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 a tardis, believe
it or not, in Melbourne. That's the name that the ABC give to their contributors studio, so hence
if you're watching this on YouTube, it's the black background behind me. I'm staying on in Melbourne
for some Australian Open tennis, but there is so much cricket carrying on all around the world,
isn't there? The Big Bash in Australia carries on, the Aussie women are in action, SA20 league
in South Africa where there's a big focus, because there's a first ever under-19s World Cup for the
women starting there, which is followed by the T20 World Cup as well. So that is a hot focus and
we'll be spending a bit of time looking at that on Stumped in the coming weeks, I'm sure.
Hi, it's Jim Maxwell for the ABC in Sydney and yes, Test cricket's over for the time being but more to come
in other places as we go on into this year, but I suppose immediately on our minds is the thought
of Steve Smith and David Warner playing in the Big Bash. It's a rare appearance for them and a couple
of other Test players before things get busier in India. So that's coming up very shortly, apart
from of course Pakistan and Australia playing in a women's series pretty shortly.
We're all waiting for Australia to come to India - that should be a fantastic series. Hello everybody, this
is Charu Sharma for All India Radio. I am so glad to be back on Stumped, back home as well after a
rather hectic last month or two, and of course I've just returned from the ATP 250 event in
Pune. It's not quite the Aussie Open, Ali, but we had a wonderful time. A new winner for a change,
which is always good but am I glad to be back gosh and of course we've got some golf going on. Our
club had their draft and the auction, so there's a club league going on as well. I'm looking forward to some downtime.
With the show this week, we're going to start by looking at what happened at the
SCG last week. I'm not talking specifically about the cricket, because Jim and I witnessed history
being made at the Sydney Cricket Ground when the world's first statue of a female cricketer was
unveiled. Now the identity of the legendary player was kept under wraps until the day itself, and she
is a living legend, so actually able to enjoy this in real life, which is great. She captained Australia for
12 years, leading them to two World Cups, playing 134 times in all for her country and headed up the
women's game in Australia before it was taken over by Cricket Australia and the ICC. Since then, she's
been at the fore of administration in the game; from grassroots and community level all the way up
to the elite in both the men's game as well as the women's and she continues to mentor young players now.
She's a member of the ICC Hall of Fame and the award for outstanding Australian female
cricketer of the year is named after her as well. It is, of course, Belinda Clark and she's with us
on the programme. You've had a little bit of time to digest everything that happened when the statue
was unveiled, and I did speak to you there in Sydney as well, so how does it feel a week or so on?
Life's just returned to normal, which has been really nice. It was a year of preparation of
getting to that point and then all of a sudden, it's on the doorstep, so it took me by surprise.
I was just thrilled that my family could be part of it. That was probably the bit that...
I look back fondly on. Yeah, normal transmission back in my life and it's sort of nice to get back into that normal rhythm.
Where did it come from that image we have of you playing an action shot?
So, there's a couple of shots that she sort of melded into this one. I think
initially she created some little statues. They were little, you know about 10cm high, and she
took photos of them from 3D and said: 'look I've got three photos that I think will work, or three
poses', and then we talked about it and we chose the one that was the most adventurous
quite deliberately. It sort of started to take form. I played a pretty traditional way,
particularly early on in my career, and I probably got more expansive the longer I
played. So this shot was sort of at the back end of the career trying to slog one over
mid-wicket. Traditionally I think you might think of myself about where did I score most of my runs,
they were probably through cover, backward point, mid-off, so this was something that sort of came...
I worked really hard on creating a leg-side game, so I was quite proud of the fact that
we found an image that had something in it that I had to work really hard to obtain,
which was this bit more expansive game over the leg-side. Are you surprised at the rapid
development of women's cricket in the last 10 years, from basically an amateur, occasionally
professional, sport to full-time professionalism now? I'm relatively impatient as a person. I think
that's a trait that I have. I wouldn't have said it's rapid. I feel like it's been coming
for quite some time. I certainly was surprised that we got 86,000 to watch a T20 World Cup final
in 2020. That did surprise me. I'm not surprised the game has professionalised. I'm not surprised
at the quality of cricket that we're seeing, and it's just wonderful that
you mentioned the under-19 World Cup in South Africa. That to me, along with the IPL
having a women's event as well, they are the two things I think that are going to create a
massive change in what we're seeing and hopefully shift that trajectory from what we're on now,
to what is possible which will be a little bit quicker and making sure the game continues to
grow everywhere. I think that's really important for cricket to be interesting and inspiring;
it needs to be a global sport and to be a global sport it needs to have a strong international
competition. I think the under-19 World Cup will help us achieve that.
