The Telegraph Cricket Podcast · The Telegraph

England's third Test opportunity with Dom Bess

·52 min·3 clips

Dom Bess says the 2021 India tour was his toughest, with five weeks in a hotel room during COVID.

Dom Bess is the focus of the discussion. The episode begins by asking whether England's way of playing is filtering down to the players around the edges of the setup, and Bess says it is. He describes the last couple of months as great fun and says enjoying cricket has become a non-negotiable for him. He connects that feeling to his time at Yorkshire and to the way county championship sides are trying to play now, even though county wickets are usually tougher than Test surfaces. The conversation then shifts to Zimbabwe. Bess says that when he was out there with Eddie Byram and others, the Tuskers started calling them Bazball because they were going at five an over. He takes the label lightly, but the point is clear: he has a better sense now of how he wants to play his cricket, and what it takes to get closer to the England team. From there, the interview turns back to India. Bess says he was on the last tour there, and that the pressure of the bubble left him almost hating cricket for a time. That opens the door to a broader conversation about how Brendan and Ben have taken the pressure off the group and changed the feel around the team. The episode stays conversational and practical, using Bess's experience to test ideas about selection, enjoyment, and the demands of modern red-ball cricket rather than trying to force a neat conclusion.

As heard by us

A measured look at England's approach, shaped by Dom Bess's view from the edge.

Dom Bess talks through England's current approach with a calm, practical edge. He keeps returning to the value of enjoying cricket, and that gives the conversation its best shape: not as a grand theory, but as a player trying to stay close to the side while making sense of his…

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For a Mistborn deep dive with raw reactions from two hosts who know the world inside out.

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