evolved over the years, and what we hope to see in the future of the game. 

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Check out 'Cricket with the Last Wicket' on the We Got Balls podcast!

Dr. Habib Noorbhai is back to discuss the paper he authored in 2020 - "Attending boys-only schools: Is it an incidental or a strategic contributing factor to South African cricket development and success?". We discuss the quintile system in South African schools and how it relates to wealth disparity, the stark difference between co-ed and boys-only schools in yielding future cricket captains, the existing infrastructure for disadvantaged South African youngsters who want to play cricket, and much more.

Links

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Returning guest Dan Weston chats with The Last Wicket to give some perspective on what ails English cricket at the moment. We discuss the structure of county cricket, role of private schools in developing cricketers, the effect of limited overs success, the Azeem Rafiq saga and much more. Darren Stevens gets mentioned a lot.

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Dan Weston (@SAAdvantage) / Twitter

'Stevo's gonna get ya'

The Ashes 2021-22 - Joe Root 'We need to put some pride back in the badge' (espncricinfo.com)

Tom Brown on Twitter: "Paper published from my PhD outlining the ethnic & relative wealth representations within performance cricket in England and Wales. Huge thank you to @AdamKelly07, @lewisgough @iffykhawaja, Alun and Paul for their support. https://t.co/eRdGMnmLPF https://t.co/gcnhnHZg4j https://t.co/tOXyZKJK87" / Twitter

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Please register and vote for The Last Wicket in the ‘Best Cricket Podcast’ category on Sports Podcast Awards!

Cricket history buff Abhishek Chopra joins The Last Wicket for a special episode on the historic 'Bodyline' series of 1932-33. We talk about how the epic Ashes series upended the cricket world, created tensions between Australia and England, and inspired one of the first known debates over the spirit of the game. More importantly, we revisit some of the lesser-known incidents and anecdotes from an eventful passage in cricket history.

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Follow Abhishek Chopra (El_Chopernos) on Twitter

Check out more information about the Bodyline series at TheLastWicket.com

Senior Sub-editor at CricInfo - Shashank Kishore joins The Last Wicket to talk coaching - specifically, the evolving role of coaching in international and franchise cricket. We talk about the balance of strategy inputs and man management, how we evaluate their performances, the challenges of coaching across formats, and of course the tenure of outgoing Indian men's coach Ravi Shastri.

Follow Shashank on Twitter

Former India and current Rajasthan Royals physiotherapist John Gloster joins us to share his thoughts on the evolution of fitness training in cricket over the last two decades, the pandemic's impact on athlete health, why sleep is the next frontier in body conditioning, and much more.

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