Ahead of the Eight Ball (Dave and Mick Tickner)

Finally, there's a podcast willing to talk about mankads, as Dave and Mick bang on for a bit about whether they're okay, why they're happening now, whether they should be called mankads at all and the pleasingly forthright MCC stance.

The latest Ahead of the Eight Ball discusses an exciting recent addition to the language of cricket. It's mainly associated with a seasoned cricket comedy operator despite/because of the fact he has never actually performed the role. Dave and Mick talk about what a Nighthawk is and, far more importantly, what it isn't. Because people are already getting this wrong.

Dave and Mick talk about stat noncing and why Joe Root had a golden period which coined the phrase, Root Maths.

Dave and Mick are joined by Peter Miller aka The Cricket Geek as we go deep into why cricket isn't turning into baseball because both sports have always been very similar. We talk fastball, pitch runners and bunts. Pete namedrops and Mick does an impression. Standard stuff.

We have nudged and nurdled our way slowly to double figures. In this episode we introduce the DRS (the Dave Review System) and we discuss how test cricket might actually be dying. Test cricket is dead, long live test cricket.

Australian podcaster, humorist, author and doyen of Funny Cricket Dan Liebke joins Dave and Dave's brother Mick to discuss cricket's obsession with round numbers, the daft idea of deserving a century and pay their own small tribute to the great and ridiculous Shane Warne.

Some handy, useful, bonus, frustrating and irritating podcasting from Dave and Mick as they negotiate their way through the fascination with lower order runs.

Follow us on X, the social media platform formaly known as Twitter and inform us of the daft commentary you hear.

@Aheadofthe8

Dave - @tickerscricket

Mick - @Tickersgrins

With the England men's Test team back in action this week, Dave and Mick discuss the word on everyone's lips apart from those of Dean Elgar who definitely hasn't given it a second thought, actually. It's time for more BAZBALL!

We sort of talk about cricket and how politicians use it for their lazy references. Loads of World Cup chat, stare out champinships and the new feature CBWP (Cricketers Bad Wikipedia Photos). CBWP #1 - Damien Martyn.

They said it would never happen but Dave and Mick are back with Episode 2 and this time they've dragged along author, twitter nuisance and Caribbean enjoyer Peter Miller to discuss the Spirit of Cricket and why, precisely, it doesn't actually exist.

You can find Peter on Twitter @TheCricketGeek.

Dave and Dave's brother Mick come dangerously close to actually fulfilling their promise of delivering a fortnightly podcast as they are joined by Cricket Twitter stalwart Tom Evans to finally answer the very biggest question in the sport - Highest Successful Fourth Innings Run-Chases: harmless, vaguely interesting stat or scourge on the game to be eradicated at all costs?

We are back with another episode about the Ashes but because it is 10 months out and not a lot is going on, we mainly talk about our favourite jokes from Viz, proboscis monkeys and pitches.  

Stuff we talk about;

All run 7 from our friends at Wisden

Darren Lehman on Joe Root

Only one place to start, and that’s where every England captain finds themselves sooner or later. Behind the eight ball. An all-conquering titan of cricket clichedom that has spawned a nonsensical series of variations including the title of the podcast after we picked after realising someone had already done one called Behind The Eight Ball, which was annoying. We’ve decided “Ahead of the Eight Ball” is actually a better name, but are probably only fooling ourselves.

A lot has happened in cricket over the last few weeks, much of it very on brand for previous episodes of Ahead of the Eight Ball which means it is itself ahead of the eight ball, in a way. Dave and Mick discuss all these matters as well as the phenomenon of famous people who aren't cricketers but nevertheless Love Their Cricket.

We do talk about the topic but also about Brian Lara being great, Ben Duckett's bat's axis of abscissa and Steve Smith (Dave is still rattled).

Follow us on X, the social media platform formaly known as Twitter.

@Aheadofthe8

Dave - @tickerscricket

Mick - @Tickersgrins

A slightly different episode in which Dave is let loose to rant for an extended period of time about why England and Australia are both just dreadful whinging hypocrites.

Send your appeals to the Dave Review System to @aheadofthe8 on Twitter.

Dave's rattled. #Ulon