Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features,
and debate from the quirky world of cricket. I'm Alison Mitchell back from New Zealand,
which was a really fun trip following England's men for their two Test matches and that incredible
finish in Wellington. So thank you to Elly Oldroyd for standing in for me last week. I am back to
cover Crufts. I think we might even hear a few woofs behind Jim Maxwell with your furry friend,
Jim. I'll keep an eye out for the relatives. Ali, thank you for the cue. Yes, we've just
returned this afternoon from a road trip to the country, where we introduced young Rusty,
the toy caboodle to a couple of characters, I suppose you could say. Certainly one big character
and I don't know whether you've ever heard of the bush ranger Ben Hall. Well, there's a statue of
him in Forbes and Rusty looked quizzically at him I have to say. Anyway, we've got a photo,
but more significantly we got a photo of him with 'the dish'. The dish - the Parkes telescope,
which is magnificent which was the subject of a movie about landing on the moon in 1969,
a comedy drama. Anyway, that's where we've been for the last few days and he just had a bath,
so a few woof woofs and you'll know what 's going on. Happy dog. Hi and I'm Sunil Gupta for All India Radio
in New Delhi and it has been a packed week, actually what with the Holi festival which
all of you know is the festival of colours and water and a lot of festivities and fun and all
those things that go into it. And of course, the immense, immense event of the WPL which
started about a week ago, a few days ago with a terrific match between Gujarat and Mumbai. And,
of course, the final Test match between Australia and India. Australia and India going toe-to-toe
and India are hoping for that final spot in the World Test Championship final to be played at the Oval in June.
Yeah, we'll talk about those things over the course of the show. Good to have you with
us again, Sunil as well. Looking out the window at the snow and I can already see lots of doggy
footprints as people are making their way into the main arena here. It's really quite a sight. Right,
we will start with the Women's Premier League, because as you mentioned it began in India this
week and marks... It was a momentous occasion for women's cricket, paying players riches
that had only previously been imagined. And if you didn't catch any of the opening ceremony,
I recommend you go back and have a look on the WPL's Twitter feed because you'll be able to see
some highlights there. It was big scale; it was star studded and for me it really underlined that
India has gone all in for this tournament. The opening match, then saw the Mumbai sky light up,
there was fireworks and for the first time Indian women's domestic cricket was truly celebrated
on a global scale, what with the televising of the whole tournament as well. Sunil, how has the
early following been in India? Is it living up to the hype that we all experienced around the
auction and the build-up? I'd love to say yes, it's going through the roof, but unfortunately,
no not really. First of all, the initial sort of excitement was because of the novelty factor.
This is happening or that sort of thing, you're seeing the auction making sure quite a few people
tuned into the auction. The young girls who are coming through literally the ranks, and as you
said more money than they've ever seen. That's great, but the problem is that the stadiums
themselves. The attendances have been sparse, if I might use that particular word, and I think
one of the key reasons Ali is that all the matches are being played in Mumbai. Mumbai is no stranger
to big cricket, right. A lot of big cricket comes to Mumbai, and I think if you really want to get
this off the ground, you have to go and play in the smaller towns. That's where they don't get
a lot of big cricket. This will be more than a novelty factor. People will go to the stadiums,
we will get full stadiums and that's really what the WPL, IPL is all about. And to my mind,
once they're able to do that, because a lot of these young girls from India come from those small
towns. So all their villages and all the catchment area will go to watch them, watching them in these
big games with this coloured clothing, playing with the international stars. That's going to be
a huge occasion. Bombay, there could be a little bit of ennui, because as I said, they've seen it
and they've been watching the India, Australia T20 series that got played recently in Mumbai. So, a
lot of big cricket comes in there. But, as I said, like most start-ups, it's going to take time. Now
people will compare this to the IPL, but remember that was way back in 2007. At that point of time,
T20 tournaments were not the vogue what they've become today, so there was that novelty factor.
