The No Balls Cricket Podcast · No Balls Cricket Podcast

No Balls Cricket Unfiltered Episode 49: BazBollocks Capitulation and Ranji Madness

·58 min·3 clips

Mumbai were 106 for 7, then Shardul Thakur changed the game with a first-class hundred.

The episode starts in full No Balls mode, with a joke-heavy debate about Glenn Phillips and whether the batting, fielding, and wicketkeeping chaos actually adds up to something historic. That sets the tone. The hosts then move into the cricket roundup without much ceremony. Afghanistan and Ireland get a mention first, because Ireland's first Test win arrives after eight attempts and has the kind of disbelief that only cricket can produce. England's loss in Ranchi comes next. The tone there is less measured analysis than a weary autopsy. The hosts lean hard on the word capitulation, because that is exactly how the result feels. Dharamshala then enters as the final Test venue, with the weather and conditions framed as the least welcoming sort of English familiarity. From there the episode turns to India's central contracts. Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer are the names that stay in focus. Rohit Sharma's post-match comments are treated as a message with more than one target. The hosts work through the idea of hunger for Test cricket and the difference between stepping away and being seen as unavailable. Kishan's long break gets debated first. The conversation accepts that a mental-health explanation changes the frame, but it does not let the story end there. Training alongside his Mumbai Indians captain in Baroda makes the whole thing messier and, predictably, makes the room angry in that very cricket-fan way. Shreyas Iyer gets pulled into the same storm. His omission is tied to both performance and the back spasm context that keeps following him. The hosts do not pretend it is clean or simple. They argue through the mix of injury history, form, discipline, and selection politics. That argument is the point. The episode keeps its energy by refusing to sit still for long. It keeps tossing out corrections, jokes, and side comments, then snapping back to the main thread. By the end, the show shifts into a celebratory meta mode as episode 50 approaches. The hosts promise something special for the half-century milestone. They also tee up a look back at the show's biggest moments. The earliest memory they land on is the storming of the Gabitoir, which they clearly still treat as foundational chaos. The closing beats feel like a sharp turn from scandal and selection back to self-mythology. It is very on brand.

As heard by us

A brisk cricket roundup where banter, selection fallout, and Test results share the same space.

This episode is a quick cricket roundup that starts with Glenn Phillips banter and then gets into England's defeat in Ranchi, Ireland's first Test win at the eighth attempt, and the central-contract fallout around Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer.

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Why you'd press play

You want the Ranchi fallout, the contract drama, and the week's cricket chatter all at once.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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