Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features and debate
from the quirky world of cricket. I'm Alison Mitchell back at my home in London after quite
a while away: Australia, New Zealand and then last week, I was speaking to you from Birmingham
because I was working on the big dog show Crufts. Jim, I know you've got a vested interest in the
dogs. A Lagotto Romagnolo won Best In Show - that's an Italian dog originally a duck hunter,
but now truffle hunter. Although, of course, you can't bring truffles into sway the judges.
It's all about appearance and performance on the day, but it was quite the educational experience.
However, it's nice to be back at home again now. Jim Maxwell melting in Sydney, where we're up to
around 35C to 40C in the last couple of days. It's meltdown, but I must say the last two weeks
I've really enjoyed that cricket from New Zealand. England went down by one run and then while the
Test match I have to say in Ahmedabad more than good fizzled because of a moribund surface and
some bloody-minded batting from Khawaja and then Kohli to make sure wickets didn't fall. We had an
extraordinary game finishing in almost the dark in Christchurch at Hagley Oval with a result
by two wickets off the last ball. Test cricket is well and truly alive in New Zealand,
but it petered out in India. Anyway, Charu will be pleased to know that we're going to have the final game
of the series at the Oval in a couple of months, aren't we? Yeah, it makes sense,
doesn't it. The two best teams in the world, sorry, Alison. Pity about that last Test match.
I'm glad everybody's back home and so am I. Charu Sharma for All India Radio. I've been for a trek
to the Himalayas, the Garhwal Himalayas. You know, the Himalayas are divided into many sections. A
thoroughly enjoyable trek, even though it snowed a bit too much on the penultimate day on our way
up and considering our average age of about the mid-60s, we wisely decided to retreat. So, we didn't
quite reach our final objective, but collected some fine memories and on the way down, I actually
caught a bit of that Test match including, of course, a fair amount of the continuing
Women's Premier League, which is finally gaining a fair amount of media attraction here in India.
I don't know about the rest of the world, though. Yeah, the Women's Premier League is
certainly getting some attention and as is the weather. We had snow in the UK just a week ago
in March. Jim, you're sweltering, and we're back to freezing, it's quite extraordinary, isn't it?
Now after a wait of over three years and over 1,000 days, would you believe it Virat Kohli
finally scored a century in a Test match. He hit a superb 186 as India ensured they won their series
against Australia having already retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy. The series did finish
2-1 to India. The teams now also confirmed, as Jim mentioned earlier, to be facing off in
the World Test Championship in England in June. Now, Charu, Kohli's hit centuries in ODI and T20
cricket recently as well. But he has got that one in a Test match in the bag. Does that mean
the pressure's off him a little bit because he's had a bit of a tough few years, hasn't he?
Oh, he has. There was so much criticism because for the last three years or so he was not among the
runs and certainly not substantial runs. A little knock here, a little knock there. Not quite Kohli-esq.
Yep, it was a near double century, and I say that because he just ran out of partners and
then went for a big slog and got caught. But the 200 was there really for him. He didn't quite get
support from the tail. It will lift a fair amount of pressure on him, but I think he's tough enough
to have withstood the pressure. It's more the rest of the cricketing community and the fans as well
who now can all collectively breathe a sigh of relief, because there was a fair murmur about
the fact that he was nowhere near his best and he was struggling like all the rest of the greats at
times. A couple have struggled to get to that 434 mark. Sachin too struggled, as we all know,
to get his 100th hundred. Kohli here, a three-year lean drought; that's big for any player. And if he
hadn't been as big a player as he was and still is, I'm not so sure any other player would have
gotten that kind of long rope. But we're glad he did and turned up trumps against Australia
in India on what was considered a batting strip. A huge relief for him and all his legion of fans.
Yep, class is permanent. It sometimes goes away for a while, leaves you, but then it
so often comes back doesn't it? Jim, let's have a listen to what you had to say here on Stumped last week.
Their number one batsman in terms of numbers bats at nine - Axar Patel. Their batting,
its looked very ordinary. I know the Australians have had their collapses, but the top six from
India haven't put in. Not very impressed with the batting at that point certainly.
Have you had to change your tune a bit now with Virat Kohli? Well, if ever there was a man on a
mission, that was Virat Kohli. He denied... it was an innings of unbelievable denial even going into the
fourth day. I think it took him a couple of hours to hit a boundary on that day when he resumed
his innings. He played superbly. And he just measured off his defensive skills to make sure
nothing was going to go against him unless there was some genie from the pitch, which in terms of
this pitch, wasn't happening very often. So it was a very committed and determined performance and
good on him for making us think this bloke's still around, look out folks. He might turn up at the Oval
and make a bundle there as well. In the early part of Kohli's career, it was a similar situation
where he'd score a few runs and then in an attempt to, can I use the word bully, the attack, He'd
play an upish shot to mid-off, mid-on and get caught. People asked why did you have to do that,
because it was so needless! I think he turned the clock back a bit and once again said well,
I'm not going to do that, as Jim alluded to. He played very safe, along the ground cricket
and maybe that was always the magic formula to make sure that you don't get out because on a
pitch like that runs will come and they did. What about Charu, if we look ahead to the Oval, because
it will be India, Australia once again. Given what we've seen in Indian conditions, though,
how do you think that's going to translate and how big a chance do you give India against Australia in English conditions?
Well, it's gonna be chalk and cheese for sure. A 180, because Indian
conditions are the Indian spinners operating, I don't think they're going to get anywhere close
to that in terms of the surface in England. So if Australia have their premier fast bowling attack,
then we will have to give that Test match to Australia because June is not quite July, August
in England. So the conditions are still seaming and I don't think the Indians are going to enjoy
the cold either. So if the pitch is not gonna take spin, if the fast bowlers are going to rule the
roost then Australia have a better compliment of fast bowlers and especially with Bumrah with his
mystery injury now getting treatment in New Zealand, clearly India's lead bowler, India
will suffer in that department. Which to my mind is the most important department when you play a
Test match and a one off Test match in England in June. It's that ability to take 10 wickets,
isn't it 20 wickets rather to win a Test match 10 in each innings getting my maths right.
Jim, what do you want to see from Australia moving from India through to the final match
of this series, if you can stretch out across the two countries? Well, the most important thing in
terms of bowling is the return of Pat Cummins, who of course as everyone knows has been staying
back in Australia, following the untimely death of his mother and he has been with family as
he is through this one-day series about to come up. So, he's the best fast bowler in the world,
so that's important. The other side is will they pick Warner to open? What are they going
to do there? Does it depend on what he does in this one-day series as to whether he survives?
So they've got a bit to pick up with their batting. And as some of the top order Indian
players have to as well, other than Kohli. Let me also quickly add the importance of the IPL.
Because already Rohit has mentioned that the teams that don't make it to the latter stages of the
IPL, the players who play for India from those teams will be allowed to go to England early,
which is a very good move. But may I dare suggest that the IPL with this intensity of action and
so much at stake, I wonder eventually who will be available to play for India because already
injuries are playing such an important part for international cricket. Let me assure you, no
IPL team's going to allow a little niggle to come in the way of performance. So I think these guys
are going to be giving one hundred and whatever mathematically 100 percent, but more for all the
IPL matches. I wonder if that's just going to be something that adds a little bit of confusion and
mystery about who eventually's gonna turn up for India in England for the World Test Championship,
which is pretty important. India played the first one and lost to New Zealand. But even India were
and the other nations where Test Match cricket may not be so heavily valued, sorry Jim, as
the other forms of the game still do consider one match as a World Championship match to have a lot of significance.
Now, on Stumped, it's been two months since members of the Afghanistan women's
cricket team made it publicly known that they were in Melbourne, Australia. They fled Afghanistan
when the Taliban took over, fearing for their safety as sport became banned for women. In an
interview with Tracey Holmes for the ABC program, the Ticket, the group said they felt unsupported
by the International Cricket Council. They wrote to the ICC back in December to seek to clarify
their status and find out what's happened to the funds that go to the Afghanistan Cricket Board
that's meant to be for their pay and development. They received a reply from the chief executive a
month later saying it's up to the Afghanistan Cricket Board to decide how it allocates its
funding. It was promised that their letter would be discussed at the ICC's next board meeting which
is now next week. Over a year ago, the ICC set up an Afghanistan working group to advise the ICC on
the best way through the Afghanistan situation. I've been speaking to one of the players,
18-year-old Firooza Afghan, and I began by asking if anyone from that working group has been in
touch with the women since they left the country. We have not received any call from the ICC and
ACB. I really don't understand why they don't want to speak with us and they don't accept us as
Afghanistan players. I don't know why because now we're in Australia. The ICC have said that they
have been discussing the Afghanistan situation. Indeed they set up the Afghanistan working group.
They have another board meeting on Monday, the 20th of March. What do you want to come out of
that board meeting? Me and all of our players, we want them to make a fair decision. For the first time,
it's possible they make a fair decision for us, because it's our right to play for our country,
for Afghanistan. It doesn't matter where we live. The important thing is that we are still fighting
to have a team here. We are fighting to make our team. Not just ourselves, we don't want a team
just for ourselves, we want this team for all women who live in Australia or another country, because
the Taliban don't allow their women in Afghanistan to play cricket. But the ICC, why do this?
We are here, the players of Afghanistan are here. Why the ICC don't allow us to play for Afghanistan?
So, tell me about your cricket now, Firooza. What cricket are you playing, and what
ambitions do you have? Cricket is really important for me because I grew up with cricket and
I was a child taught to love cricket. Here, I also play cricket with local teams and we
have a competition. I hope one day I can play for Afghanistan and also play in the BBL and I hope
this happens one day. My family loves Melbourne because the Melbourne city is very beautiful and
also we selected Melbourne for the MCG because I so love the MCG - this beautiful ground. When I
was in Afghanistan, every time I say one day, I will go to Melbourne to see the MCG and finally, I can.
Well, that was Firooza Afghan, one of the 22 women who were contracted to the Afghanistan
Cricket Board before the Taliban took over the country. I met up with Firooza and a number of
the other women when I was in Melbourne. We went for ice cream together and so many of them do
have extraordinary stories of their passage into Australia. Firooza's mum used to be a restaurant
chef, her aunt was a tailor. They're now currently involved in doing some language courses, English
courses to further their own aims now they're in Melbourne, Firooza included. Now it does seem
extraordinary that nobody from the ICC Afghanistan working group has sought to personally engage with
the very group affected by the Taliban takeover. It was clear in the letter that the ICC did write
back to the women. They say it's up to the ACB how they allocate their funding. It certainly
could be argued, however, that it's up to the ICC how they allocate their funding and if a full
member isn't able to support a national women's team, which is a requirement of Test status,
then there would be a strong argument you would think for the ICC to...whether it's withholding
a proportionate amount or simply not allocating as much as they did before, but having funds to
then redirect towards this group of women who are in Australia who do want to further and develop
their own cricket whether under an official banner of Afghanistan or not. But the ICC meeting is on
Monday and we will follow developments closely here on Stumped. Now in the last year or so,
we have talked a lot about England's new found style of playing cricket - Bazball. Although don't
say that around Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum. But in 2023, no team surely has a better claim
to be the great entertainers of Test cricket than New Zealand. Jim mentioned them at the top of the
programme. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in Wellington watching them first hand as they were
involved in a thrilling finish against England, winning by just one run at the Basin Reserve.
Their next Test match, they were at it again and the Test against Sri Lanka in Christchurch went
down to the very last ball of the last day with New Zealand needing just one run to win. They did
it in extraordinary fashion as well, because the same man who dismissed James Anderson to take that
winning wicket in Wellington, it was Neil Wagner, who went out with a bulging disc in his back,
a torn hamstring and somehow managed to scramble the winning run alongside Kane Williamson to see
New Zealand home. Jim and Charu, it has been a shot in the arm for Test cricket you could say,
but extraordinary that It's the same team who's been at the crux of these two thrilling finishes
in such quick succession. Well yeah, no doubt. The number one thought that comes to
mind was just how many people are now once again extolling the virtues of Test match cricket,
because two matches featuring New Zealand have finished in virtually the last moment last
gasp of that Test match. They are extremely under rated and away from stardom. You seldom hear of
the New Zealand players as some of the best in the world. But here they are winning Test matches in
splendid fashion. Of course, no praise too high for Kane Williamson for the last half a dozen
years at least has been in the top three batters of the world. So he continues to star. Just the
whole athleticism that the world of sport demands is what I think is the biggest collective strength
of New Zealand and once in a while it comes to the fore spectacularly.
Well, that is it for Stumped this week. I'll say thanks to Jim Maxwell and Charu Sharma and
of course to all of you for listening. Let's do it again, same time next week. See you, then. Bye.