The Final Word with Philip Brown

Aka: No, FFS, they won't cancel the Ashes

Season 11, Ep 2: It's all we keep hearing about - will the Ashes happen? Spoiler alert: yes. We already have early season sightings of trademarked Ashes Bantz, dragging themselves from hibernation and buzzing obnoxiously into view. What are some better things to talk about? India's women bossed their Test match against Australia but ran out of time to press for a win. Sound familiar? Five days please!

Then it's time for our feature interview with the lovely Philip Brown. Best known on the internet as Dudley Platypus, Browny is an Australian-English hybrid and one of the world's best cricket photographers, someone who has spent the best part of 35 years going to the opposite end of the ground as everyone else, sitting in 50-degree heat, and watching every delivery to make sure he doesn't miss a shot. Now he's collected his best photos in a book, and talks us through our favourites.

Here they are.

You can find the book stockists at this link.

Your Nerd Pledge number this week:
2.82 - Daniel Price

Sweet deals

The Brick Lane Brewing secret code is MAXI145, in honour of Glenn's 145* against Sri Lanka. Plug it in at checkout. It's valid for another week or so.

Story Time 64 – The Dublin scorecard mystery

Last weekend, an early theme emerged with the West Indies and Ireland, leading us to a true scorecard mystery from just a few years ago. Then a pledger becomes a subject before Julios are feted - as is an underappreciated hero of 2005. Some stunning stats, as always, as we hit the revisits: the most runs off an over (more than you think) and the most economical Test spell ever sent down. Sit back and enjoy.

Your new Nerd Pledge numbers:
5.68 – Luke Reynolds
4.90 - Douglas Wardell-Johnson
2.21 - Andrew Beech
26.25 - Ciaran O’Kane
5.43 - TD Fairbairn
1.77 - Joel Emonsen
3.94 – Matt Laycock
1.05 - Bernhard Sayer

New Julios:
Katy Morris
Shravan Kumar
Liam Stanley
Paul Watts
Thomas Cooper

Revisits: Christopher Stock, Xavier Bochat, Michael Fallon.

Plenty of Nerd chat happening on Discord if you haven't yet made the lead. Go on.