Posted by Last month we asked which series we should cover next on our Ridiculous Ashes podcast. The results are in. (The results were in a month ago.) We’re going to be doing the 2013/14 series.
We nominated 2009 and 2013 as the other possibilities and for a long time the three were running neck and neck and neck. But in the end, the results were clear, 2013/14 got 36.5% of the vote, ahead of 2013 with 31.9%.
There will be England fans who are less than happy with this outcome, but the whole point of the Ridiculous Ashes is that it is about taking joy in those aspects of cricket that are less immediately obvious than the result. It’s fun to go back and revisit matches with a fresh eye and without the bowel-shredding anxiety about how your team will perform.
It’ll be great. Honest.
Series two of the Ridiculous Ashes will go out ‘at some point’. (You can quote us on that.)
If you want to subscribe via your preferred podcast app, you can do so here.
And if you’ve no idea what we’re talking about, you can find series 1 – which covered the 1997 Ashes – here.
Yes please. Have listened to the first series three times over.
Seriously?
Yeah. I find it hard to get to sleep. Which is a compliment, not a criticism.
That’s the kind of compliment we always seem to attract.
Thanks?
1,234 votes? Really? C’mon, that’s just ridicul-
Oh, OK, I get it.
The 2013/14 Ashes series was temporally ridiculous in its entirety, for several reasons.
It was scheduled just a few months after its blessed twin – the 2013 Ashes series in England, as part of some sort of “move the Ashes away from the World Cup cycle” plan that seems to have failed in its intention extremely rapidly.
Further, three of the five tests were scheduled before Christmas, making it entirely possible that the iconic Boxing Day & New Years tests could become dead rubbers. Or, as Nick Knight might put it: “could become dead rubbers…did become dead rubbers”.
I am quietly confident, though, that England managed a much higher level of ridiculousness than Australia. I’m not expecting 5-0 and dead rubbers after Christmas in these ridiculous ones, but an England win is very much on the cards here.
My gut feeling, btw, is that Australia will be very strong in ridiculousness 2009 and that 2013 might be, in ridiculousness terms, an absolute squeaky-bum humdinger.
Bring ’em on.
Very big fan of your Nick Knightism there
Thank you kindly, sir!