The Guardian is expanding its cricket coverage with the launch of Ashes Weekly, a brand-new podcast accompanying the 2025/26 Ashes series.
The Ashes gets underway on Friday 21 November, and Ashes Weekly will sit right at the centre of the Guardian’s expanded multimedia coverage.
Co-hosted by two familiar voices from the Guardian’s audio line-up, England’s Max Rushden and Australia’s Geoff Lemon, the show will include debate, expert breakdowns and plenty of irreverent humour as the cricketing rivalry reignites.
Max, best known as the host of Football Weekly, teams up with Geoff, co-host of The Final Word, giving the podcast both sides of the Ashes divide in one lively package.
The pair will record on location in Australia across the entire series, releasing new episodes before and after every Test match for the next eight weeks.
There will be appearances from some of the Guardian’s most respected cricket journalists, including Barney Ronay, Ali Martin, Emma John and Simon Burnton, alongside special guests throughout the tournament.
The Guardian is backing the new podcast with a comprehensive multimedia package covering every aspect of this year’s series.
Over the next eight weeks, cricket fans can also immerse themselves in a special test-focused edition of The Spin, the Guardian’s weekly cricket newsletter.
A major interactive feature is counting down the 100 greatest Ashes players, voted for by more than 50 judges, including past players and Guardian writers.
Live blogs will also run throughout each Test, providing expert updates from Rob Smyth, Taha Hashim, Tanya Aldred, James Wallace, Tim de Lisle and others.
Max Rushden said he was delighted finally to have “a professional excuse for watching all of the Ashes”, joking that he hoped Australia would “give us a game for once”.
He added that he was looking forward to working in the “right time zone” and teased that he was eager to “dip my toe into the world of podcasts”, joking that he had heard they were “a pretty big deal”.
Geoff Lemon, who has written for Guardian Australia since its launch, said the show offered the perfect opportunity to “clash and collaborate” with his English colleagues during what he called “the most anticipated Ashes series in 20 years”.
This year’s Ashes coverage is exclusively sponsored by Qantas, which will hold full share of voice across all formats. All sponsored content will be clearly labelled according to the Guardian’s content funding guidelines.
The pilot episode is available now, with the first full episode released on Thursday 20 November. Ashes Weekly will be available in both audio and video formats across major podcast apps and on theguardian.com/audio.
