Oborne & Heller on Cricket
Cricket authors (and obsessives) Peter Oborne and Richard Heller have launched a new podcast to help deprived listeners endure a world without cricket. They will chat regularly about cricket topics – hoping to keep a good line and length but with occasional wides into other subjects.
Episodes
118 episodes
World Cricket And All That Shapes It Covered By Wisden Editor Lawrence Booth
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack 2023 is the longest edition on record. It not only records the present state of global cricket but also reflects on the mi...
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Season 1
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Episode 118
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55:49
Sovereigns, stars, stewards, scorers, statisticians … Steven Lynch on this year’s Wisden obituaries
Two monarchs lead the obituaries in the 2023 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. As always, it is a melancholy but matchless memorial to global cricket’s losses, and a se...
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Season 1
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Episode 117
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54:18
From teenage record breaker to players’ champion: James Harris of Glamorgan and the PCA
After a record-breaking early start in county cricket for Glamorgan, James Harris is back with them after spells with Middlesex and Kent. He has also begun his second term as chair of the Professional Cricketers Association. He is the guest of ...
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Season 1
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Episode 116
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56:57
The weird genius who revolutionized cricket history
Many eccentric geniuses have written about cricket, and indeed played it. Few have been as eccentric as Major Rowland Bowen – or had his genius. In 1970, after years of dedicated research (not all his own) he published
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Season 1
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Episode 115
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1:02:18
Two testaments of cricket and war
John Broom has combined his passions for cricket and military history in two books on global cricket in both world wars: Cricket In The First World War Pl...
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Season 1
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Episode 114
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55:27
A story made for the movies – Pakistan women’s cricket
Based in Mumbai, Aayush Puthran is an experienced cricket reporter and analyst, with a strong focus on women’s cricket. He has written an inspirational book, Unveiling Jazbaa...
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Season 1
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Episode 113
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49:33
After a hard day in Nagpur, the great cricket writer Mike Coward gives a masterclass on Australian cricket
Mike Coward is among the world’s most distinguished and distinctive cricket writers and broadcasters, although he graciously declines the title of “Australia’s John Arlott.” He makes a welcome return to the crease as the guest of Peter Oborne a...
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Season 1
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Episode 112
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45:00
An elephant never forgets India’s first Test victory in England
In August 1971 Bella the elephant from Chessington Zoo travelled to the Oval to watch India’s historic first Test match victory in England. Her story gives the title to the fascinating book,
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Season 1
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Episode 111
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54:47
How professionals save soccer – but not cricket – from public school amateurs, explains sports historian Richard Sanders
In the British isles cricket had a start on association football of over a hundred years as a game with Laws, organization and popular following. In the late Victorian era it was overtaken in a short time. Based on his fascinating book
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Season 1
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Episode 110
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1:00:06
Cricket, diplomacy and a fierce despatch from Freddie Flintoff
Cricketer, diplomat and author Tom Fletcher is now Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. As the UK’s ambassador to Lebanon, he made notable efforts to support the country’s cricketers, especially from its community of Sri Lankan workers...
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Season 1
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Episode 109
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55:55
England versus Pakistan – the first seventy years with historian Najum Latif
As England play their first Test series in Pakistan for nearly twenty years one of the country’s leading cricket historians, Najum Latif, describes their reception and celebrates the timely republication of a classic work on the start of...
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Season 1
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Episode 108
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1:00:56
Another thrilling spell from fast bowling legend Wes Hall
Few sights in cricket’s history have been more thrilling than the great West Indian fast bowler Wes Hall in the 1960s bounding in from his long run. He is now Sir Wesley Hall and the subject of a fine new biography
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Season 1
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Episode 107
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57:11
Before D’Oliveira – the glories and the shame of England’s Tests against South Africa
In his book Swallows And Hawke, co-written with past podcast guest André Odendaal, the historian Richard Parry gives a uniquely penetrating account of England’s first eight...
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Season 1
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Episode 106
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1:04:17
A select offering from Ed Smith
Ed Smith played cricket for Kent, Middlesex (as captain) and England, was an incisive commentator on Test Match Special and was England’s Chief Selector from 2018 to 2021. In that role, he drew on learning from many different fields as w...
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Season 1
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Episode 105
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52:51
From the captains’ table – cricket in two village communities
Two highly successful captains of village cricket teams, Tom Greaves of Reed, Hertfordshire, and Callum Widdows of Horningsham, Wiltshire, are the latest guests of Peter Oborne and Richard Heller in their latest cric...
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Season 1
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Episode 104
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53:17
The cricketing car park of Beirut
Fernando Sugath, a Sri Lankan expatriate, has been playing cricket in Lebanon for 25 years, in some extraordinary places and despite some extraordinary obstacles. With Will Dobson, an English expatriate and a bookseller in Beirut,...
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Season 1
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Episode 103
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43:23
Wendy Wimbush – fifty years of keeping but never settling scores
Wendy Wimbush has given a lifetime of service to cricket. She is best known as the BBC scorer in the 1970s but has also worked in other capacities in other countries and with some of the most famous names in cricket. She is t...
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Season 1
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Episode 102
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47:50
Mike Coward - sixty years of great cricket writing
After sixty years’ experience in all forms of media, Mike Coward has become one of the most honoured reporters and analysts of cricket in his native Australia and across the world. He is the guest of Peter Oborne and Richard He...
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Season 1
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Episode 101
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56:54
At the wonder house of cricket books
Most of cricket’s history for nearly three hundred years can be found behind a small shopfront in a quiet suburban street in Surrey, forty minutes on the commuter train service from London Waterloo. It is easy to miss on a first visit. The most...
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Season 1
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Episode 99
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49:48
Geoff Boycott celebrates yet another century
Throughout his playing career, Sir Geoffrey Boycott made a habit of celebrating special occasions with a century. It makes him the ideal and appropriate guest for Peter Oborne and Richard Heller on the hundredth recorded ed...
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Season 1
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Episode 100
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1:02:35
High performance or last performance? Campaigner Alan Higham dissects the ECB review of English cricket
Alan Higham has become a leading campaigner for the preservation of the county championship as the foundation of first-class cricket in England and Wales and for real consultation with its supporters over its future. He explains why this...
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Season 1
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Episode 98
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51:33
Can serious cricket survive pornography asks Simon Heffer
Simon Heffer has had a distinguished career as a journalist, historian, academic and man of letters, above all as a cricket-lover who contributes a monthly column on the game to the
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Season 1
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Episode 97
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52:26
Rebuilding Ukraine cricket and children’s lives – despite the ICC
When Peter Oborne and Richard Heller last spoke to Kobus Olivier, CEO of the Ukraine Cricket Federation, he and his four dogs had escaped to Poland from the war-shattered city of Kyiv. A lot has happened since to him and to Ukraine crick...
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Season 1
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Episode 96
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1:01:42
The joy of Sri Lankan cricket, expertly distilled
Given the joy it has given to the world, the history of Sri Lankan cricket has been strangely neglected. A young author, Nicholas Brookes, has now filled the gap with a masterly study: An Island’s Eleven
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Season 1
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Episode 95
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49:59
Dutch cricket – and when it can be dangerous to watch
The Netherlands has played organized cricket almost as long as England. Steven van Hoogstraten was chairman of the Royal Dutch Cricket Association for over a decade and is a current member of its supervisory board: he has also had a dist...
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Season 1
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Episode 94
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44:11