And of course, it was indifferent centres which is the big reason why it actually took off the ground
so well. And of course, the big stars; Shane Warne etc were there. So, I think if they're able to
manage this in the second edition, then I think you suddenly see this actually rising from where it is currently
in terms of the actual excitement factor in the ground. That's really interesting to
hear you say that, because watching on television it has been quite hard to gauge exactly how big
the crowd is in terms of the stadium. You don't get too many wide shots and it's very easy on
the television. You do get lots of noise and atmosphere comes across, so as a television
product, it feels like it's still quite exciting. Which is important because that is what is being
projected around the globe. Interestingly, if you look at the way the League's developed with The
Hundred, that was previously the Kia Super League in England, that began at smaller venues before
evolving into what it is now. Interestingly, double headers with the men. Same with the WBBL
in Australia also started at small grounds and is still largely matches played at the more boutique
venues to build that atmosphere. So, it'll be interesting to see how the competition evolves,
whether the format stays the same next year and how things will always be tweaked. But I don't
think you can quite expect to fill international size stadiums every match for a brand-new
tournament of domestic cricket. Jim, if we talk about some of the action on the field, there's
been a number of compelling matches, compelling tournaments, but not necessarily some nail biting
finishes yet. But we have seen some real quality from certain individuals, haven't we?
We have seen some big scores. This is another example of the developing athleticism of female cricketers. Now
that they're on the main stage, profile, well paid, the big scores and some big hitters in
there. We know what Harmanpreet Kaur and Grace Harris and even her sister, if she gets to play,
can do and I think that's part of the development of the women's game here. Meg Lanning, of course,
has been mightily involved and Ash Gardner perhaps more with the ball than bat so far. But I think
from the smidgen of coverage I've seen, the quality of the hitting and the power of a lot
of these women is super impressive. And that's what's going to make this tournament attractive
and should be drawing a crowd. I would imagine on television, it's pulling a crowd, if it's not at
the stadiums. But, yeah, I think it's got off to a pretty good start. Yes. What I really look for
in these tournaments are the unknown players who are coming to the fore. You've not heard of them
before. You've heard of all the big names. You took some of them right now from India as well.
But there is this girl called Saika Ishaque, who plays for the Mumbai Indians. In the very first
game, she took 4 for 11 for the Mumbai Indians against the Gujarat Giants. She comes from Bengal
and she's a left arm spinner and already has taken six wickets in the tournament, if not more now.
She's top of the pile in terms of the wickets being taken. Something that India actually need,
so you discover these hidden gems. You know, people are making the point that she's actually
coming back into the game after an injury lay off of two years and suddenly has made a mark. So,
I think this is what to my mind is the most exciting thing about these tournaments. You
suddenly see people and players you've never seen; it could be from anywhere. There's Issy Wong,
there's another bowler who is also taking a lot of wickets. So, these are names that you don't
normally get to see. Suddenly they're here, they are on the big stage performing. To my mind that
is the most exciting thing. Now the final match of the Border-Gavaskar Test series has got
underway. Australia and India's men playing at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, that enormous 132,000
capacity stadium. There was talk about whether a record crowd might be in, but no evidence of that
just yet, anyway. The Australian Prime Minister has been in the house watching, Anthony Albanese,
alongside India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi himself. Now India have won every Test series at
home in the last 10 years. Is that going to be playing on their mind at all, Sunil, or are they relaxed
pretty much now that the trophy itself is retained already? They are burning inside,
let me tell you. Right now, they are as nervous as hell. If you witness the first couple of overs,
where they dropped a catch. 8 byes, the first ball was a wide and I go back to the time when
I think it was Harmison who bowled that wide down to first and set that Ashes series off to the
worst possible start for England. So, they're nervous. That's my feeling, that is my feeling,
they're nervous not because of the fact that they have not lost any series, but because
of what happened in the third Test match. As Jim was saying, it was a tailor-made pitch in terms
of spinners. But I thought that the Australian spinners out bowled the Indian spinners by yards.
They were terrific. I mean the way that that Todd Murphy and Kuhnemann and of course, Nathan Lyon.
I mean, Jesus, how well he bowled. They were so accurate, whereas the Indian bowlers were
all over the place. Axar Patel, as I mentioned who's in the team primarily as a bowler, did not
pick up a wicket. That tells you something, so I think they're hurting, they're burning, and they
are very nervous because, remember there's a place in the World Test Championship that is
at stake. India need to win this. Of course, the other factor at play is the New Zealand, Sri Lanka
series, which is going on concurrently, so there are so many irons in the fire and of course you
know this is the big stadium. The big stage. The biggest stage in India in terms of size.
