T20 World Cup final thoughts, India's team-first mentality & Jimmy Anderson's farewell Test

The Top Order Cricket Podcast

In this episode of the show, Binksy, Baldy, Raj and Stu share some extra thoughts on the ICC Men's T20 World Cup Final, plus the tournament as a whole, including pitches, the 20-team format & scheduling. We also look ahead to the upcoming Test series between England and the West Indies, and the first game in particular, which will be Jimmy Anderson's final Test.

We start the show by getting Raj's thoughts on the final, since he missed our previous episode, and all wonder in hindsight why none of us predicted India as the champions before the tournament started. There's discussion about Axar Patel and Virat Kohli, India's team-first mentality, and of course praise for Jasprit Bumrah's special talents.

As we move to the tournament overview, we share our thoughts on the pitches, whether we liked the 20-team format, how we might tweak the Super 8 phase and what we'd change about the scheduling and pre-tournament rankings going forward.

In the second half of the show, we return to the white clothing, looking ahead to the West Indies' Test tour to England. We talk about new names in both squads, potential mixed messaging coming out of the BazBall camp and a few Jimmy Anderson thoughts as the realisation hits that we might be about to watch him for the final time.

Unless something unexpected happens in the cricket world that we can't wait to talk about, we'll be back again after the conclusion of the first England v West Indies Test. Until then please take the time to give us a like, follow, share or subscribe on all our channels (@toporderpod on Twitter & Facebook, and @thetoporderpodcast on Instagram & YouTube) and a (5-Star!) review at your favourite podcast provider, or tell a friend to download. It really helps others find the show and is the best thing you can do to support us. You can also find all our written content, including our Hall of Fame series, at our website.

You can also dip back into our guest episodes - including conversations Mike Hesson, Shane Bond and Mike Hussey, current players such as Matt Henry, Sophie Devine and Ish Sodhi, coaches Gary Stead, Jeetan Patel and Luke Wright, as well as Barry Richards, Frankie Mackay, Bharat Sundaresan and many more fascinating people from all across the cricketing world.

And if you'd like to reach out to us with feedback, questions or guest suggestions, get in touch at [email protected].

Thanks for listening.

0:00 Intro - let's move on from the controversy about SKY's catch

2:50 Extra thoughts on the T20 World Cup final

6:55 Why didn't we predict India would win this a month ago?

11:25 Rohit, Virat and Ravindra Jadeja have retired from T20s - what's next for India?

14:40 Tournament overview: Were the pitches up to standard?

20:25 20-team format and the scheduling

33:05 England v West Indies Test series - squad news

37:05 Making sense of England's squad

46:25 Jimmy Anderson's final Test

52:15 Thoughts on the West Indies' squad

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