Australia seems to be winning at will. They won two out of the last three 50s and they've won five out of seven T20s,
which is great for Australian cricket, but we do want some competition, don't we? We
can't seem to have them running all the time, so how do you see the new women's cricket league in
India - we can't quite call it the women's IPL just yet. What are your thoughts on the naming
of this new league to be in India. Would you like it to just be an extension of the IPL,
such as the WBBL, or would you like a completely different entity? How do you stand there?
I think the IPL has a brand and a name and it's big and it's brash and it's bold and it's got
superstars attached to it. I would leverage that with the women's competition, so if you're going
to go and start it with a new name, you then need to go and convince everyone and get another term
into the vernacular. Whereas everyone knows the BBL, the IPL. You've got to have three letters.
The WBBL doesn't quite work, but anyway. I think that I would leverage it. People know what it is
and I would call it the same and I would put the teams in the same and I would let them go at it.
Belinda, you were saying earlier in order to grow the game, it needs to be played everywhere,
and everyone needs to be playing it. Notably we've heard that Australia's men are pulling
out of their ODI series against Afghanistan and that is a direct consequence of the fact that
Afghanistan women are not playing cricket due to the Taliban regime in that country.
How do you see this unpicking and unpacking for Afghanistan as a team? You've been involved in
administration; you'll have a good view of both sides of the fence. As a female administrator
wanting the game to be widespread everywhere, what do you think a solution or action,
if any, should be taken as regards the situation with Afghanistan men being able to play cricket, but the women not?
I think it's a basic human right that people should be able to play sport.
So, if you've got part of your country without that basic human right, I think
you've got a problem. I know the ICC is in a difficult position about how they
might manage that amongst members etc, but if sport is not going to stand up and say
you need to be equitable. You need to be providing opportunities for both genders then
who's going to do it? So I think it's a reasonable move. It will be interesting to see what impact it
has. It's one of those situations that you just got to keep monitoring and keep the dialogue open
and keep trying to help people see the benefits of perhaps allowing everyone to play sport.
Belinda congratulations again on being immortalised in bronze! We're absolutely thrilled
for you! Thanks so much for coming on Stumped to have a chat. It's been great to see all, thank you very much.
That's Belinda Clark, former Australia captain and now in bronze at the SCG. Now let's
pick up further on the story that Australia's men have withdrawn from their one-day international
series against Afghanistan, which is due to play take place in the UAE in March. In a statement,
Cricket Australia explained that the decision came after the Taliban's recent announcements
about further restrictions being placed on women and girls education and employment in the country.
It is part, remember, of the ICC's constitution around full members that to be a full member; to
be a Test playing nation as Afghanistan is, then they must be supporting a women's team as well as
a men's team. Afghanistan have not been fulfilling that obligation. They had a fledgling women's
department set up and progress was being made, as we heard from Tuba - you can go back online and
search for our episode that featured her to get the full picture and her opinions on the situation
in Afghanistan. Jim as regards this particular series, the men had already withdrawn from a Test
match hadn't they against Afghanistan? Was this something that you had seen coming, or surprised?
I'm not surprised. I'm just hoping that there is some dialogue that continues as this issue
continues to be a problem for the game. I mean it's obviously that and there were hints when the
Taliban first came to power that perhaps it could be an accommodation somehow, but it doesn't seem
to be the case at all. You don't just shut the gate completely because you've got to hope there's
a way that this can be negotiated, discussed, whatever and get women back into the fold. But it
doesn't look very promising and also doesn't look very promising for particularly Australia playing
any cricket, male or female, against Afghanistan in the near future. That is disappointing. I'm
sure the Australian government would be suggesting to Cricket Australia that it's not something that
they should be encouraging in anyway until there's a change of attitude from Afghanistan, but we'll see what happens.
Charu, notably when the fixtures for the under-19 women's World
Cup came out there is no Afghanistan there amongst Test playing nations, then countries like Rwanda
who are featuring in it, the UAE featuring in it. There's been an ICC working group, hasn't there,
to monitor the situation but to my knowledge that is all that's been happening. They've
been monitoring and nothing has changed since the day the Taliban first came back into Afghanistan. What's your take?
