Allrounders build a brilliant partnership with cricket podcast

Cricket writer Gideon Haigh at home in Melbourne. News Corp has launched a cricket podcast with Peter Lalor and Gideon Haigh. Photograph by Paul Jeffers The Australian

Gideon Haigh has a confession to make.

He has never listened to a podcast. Not a single one. Not even his own wildly successful cricket podcast, Cricket Etc, which features Haigh and his great mate and fellow cricket scribe Peter Lalor reflecting on the sport, and whatever other random subjects bounce off the top of their heads.

“Cricket Etc was my first foray into doing a podcast, but I still haven’t listened to one,” Haigh says.

Lalor is similarly self-effacing when asked about the secret of the podcast’s success. “Our preparation basically consists of saying ‘hello’ to each other, and then we go from there.”

Haigh agrees: “It’s just me and Pete nattering on.”

But whatever the podcast’s secret ingredients, the numbers don’t lie — the very informal and very well-informed conversations between arguably Australia’s two best cricket-writers have developed a strong following. And its exponential growth is set to continue with the upcoming Test tour of South Africa and the pinnacle of Test cricket, the Ashes, scheduled for next summer.

“We’re not getting off this podcast horse any time soon; we’re loving it too much,” Lalor says.

The podcast, which was launched in November exclusively for subscribers via The Australian’s mobile app, has been downloaded 115,000 times in Australia over the summer, and almost 150,000 times worldwide over the same period.

The pair have also developed a strong cohort of loyal listeners in India, Britain, the UAE and Germany — yes, Haigh and Lalor apparently even have a fan base in that cricket-obsessed nation. Admittedly, the timing of the launch of Cricket Etc was sweeter than a Steve Smith cover drive, with the recently completed Test series between Australia and India proving one of the most entertaining cricket battles for decades, a fact that was also reflected by the television ratings.

The four Test series was the most watched ever on subscription television in Australia, with an average daily audience of 371,000 on Fox Sports, up 43 per cent on the last series between the two nations in 2018/19.

Lalor, who has been a close friend of Haigh’s for many years, says the “Etcetera” part of Cricket Etc has proven to be just as popular as the cricket discussion with many listeners.

“People say they have loved hearing us talk about our shared passions (English post-punk group The Fall is a regular topic of discussion) so we might branch into other areas in the future, you never know,” Lalor says.

“Maybe book reviews? It takes me a week to read a book, but Gideon can actually write one in a week. Between us, that could be something we talk about if we’re not discussing fast bowling.”