I think the nerves are jangling, if I might put it that way. I think for the Indian top order
batting, it's been that way for the whole series. I mean, their number one batsman in terms of
numbers, bats at nine - Axar Patel. Their batting looks very ordinary. I know the Australians have
had their collapses, but the top six from India haven't put in. And that's one of the reasons
why we might be seeing a slightly flatter, less crumbly surface to start with at any rate in this
4th Test match. The crowd didn't turn up. There were less than 50,000 there. What's going on? They
haven't filled the stadium, as a lot of people were speculating that there might be a 100,000 people.
Finally on Stumped, an attempt to become the world's most travelled female cricketer,
to uncover how the game is uplifting and empowering women and raise money for charity,
all at the same time. Jenny Thompson used to be a cricket journalist in the UK, you might remember
her cricket fans from her Cricinfo days. She's been living in Adelaide, South Australia for many
years now. She has continued to play and coach the game recreationally, and she's now embarking
on this challenge, which will take her from Hong Kong to Vanuatu to Indonesia and a whole host of
other places as well. And she's with us on Stumped to tell us more. Jenny, how are you? The last time
I saw you, and I need to tell people that we know each other well, you were cooking up this
adventure and then I saw on a Facebook page you'd created that it was actually happening.
So, tell us first of all where your idea came from. Oh. Well, I've had the idea for about the
last five years. But in the last five weeks, I've just press go and it's really snowballing. There's
some really exciting things coming on, but as you mentioned, I've got the background in Cricinfo
and I got really interested in women's empowerment through cricket. At the time, I would write a lot
of articles there and at that point it was really gratifying that the ICC, with whom I had a very
good relationship, they told me that they took on board 80-90 percent of my suggestions and they
made those changes. So you know cricket related change for women is something that I'm really
hoping to carry forward with this tour, but also really who doesn't want to play cricket around
the world? It's an absolute dream and I just feel really fortunate to be embarking on this massive adventure.
And on the fringe again, what's the most unlikely place you're going to go to in terms
of cricket being on the agenda beyond a couple of fanatics getting together to play it?
I always think it's quite unusual to have cricket in South America. So, that's going to be very interesting.
But, really, I have to tell you I'm most excited so far about where I'm going to start my tour,
which in Hong Kong. Obviously, the cricket scene there is really burgeoning, but I'm actually going
to be playing alongside the divas, who are the Filipino domestic workers based in Hong Kong who
use their one day off a week to play cricket. Even more excitingly allied to that is we are going to
be playing an exhibition T10 match to kick start the opening ceremony of fairbreak, which obviously
does so much great work for women through cricket, so it's really the perfect start to the tour.
Hi Jenny, this is Sunil. This sounds fascinating and all the places that you're going.
I wish I could go in my lifetime. I don't know whether I'm ever getting to Vanuatu and all the
other places, but at the end of the day, you know one has to manage the books. That's what I do for
the family, so how are you funding all this lovely travel all across the globe?
That's an absolutely great question and I mentioned ice cricket in Australia before, and actually the person who
set that up is a man named Jason Barry, who in the 90s played cricket in 113 countries. He managed
that whole tour by fax and thought the logistics were difficult these days. So I tracked him
down actually and we had a conversation and it was really lovely because I've had so much support
from everybody. But it was great to hear from someone who's actually done such a massive mission
and I was seeking some reassurance. I can tell you he reassured me that this is going to cost
an absolute arm and a leg. He's really not wrong. I'm fortunate to have some savings, but really
already some people from the cricket community who I've never met before have come forward to
offer me accommodation. Cricket Without Borders is supporting me to go to Fiji and Vanuatu. So that's
been very kind. I'm hoping more people might come forward, really.
Brilliant, we can't wait to follow you so keep us posted on Stumped about what you do discover in these far-flung places,
because that is exactly what our programme is about as well. We love to get into the corners
of the world where cricket is less well known. Good luck on your travels, great to speak to you,
Jenny. Thank you, everyone. All the best. Jenny Thompson. Keep an eye out for her world cricket
tour and that is all we've got time for on Stumped this week. So, my thanks to Jim Maxwell and
Sunil Gupta and to all of you for listening. We'll see you again next week. Bye for now.