Posted by As we’re sure you’re aware, the Ridiculous Ashes – the parallel England v Australia competition we first ran over at Cricket 365 for the 2019 series – is now a podcast. Series 1 was about the 1997 Ashes and we thought you’d like a say on which series we cover next.
For those that don’t know, the Ridiculous Ashes is an alternative trophy that is awarded to the side that produces the most hilarious and absurd cricket across a given Ashes series.
We do it with Aussie writer, Dan Liebke. He nominates Aussie ridiculousness and we pick out English ridiculousness and then we decide which team came out on top. We do an episode for each Test and then the series as a whole is decided by the Test results, in much the same way as a normal Ashes.
It was a bit of a voyage into the unknown doing the first episode, but we’ve settled in a bit now.
We thought we’d do a more recent series next and we’ve nominated three for a Twitter poll.
If you want to vote and can’t, feel free to leave a comment below and we’ll factor your view in if the results are close.
We wouldn’t worry about it too much though. We’re hoping to get to all of these series in time.
My first suggestion would be to do all the series up to now, and just use the 1997 to start, so the next one is the 1998,and so on.
Or if you are doing random series you could do 2005.
We figured we’d save 2005 for a while.
We’re jumping around to keep things interesting.
2009 would be my pick, I think
I have just voted and I must say the closeness of the vote at this stage is utterly ridiculous:
POLL: Which of these three Ashes series would you like us to cover next, ridiculousness-wise? #poll
2009
33.8%
2013
33%
2013-14
33.2%
725 votes
4 days left
Out of those, I would Vote for the 2009 Ashes.
I vote for the 2009 series because the ridiculousness of not winning at your most famous home ground, against your biggest rivals, for 75 years trumps everything else
It seems like 2013-14 is narrowly leading at the moment. That’s obviously bad, but seeing as this is the Ridiculous Ashes it should also allow England to claim an easy win.
I’d like to put forward 2015 for the future though. Every match was absolutely mad and seemed to bear no obvious connection to the others. 8-15? Australia being 337-1 at Lord’s? Steven Finn returning and taking 6? England being presented with the urn about 15 minutes after losing by an innings at the Oval? Two consecutive three-day Tests?
Yeah, we’re definitely looking forward to that one. We just thought it was maybe a little too recent for Series 2.
Daisy wants to vote for 2009 but doesn’t do Twitter.
Frankly she has some of her own memorable ridiculousness for both her 2009 and 2013 appearances (never mind the cricketers).
I know you aren’t doing “pre Bowden/Liebke” Ashes series, but the most ridiculous day of Ashes I ever witnessed personally must have been my first one. Willis’s Day in 1977. Not only did he top score with the bat that (almost rain-ruined) day, but my friend Graham and I spotted him (and even spoke with him) on the London Underground:
http://ianlouisharris.com/1977/08/27/my-first-ever-day-at-a-test-match-with-graham-majin-england-v-australia-day-3-oval-27-august-1977/
It occurs to me that you might have a rain-ruined match in one of your ridiculous Ashes series, in which you do what the commentators do in the real Ashes – show/discuss some ridiculousness from a bygone era to use up some broadcasting time.
Is anyone following the Road Safety World Series?
I have three observations:
(1) Great sponsor name, it conjures up the idea of a competition between nations to have the safest roads, rather than a T20 ‘legends’ tournament
(2) Some of England’s legends seem, er, less legendary than the Tendulkar/Sehwag/Yuvraj level that India have managed. KP, Hoggard, Panesar – fair enough, but are Gavin Hamilton, Darren Maddy and Phil Mustard the sort of international superstars that justify the term ‘legend’?
(3) I can’t link directly to it at the moment, but on the England team page, the picture of Chris Tremlett seems to imply his forearms are as wide as his head. Tiny head, massive biceps, or Photoshop gone wrong?
you’ve had almost a thousand votes already. I find this startling (no offence like)
Yeah, but almost two-thirds of them won’t listen because the ‘wrong’ series won.
It’s democracy in action.
My vote goes to 2013, for this moment alone: https://youtu.be/Kk2cH1ApyIY
Why don’t you interview someone who is running for the 2013/14 party, Sam, thus weakening their chances of electoral success?
Your choice of 2013 ridiculousness has a connected Ged & Daisy story which is not yet writ on Ogblog. But it will be in the fulness of time…
…as will the Ridiculous Ashes 2013, I hope.
Personally I think the voting system has been gamed. If there had been two “down under” choices as well as two “right way up” choices, then I’m pretty sure one of the “right way up” choices would have won.
Democracy, as you day, Sam. Gerrymandered even in the matter of Ridiculous Twitter polls. Ricidculous.
I’m not on Twitter so I can’t vote, but I feel like 2013 (the summer one) deserves a lot more love than it gets. It was very strange fight between a side that was rubbish and about to become good yet and a side that was straining but hadn’t fallen apart yet, and then completely forgotten about after the story of that England team imploding during the return series four months later.