Used to being on the mic, Toby Tarrant faces a new challenge: explaining cricket to those who don’t get it, including Daily Star features editor Meg.
The moment is nearly here. From Birmingham to Brisbane, cricket fans around the globe are gearing up for the ultimate sporting showdown, as the Ashes 2025 reignites one of the greatest rivalries in sport.
But are you ready to step up for the first match this Friday? Or, like cricket novice Meg Jorsh, are you still a little lost?
Luckily, Radio X host Toby Tarrant — the Daily Star’s very own Mr. Sledge — is on hand to help. As part of our Ashes Week coverage, he tackles some of the burning questions…
Toby: “Cricket is probably one of the most divisive sports out there. I absolutely love it — I can watch every single second of a five-day match — but for some people, that would be their idea of hell.”
Toby: (pausing, perhaps reflecting on the life choices that brought him here) “At its most basic, someone runs in and bowls a ball — a really hard, painful leather ball if it hits you — at someone holding a bat, whether they’re a bloke or a lady.”
Toby: “As someone who still plays cricket, I ask myself that question every Saturday when I nearly break my fingers. I wake up on Sunday mornings covered in bruises. I have no idea which sadistic genius decided a cricket ball should be that painful, but clearly they were exploring some very strange fetish.”
Toby: “So, England invented cricket, but over time we got worse at it while everyone we taught it to got better. Then, in 1882, we lost to Australia — basically a country we created — and they declared it the death of English cricket. Two women even presented our captain with an urn full of ashes to signify that English cricket was officially dead. That urn is still on display at the museum at Lord’s Cricket Ground in north London.”
Toby: “Yes. All the excitement really comes down to trying to win an urn that supposedly contains the ashes of English cricket. It’s only a couple of inches tall.”
Q: “Right… why?”
Toby: “Good question — and honestly, I don’t really have an answer.” (Pauses for a moment.) “I think most people, especially sports fans, are easily entertained. We stopped asking why years ago and now just accept that this tiny urn is the most important thing in the world.”
Q: “Don’t worry — I imagine it’s all over in a few hours, at least?”
Toby: “Well, every couple of years they alternate between England and Australia. They play five Test matches, each of which can last up to five days, with around seven and a half hours of play each day. Whoever wins the most of the five matches takes home the urn.”
Q: “And then what happens?”
Toby: “It goes proudly into the trophy cabinet until a couple of years later, when it’s time for The Ashes again. And then the whole cycle starts over. And we just keep doing it forever — a bit like how EastEnders never seems to end, right?”
Toby: “There’s always a bit of banter — what we call sledging in cricket — between the fans, but it’s never hostile. Usually, you’ll share a few beers with your opponents after the match. I think football could take a leaf out of that book. Sledging is meant to be clever, light-hearted, and witty. But during the Ashes, it often descends into more basic insults, like, ‘You’re s***.’”
Toby: “Like most things, I got it from my dad [TV legend Chris Tarrant]. I think cricket runs in the family. My dad is just as much a cricket fanatic as I am. I’m hoping this series might capture people’s imagination the way it did in 2005, when England famously won one of the greatest Ashes series ever — and suddenly even people who’d never watched cricket before got hooked.”
Q: “And why would they get into it?”
Toby: “Even if you’ve never watched a ball being bowled in your life, it’s the chance to beat Australia… in Australia. Cricket wouldn’t exist without us, yet they’ve weirdly claimed it for themselves. So this is our opportunity to take it back. But no matter what happens, we’ll go back to being Britain and they’ll go back to being Australia. Either way, we come out winners.”
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