Episode 34: Beginnings, Bradman, Bodyline and Benaud (The Ashes, Part 2) - The Birth of a Rivalry.

"Media were never allowed into an Australian dressing room until I became skipper. I changed that and invited them in at the close of play each day, thereby confirming for many administrators they had appointed a madman as captain." - Australia captain and broadcasting legend Richie Benaud.

England have lost the first test, but rather than slide into familiar darkness and misery Jack and Ben instead go back into the early history of the Ashes to rediscover what it is that makes this contest so special, what makes them keep coming back even when the outcome feels like an inevitability.

It's a dive into the contests origins, an obituary notice and a quest by Ivo Bligh to regain what was lost. Into WG Grace and Billy Midwinter, whose careers intersected as teammates and opponents and, on one memorable occasion, as kidnapper and kidnappee. Into the greatest man to ever wield the willow in Sir Don Bradman, and how Douglas Jardine hatched a dastardly plan to stop him, and nearly set Anglo-Australian relations back a generation or two in the process. And into a man whose voice and passion for the game made him as beloved in England as in Australia - Richie Benaud.

Because through good and bad, the Ashes remain memorable, occasionally maddening, frequently controversial and - when all is said and done - utterly marvellous.

Intro Music: Bensound.com

License code: MZ7BOE03DMJ0CYB5

Artist: Benjamin Tissot

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.

Episode 32: The Grey Cup - Canadian Football's Grand Finale

Canadian Football is a weird and wonderful thing, especially to those only acquainted with its immensely popular equivalent played south of the border. To an NFL fan, watching the CFL can seem like a fever dream. The pitch is a bit too big, the goalposts are in the wrong place, the endzones look like they need to go on a diet and wide receivers just won't stand still. And the less said about the rouge the better...

But to Canadians - and, honestly, to the occasional impartial observer - it is an arguably even more exciting spectacle whose rules encourage faster play, more passing and kick returning, more unpredictability and some of the wildest finishes to games in all of sport. And it's all built upon a long history and over a century of its biggest spectacle - the Grey Cup.

Ahead of the Montreal Alouettes versus the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Winnipeg on Sunday, Ben and Jack talk the origins of the game and the Cup, about legends like Russ Jackson and Warren Moon, and of how Canadian footballers changed the direction of the American game forever - and why the sports world should never stop thanking them for that.