Bedtime Tales for Cricket Tragics

No sport does storytelling like cricket – a game as full of heroes, villains, politics, and drama as any Shakespearean play. And few have explored those stories as far and wide as Adam Collins and Geoff Lemon. Over hundreds of episodes of Story Time, the history spin-off to beloved podcast The Final Word, they have followed their listeners' clues to track down the wildest characters, matches, and situations the pitch has seen. Bedtime Tales for Cricket Tragics brings together the stories they enjoyed telling most, from the 1879 riot in Sydney sparked by an umpire's call, the all-rounder who tried to rob the Catholic Church, the biggest defeat in history, and much more.

Geoff Lemon founded pirate commentary station White Line Wireless, graduated to ABC and BBC ball-by-ball around the world, and has spent the last dozen years as the principal cricket writer for Guardian Australia. His book Steve Smith's Men, on the Cape Town sandpaper scandal, won multiple awards. Outside cricket, he was the longtime editor of literary anthology Going Down Swinging and director of the National Young Writers Festival. He has published books of poetry and essays, and still writes on politics, literature, and music. Adam Collins is an award-winning cricket commentator and writer, having previously worked in Australian federal politics advising a Prime Minister and a Treasurer. Forever a Melbourne sports nut but now living in London, he follows cricket and footy first, but plenty more besides. He was named the Christopher Martin-Jenkins Broadcaster of the Year, and has covered international cricket on radio and television around the world for a decade. In 2024, he co-authored Glenn Maxwell's autobiography.