This Week in Cricket #126 - Why is Virat Kohli so fired up? Has Daryl Mitchell been Mr Fix It all along? And is time running out for The Hundred?

This week on the show we look back at another busy week at IPL 2023, the white-ball series between the Black Caps and Pakistan, and discuss reports that The Hundred might be coming to an end in the not-so-distant future. Right when we thought the IPL playoff picture was becoming clearer, Punjab beat CSK in a thriller and the Mumbai Indians came from the clouds to beat Rajasthan thanks to Tim David and his long levers. Then LSG followed up their mammoth 257 with 108, which RCB and particularly Virat Kohli enjoyed quite a lot. KL Rahul got injured, Devon Conway remained awesome, Harry Brook watched a lot of videos of himself, Mitchell Marsh listened to the podcast, Kyle Mayers hit it to the moon and MS Dhoni is still hitting sixes - just another week at the IPL. Over in Pakistan, Daryl Mitchell has emerged as the front-runner for Kane Williamson's number-three spot in the Black Caps' ODI squad thanks to back-to-back centuries, Mark Chapman's historic T20 series encouraged the selectors to change his return ticket home, but it's been the home side who has had the better week - thanks in large part to the Mumbai Cements Player of the Week: Fakhar Zaman. We round out the episode with a discussion about The Hundred, which started with a lot of fanfare, but, if you believe recent reports, may not have much longer to run. Has it been a failure? Or has it been the injection of life that English cricket needed? And now that all this talk of franchise contracts is clearly here to stay, do we all need to take a moment to think about what we want our great game to look like in five, ten, twenty years' time? *Note: apologies for the technical difficulties with Binksy’s microphone - back to normal service next episode. We'll be back next week with more from the IPL, the Black Caps' tour to Pakistan and other news from around the world. In the meantime, please take the time to give us a like, follow, share or subscribe on all our channels (@toporderpod on Twitter and Facebook , & @thetoporderpodcast on Instagram ) and a (5-Star!) review at your favourite podcast provider, or tell a friend to download. It really helps others find the show and is the best thing you can do to support us. You can also find all our written content, including our Hall of Fame series, at our website , and our recent episodes (plus a few from the backlist) are available on YouTube - we're slowly chipping away at populating this channel. You can also dip back into our conversations with special guests - including Tim Southee, Mike Hussey, Sophie Devine, Dean Foxcroft, Shane Bond, Katey Martin, Barry Richards, Matt Henry, Bharat Sundaresan and many more fascinating people from all across the cricketing world. And if you'd like to reach out to us with feedback, questions or guest suggestions, get in touch at thetoporderpodcast@gmail.com . Thanks for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices