How to Cricket (The Ashes, Part 1)

Episode 33: The Ashes Part 1, How to Cricket - A Beginners Guide to a Very Old Sport

“They'd win the first four Tests and we'd try to nick one at the end when they were all drunk.” - Former England captain Nasser Hussain on England's pre-2005 Ashes fortunes.

Cricket, to the uninitiated, can be a very confusing sport. Even to those who are lucky enough to have had the Laws ingrained into them at a young age it still has the ability to puzzle, to bemuse and to surprise in equal measure.

Ahead of the 2025-26 Ashes series starting in Perth on Friday morning we attempt to do the impossible - make the most jargon filled, tradition soaked, wonderfully weird sport on Earth make sense to newcomers.

In the first part of an Ashes trio, we take you through the absolute basics - what cricket is, how the Ashes works, what legendary stadiums are hosting this year's series, how a Test match unfolds, what all those strange words actually mean, and why the sport has such a grip on the imagination of millions.

From silly fielding positions to mandatory tea breaks, the importance of weather forecasts to what LBW actually is, we set the scene for cricket fans old and new ahead of Australia and England once more going to cricketing war, reigniting the oldest international sports rivalry of them all.