Back Garden Cricket Club

Back Garden Cricket Club

No. of episodes

6

Latest episode

2026-11-05

Where can you listen?

Back garden cricket has its own laws: unwritten, fiercely argued, and unique to every lawn, patio and flowerbed in the land. Nobody has ever written them down. Until now.

Forty years ago, the legendary Whispering Bob Harris and Jon Briggs, the original voice of Siri, played cricket in Bob's back garden. Most of the players turned up for the fun, and for the magnificent teas. Bob took it rather more seriously. He kept every score and worked out everyone's averages, and he still has them.

Finding those scorebooks brought the memories flooding back, along with the gloriously bizarre rules needed to make cricket work in Bob's garden. So Bob and Jon have set out to compile the laws the MCC somehow forgot to catalogue.

With the help of some brilliant professional cricketers, they're going back to where it all began: "one hand, one bounce", "tip and run" and the rest. After all, no first-class cricketer started out at Lord's or the MCG. They started with a watering can for a wicket and a healthy fear of the rule that a six over next door's fence means you're out.

Pads on. Welcome to the Back Garden Cricket Club.