This Week in Cricket #173: Australia's two big wins, India's T20 dominance & Smith v Sachin

In this episode of the Top Order Podcast, Binksy, Jamie, Baldy and Raj discuss some of the major talking points from the past week, including the England v India T20 series, Australia's innings victories in the tests against Sri Lanka & India, plus a Sachin Tendulkar/Steve Smith stat-off to finish. We start the show by discussing Australia's WAshes victory and the fallout for an England side that has performed well below their own expectations. Will there be changes at the top? There's also praise for Alana King, Annabel Sutherland, Beth Mooney, Ash Gardner and more. Next up we move to India's T20 series with England. The show was recorded before India's crushing win in the 5th match, but the discussion around England's mixed performances shone through. There are question marks around the finishing and concussion substitutes, but plenty of positives for Varun Chakravarthy and also Hardik Pandya's leadership. After that we move to another big Australian victory - the innings win against Sri Lanka at Galle. We talk about the manner of the victory and the dominant performance, but of course Baldy is always looking for improvements from this Australian team. Usman Khawaja and Josh Inglis went big, but should Sam Konstas have played? How well did the Aussie spinners bowl? And what was Dhananjaya De Silva doing? To round out the show, it was a good old fashioned head-to-head battle as the boys discuss the records of Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Smith after the latter passed 10,000 runs. We'll be back in your feed again next week with our regular This Week in Cricket show. Until then please take the time to give us a like, follow, share or subscribe on all our channels (@toporderpod on Twitter & Facebook, and @thetoporderpodcast on Instagram & YouTube) 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. You can also dip back into our guest episodes - including conversations with Mike Hesson, Shane Bond and Mike Hussey, current players such as Matt Henry, Sophie Devine and Ish Sodhi, coaches Gary Stead, Jeetan Patel and Luke Wright, as well as Barry Richards, Frankie Mackay, 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. 0:00 Intro 1:15 Australia's clean sweep of the WAshes 12:45 India's T20 series win against England 21:30 Concussion substitutes 36:15 Australia's dominant win against Sri Lanka 46:45 Should Sam Konstas have played? 56:45 The Sachin Tendulkar v Steve Smith stat-off! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices