Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features,
and debate from the quirky world of cricket. I'm Alison Mitchell and I'm in Adelaide,
which is where I'll be spending Christmas this year with all of my mum's side of the
family. We'll start the day probably with a bit of a walk along the beach,
bit of a swim if it's nice and calm and it's meant to be warming up for Christmas Day as
well. And then a hot lunch, believe it or not; roast turkey with all the trimmings,
traditional Christmas pudding that my aunt makes, hanging it in the bag and everything in the cloth
and then I will definitely be in charge of the brandy sauce. I do enjoy that responsibility and
then I'll be leaving around about mid-afternoon to catch a plane for that other great Christmas
tradition - The Boxing Day Test. Yes, Ali, you're going to be busy. As you can see, Christmas has
been sorted in our place - the Jen and Jim and Rusty home - and underneath that Christmas tree,
as usual, there are presents from all sorts of people to Jennifer. Roger Federer, the Clintons,
you never know whose name will appear on at present under the tree. Maybe even one from
me and from Rusty, but our annual ritual takes us to the Outlaws, the in-laws,
whichever way you want to describe them, and then I get up at five in the morning or something and
jump on a plane and go down to Melbourne. It's been going on for a long while. So far,
I've been very lucky. The plane has never been late but having said that I probably put the kiss on
like talking about a bloke on 99, who's guaranteed to get 100. Well, the Boxing Day
Test and presents from the greats? What can I say? I can't match that. Hello, everybody. This
is Charu Sharma and I'm in Jaipur these days the capital city of the beautiful state of Rajasthan.
I will very soon be going to Ajmer, which is where our school is the Mayo College, Ajmer - to
spend Christmas. Not quite a traditional Christmas, but great fun anyway. Our return
to school is called, quite aptly, deja vu. Just to experience, our boarding school days again.
To those who are following what was going on. I'd just returned from Dehradun, where we played our
alumni cricket, since the term these days which is pretty fashionable was called the Alumni Cricket
Bash. We finished runner-up and I'm still alive to tell the tale. Does what it says on the tin,
by the sounds of it. Jim, I'll make sure they hold off from first ball until you get to the ground.
I'm sure I can swing that on day one. Let's hope your plane is on time and I'll see you on Boxing Day
at the MCG. Well, we're going to start this week's show by talking about the biggest T20
league in Australia - the men's Big Bash League, which is now in full swing. It's played between
December and February, but a slice of maybe unwanted history was created last week when Sydney
Thunder were bowled out for 15. Yes, just 15 in only five overs and five balls. It was the lowest team
total in men's T20 history anywhere. The team who inflicted that on Thunder were Adelaide Strikers,
who have won all three of their matches so far, and their head coach is former Australia fast
bowler, Jason 'Dizzy' Gillespie, who joins us on Stumped. Dizzy, great to have you on. I hope
you're well. I mean, just on that match, could you quite believe what was unfolding in front of your eyes?
Thanks for having me, Ali. No. I could not, in short. It was one of those surreal
times where you're thinking the game... You pick up maybe three or four wickets and you think there's
gotta be a partnership just round the corner here. Yeah, I'm still in a bit of disbelief to
be honest. You think, surely someone's going to get to 30 or 40 and get it up to reasonable score
and win the game, but just for some reason, they were either hitting the middle of the bat or they
nicked it. There were Sydney Thunder players that hardly played and missed it. As I said,
they either hit the ball or they nicked it to the keeper or slips. It was a really bizarre, surreal night.
What do you even say to a team after you've just rolled them over for 15? You know when you're
hand shaking at the end of the match? 'Well done. Well tried'? Yeah, I think I've never seen Trevor
Bayliss. He was just shaking his head going 'Dizzy, we won't see any of the likes of that again!' And
I said 'Mate, I tend to agree with you!' It was an absolute anomaly. We ended up playing them
subsequently a few days later and they got off to a flier and scored very quickly and scored a
lot of runs in the powerplay and they got a Bronx cheer from the Adelaide crowd when they got to 16,
which was always going to happen! Cricket crowds are pretty switched on those days, aren't they?
But yeah, just an anomaly. A very unusual quirk that can happen in our wonderful sport.
Dizzy, Jim Maxwell here in Sydney. Just reflecting on the Big Bash and all these new leagues around the world.
Do you still think the Big Bash has its relevance and it's still as lucrative as it once was, or perhaps
losing its new ball shine? I think it's very relevant on the calendar. Why I say that Jim is
as a coach and when you're trying to put a team together and a squad together,
the amount of interest from overseas players all around the world that want to play in the
Big Bash League is extraordinary. All players want to be part of it and experience it, so the
popularity is there. There's a lot of debate and discussion around the length of the tournament
and those things will continue to happen. I think Cricket Australia are starting to listen to
a lot of people, a lot of stakeholders in the game who are all singing from the same hymn sheet,
really. Everyone's talking that it probably needs to be condensed a little bit. I actually quite
like the fact that you play each team home and away, and I think that gives it some consistency.
You get tested in all conditions against all teams both home and away, so I don't mind that.
I certainly think we can play more games in a shorter space of time. It's a 20-over game, while
it is high intensity, we play five-day cricket, we play four-day cricket, we play 50-over cricket.
I think there is no reason why... I know in the UK with the T20 Blast, they play three games at
Finals Day and one team invariably plays two games in a day. So, I don't see why we can't play
back-to-back days or the occasional two games in one day. If condensing it is a potential solution
to keep getting the best players available and playing more often than not, why not explore those opportunities.
Are you interested in going back to England and coach a team in the Hundred, maybe?
I certainly would have a conversation if that did come up.
I'd be very open to exploring opportunities. I love coming to the UK. I really enjoyed my time
living there and coaching and had a little bit of success up there up north in Yorkshire. That was
a lot of fun and our daughter was born in Leeds. So, Leeds is always a very special place for our
family. My daughter keeps hounding me about when is she going to go home and back to England. I
keep reminding her that she's Australian, but she can't understand that. She goes 'But, Daddy, I was born in England!'
Hi Dizzy. This is Charu Sharma. Do you have what can be called a distinct coaching
style, would you say? And in your coaching career, who do you think has had a major influence, Dizzy?
Yeah. How I like to coach? So, I like to be very collaborative. I want players to know
that because we have a coaching staff, so you don't just have the head coach. I know
some coaches that's how they want to operate. They ultimately are making the calls and do everything.
I like to collaborate with my coaching staff. I like to collaborate with players because we're all
on the journey together and I think it's really important that everyone has a voice. Ultimately,
decisions have to be made. Sometimes you just have to make a decision,
but I like to get as much information as I can to make the most informed decisions. I've
been very fortunate to have been coached and seen coaches first hand. I really enjoyed John Buchanan
when he when he coached Australia. One thing that really stood out for me, he knew that
he had to try and challenge players in other ways. He couldn't teach, for example, Warnie how to bowl
a leg spinner or how to bowl his flipper, but he could look to challenge all the players in
other ways and get food for thought. I know there's been some potentially controversial
things - Sun Tzu and sliding pieces of paper under the door. I think what everyone's gotta
remember is that it was always optional. It was never 'you must read this. You must do this.'
It was 'here's some information. It's just something to get you thinking and maybe look at something
from a different point of view.' And I quite like the way John went about that. Others may disagree,
but he always had a plan and a way moving forward and I quite like that. As a young player,
I had Jeff Hammond at South Australia and I absolutely loved how he went about it. He was a
fast bowler's coach, being a former fast bowler himself and I think maybe because I was a young
player, and he took me under his wing, he made me feel really welcome in and around the team. I'm
on another journey now. I've got Carl Hooper and Johan Botha as assistant coaches at the Adelaide
Strikers and I'm getting to know those guys at the moment. It's a new, fresh environment here
at the Strikers with two new assistant coaches and I'm learning a lot from them. We are all
quite different, which I think's fantastic. We've all got slightly different ways of looking at the
game and we had some great debates on how we can help our players improve and get better.
Final thought Dizzy, because looking ahead to 2023 and there is an Ashes series to come and of course,
England are making great waves at the moment, coming away from Pakistan 3-0 under the Ben
Stokes and Brendon McCullum new approach to Test cricket. What have you made of the way they're
going about things? And you think that it'll mean that Australia will find it very tough in England next summer?
I've been really enjoying the way England have been going out there. They've
just been going out and just playing as if they're kids in the back yard with their
mates and that's what it looks like. The looks on their faces... The biggest thing you notice
they've all got big grins on their faces are smiling, they're having a laugh, they're loving
each other's company, they're celebrating each other's successes. That's no accident. That's
obviously the influence of Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes driving this team forward.
That is fantastic and it's great for Test cricket. We're loving it.
Australia, however, are going to be a different challenge in England with the Duke ball,
especially with the Australian bowling attack. England can come out and play this way,
that's great but will they have the success that they had in Pakistan? Time will tell.
It was a pretty exciting summer watching them do it against New Zealand,
that's all I'm going to say last year. Dizzy, a massive pleasure to have you on Stumped. Thanks
so much for coming on, as always. Good luck for the rest of the season with Strikers.
Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate the chat. England's men have become the first visiting
side to win three matches in a series in Pakistan. They won the third and final Test of the series in
Karachi by eight wickets which means they have now won nine out of their last ten matches. Contrast
that with 12 months ago when they were in the middle of an Ashes drubbing and the whole system
of English cricket was being picked apart. We've obviously spoken a lot on the show in recent times
about Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, but the standout player in Karachi was Rehan Ahmed. He
is the youngest man to play a Test for England and when he took five wickets for just 48 runs
in the second innings, he became the youngest man to take a five-wicket haul on Test debut at just
18 years and 128 days. Jim, what a selection he has been for England. Impressed?
Very, very impressed with his maturity, his control. It was the most fantastic debut any 18-year-old or anyone
could have, and he is clearly had a very good background and it was great to see the story
around him as 13 or 14-year-old with Shane Warne at the nets basically anointing him
and saying 'you'll be all right, mate. You're gonna make it. You'll be a good one!' My goodness,
it's going to bring something to English cricket. They've already had their massive refreshment from
leadership. And now the tonic of a very talented young wrist spin bowler and they are a rarity,
as Shane Warne has shown us. I just think it's adding a dimension to English cricket
that they haven't had for a long, long time. It's been years since they had a quality,
genuine spin bowler. I'm not talking about the Derek Underwood type. Someone who can not only
bowl accurately, but do something with the ball that just might surprise the batsmen more than
the old doorknobers who bowl left arm or right arm finger spin. Very exciting.
Yeah. Certainly, Adil Rashid decided to step back from Test cricket, so it's been missing, hasn't it for a long, long
time and he just seems like a huge talent. Charu, we saw a Harry Brook score his third century of
the series, which was quite something in itself again, someone so young in their Test career.
Where does Jonny Bairstow fit in, because they will want him back in the side,
but they have matches to play - two Tests against New Zealand end of February. What the England do?
This is a really tough one, because Bairstow did nothing wrong. In fact, he's possibly the one who started
this whole 'Bazball' thing because of his very aggressive, uber aggressive style. On the face of it,
I'm glad I'm not a selector here. But you've got to bring him back and that might be very rough
on young Harry. But we know he has it. And he's done it regularly in the last few Test matches,
but I'm sure he too realises that he's going to be back in the line, maybe first change in line.
But Bairstow has to come back because he has done absolutely nothing wrong except get injured and
the wrong time. So that's my take on it. And it will be very rough if Bairstow at his age
after having proved all that he's proved he was to now be in line waiting for Brooks to fail,
which might not happen in a hurry. But what about Pakistan and they had a disappointing series,
but one of their greatest ever players, Azhar Ali, retired from international cricket at the
end of that as well. He finished with 7142 Test runs, the fifth most by a Pakistani
cricketer. 19 hundreds from his 97 matches across what was a 12-year Test career. So,
how much is he going to be missed by Pakistan and where does he sit for you as a player for them?
Well, he was certainly one of the stabilising factors and not just with the bat, but also with
his character and personality, because Pakistan could use that too. He was a very steady sort of
person. So, they'll miss him in many respects, but he's 37 now, so I suspect he didn't seem
the best on the battles over the years. Could he have played a little earlier? Maybe he could have
and to his dismay, of course, he started playing Test cricket for Pakistan when they unfortunately,
they'd lost their hosting because of that 2009 incident. As you remember, Azhar started in 2010.
The bulk of his career to not have played in Pakistan must have been a real blow, but I'm so
happy for him that he came back, started playing Test matches in Pakistan and was, as you will
remember in 2019, I think it was, the first one to score a century in Pakistan. So, I think a lot of
people did realise his quality, then. Apart from the runs you mentioned and the averages, he did hold
at one point of time, a rather quirky record of getting 100 with the white-ball, a 200 with the
red-ball, and a 300 Not Out with the pink ball. So that was pretty rare. Of course, David Warner has
gone on and scored many more with the pink ball, but wonderful character. Just the kind of person
that Pakistan would love to have many more of. Not just a great batsman, but a steady influence
in the team which they so desperately need as they carry on. That's all we've got time for on
this week's Stumped, so I'll say thank you to Jim Maxwell and to Charu Sharma and to all of you for
listening. Have a very merry Christmas and we'll see you next time. Bye bye. Merry Christmas!