Well, a lot of disappointment for sure for the Afghanistan girls, particularly,
because I mean they must surely be looking forward to making a mark in the world of cricket
as their men had. How far had they gone along that road? Perhaps not that far, so at this point
of time they need to be given the opportunity because obviously the talent exists. However,
what's confusing to me is that I'm glad of course the Australian cricket team have made this call
of taking this decision, because obviously the world needs to sit up and take notice and lot
of people do believe that sports persons have a very loud voice in such matters. But you mentioned
the ICC working group. Now surely, they're keeping an even closer tab than individual
nations because it matters so much to the ICC to make sure the cricket grows. It would have been
nice to have received news from the ICC working group on Afghanistan to the rest of the cricket
playing world that listen there is no progress or an update would have helped all cricket playing
nations take similar decisions. Right now, it might look like a little random Australia decision,
but of course it has to go well beyond that and what do the rest of the nations do? So I applaud
Australia, but I also implore the ICC to come out with a policy right now or update, at any rate,
which can pave the way for other nations to also take such calls as we go along. If the
women in Afghanistan are truly being stopped from playing cricket that's dangerous, but I mean the
Afghanistan government I suppose could turn around and claim that they just are not playing now,
but we can't hit them with a hammer on the head to say, well you must play cricket, because we need
you too. I really don't know what this situation in Afghanistan regarding women cricketers and the
motivation for them to play or even the permission is that really a problem? We need to know a lot
more, that's for sure. If there's a working group, the ICC as you suggest, then as we know
when that's where all this information should be detailed. Now for years on this programme, we've
been asking the question about when a women's version of the Indian Premier League might launch,
and we finally got the answer and that is this March. It is happening, but just how much detail
have we got about the tournament when it's only a few months away? First of all, Charu there's
uncertainty even about what the competition will be called, and there's been reports that it won't
actually be called 'the women's IPL'. What can you tell us? Very little, Alison, sadly. You say
there is uncertainty about the name, I'm saying there is uncertainty about everything right now,
and there are, according to the start date we heard some time back, less than two months.
So, it sounds ridiculous, but the name is just one thing. Frankly that's the least of it. What do I
think? I think it should be called the women's IPL to piggyback on what's a really big name in
the world now. There's no harm doing that because it's after all managed by the same board, the same
sort of people, but that's the least of it. They could announce the name of the tournament two days
before, but that's the least of it. The fact that the teams haven't been decided yet, the franchises
have not been given out yet, who's going to be owning them and the players have to come
from around the world and there's lots of planning in terms of transport and everything else.
You can throw money at it, I suppose, and you can get everything organised in two weeks. It
just is a bit of a pity that all this has not been decided quickly enough, because once the
cricket board did decide going for a women's IPL - a decision we've always been waiting for for years
and talking about when - then everything should fall into place very quickly. It's not that it's
the first league that the board is organising. It's something that the Indian administration
should easily be ready for, so why the delay? It just will cause unnecessary confusion, and to me
it looks like not enough respect is being given to the women's IPL. To have everything organised well
in time indicates a robust administration. From not even have a name finalised at this point of
time, which is the least of it, it just reeks a little bit of lack of attention. That's such
a pity, because if there are mistakes that could happen, they will happen.
You know what's going to happen, don't you? There will be an auction that takes place bang in the middle of the women's T20
World Cup, although you can probably bet it won't happen on a day that India are playing.
It will be on the day where they could serve as a big distraction for a couple of teams. Jim,
one report suggesting that the league will be just known as 'the women's T20 league', which seems very
unimaginative. What do you think about it? Does it not need to be part of the the IPL brand which is so strong?
It's all come out of the same stable I think, so what's wrong with the women's IPL?
It sounds like they've got more pressing concerns about the whole process that leads to the first
ball being bowled with the teams, television rights... They've got a few things to sort out,
so I would think that the actual name of the tournament isn't a priority at the moment. Charu?
I do think that 'the women's T20 league' is just sort of a working name to go along,
a holding name, but to me it does also seem like the enormous commercial success that the
franchisees currently enjoying - the IPL - is something that's giving the administration
a lot of heart and delaying everything. They know that the guys are making so much money now in the
IPL, the teams that surely they will pick up the franchises and surely it'll be an extension of
their team, and their management team as well. Everything will fall into place very quickly,
which is not allowing for newer entities to come in because if new entities do come in,
they require much more time in terms of managing their own teams and setting an infrastructure,
their whole management team going as well. I suppose that they'd take charge of a certain
ground, so it's not allowing for newer people to come in and be as organised as some of the
older franchises, should they go look at the WIPL, if we can call it that franchise.
That is all we've got time for on Stumped for this week, so my thanks to Jim Maxwell
and Charu Sharma and to all of you. We'll see you again, same time next week. Bye for now.