Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features,
and debate from the quirky world of cricket. I'm Alison Mitchell coming to you from my hotel
room in Wellington. I've come here from Mount Maunganui in the north, where we saw Bazball in
all its finery, only surpassed by Stuart Broad's own fiery spell with the ball which meant he and
James Anderson have become the most successful pair of bowlers in Test history. They've passed
the record of the great Glenn McGrath and the late Shane Warne. That really has been something.
Jim Maxwell in Sydney and we certainly have a bit to think about in terms of our men's cricket team,
so we won't bother. We'll just talk about the women's team, because Alyssa Healy's
fit and raring to go and I think the whole concentration of Australia at the moment is
perhaps more on what happens in South Africa, than India. Well, mercifully, we have a few days off
before the next Test match. Yes, indeed you do. I'm Sunil Gupta for All India Radio. I will not
talk about the Test matches right now, there's enough time for that. But the big news has been the Ranji
Trophy, where the final was won by Saurashtra, without its two big stars: Jadeja and Pujara,
who were playing in the Test match. It just shows the depth of talent in Indian cricket.
Of course, we are going to start this week by talking about the men's Test series between India and Australia,
because India have already retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in the Test series.
It only took them six days. India lead the four Test series 2-0, and Australia's nightmare in
Nagpur was swiftly followed by dismal in Delhi. It's led, Jim, to criticism from a lot of former
Australia players, who have been questioning the leadership, the preparation, the selection. Where,
for you, has it gone so spectacularly wrong? Well, I think the inability to make runs against very
good Indian bowling. This has cursed Australia for much of the last 10 or 15 years, whether
it be in India or Sri Lanka. We've had similar problems against any anyone can turn the doorknob,
as it were, bowling left or right-handed. This time, it's the two righties who have
done the damage. The two words that come to mind perennially when you look at Australia's demise:
'Swept. Away.' They swept themselves away. From the moment Steve Smith got out LBW to Ashwin,
they were all over the place. As far as this tour is concerned for most of us, it's all
over. Whatever happens from here, if miraculously Australia wins two Tests, that'll be the greatest
get out of all time. I can't see it. Difficult to see, isn't it? What about... I wanted to ask
you about the selections, Jim, because first of all there was the brouhaha over Travis Head
being left out of the first Test. Then the second Test, what about the spinners? You've got Ashton
Agar going from being the second spinner in the Test XI in Sydney to being what the fifth choice
all of a sudden now. That can't be good for the mind set and clarity of thinking of the players,
because it feels as if the selectors don't have clarity of thought. Well, they probably don't.
They don't know what they're going to do with Warner. They've got no idea. Will he be fit
for this one-day series coming up? Has been selected for it. He's got a fracture in his left
arm, he's got a concussion issue, but allegedly is coming back for all of that. There'll be
plenty of people say, 'Ah, well, if you can improve the side then why drop him?' It's getting to that
point where he doesn't score enough runs regularly to keep his spot. For mine at the moment on this
tour, I'd be opening with Travis Head and Khawaja, because at least with Travis Head going in first,
you might get a bit of momentum in the innings. Labuschagne, Smith, haven't scored half centuries
yet in this series, so the best players aren't putting their hand up in the way they need to,
and Australia's bowling has been thrown awry because of the turning pitches. They've tried
to answer that by playing three spinners. Yes, very curious that Agar's all of a sudden gone
from a Test cricketer in Sydney to a non-entity. They can play a lot better than we've seen, but
can they do it is the question, and then get all this behind them and move on to the Ashes.
Sunil, plenty of woes for Australia, but what about the credit for India and the way they are playing and
continue to be dominant once again at home? Yeah. I was thinking about what I should say. I don't
want to crow because I actually am disappointed. I'm disappointed in the lack of fight. Really,
as Jim said, the evening of day two in Delhi after Travis Head went after the bowling
and he reached 69 or something for one, I said 'wow. We've got a game on our hands and India's
going to have a tough time.' Look what happened to Indian in Bangladesh. We almost lost that second
Test. We were 45-6, or something before again, Ashwin rescued the cause. I just want to point
back to when India used to travel to Australia. I'm talking about the 1970s and the 1980s. It was
virtually the thing in reverse, to the quicks over there because we weren't used to the bounce. We
weren't used to the swing; we weren't used to the pace, and it was the same thing. We didn't have
the defences to cope with that type of bowling. So that's what's, in reverse, happening here in India because
the batsmen who are coming here... Even people like Handscomb, he played well in the first Test match.
But then somewhere, as Jim said, it gets into your mind 'I'm going to sweep' and I was horrified when
I looked at day three. Everybody's just sweeping like India used to go there and flash outside the
off stump: It's exactly the same thing. So, it's a question of the mind. I always believe in sport,
you have talent, you have technique which perhaps some of the Australian batsmen don't have. I think
this premeditated sweep has really ruined them. But eventually is temperament.
Finally on Stumped, Pakistan might not have made it out of the group stage of the Women's T20 World Cup
in South Africa but back home, an initiative to encourage more girls and women to play the sport
is flourishing. Pakistan's a nation where chances for women to play sport can sometimes be limited,
but Sunil you've been finding out about Khelo cricket, which is literally making a difference over night. Tell us more.
Oh, yes. I was privileged earlier this week to speak to Hadeel Obaid, a lady
who is the founder of Khelo cricket. So, I asked her how she came up with the idea to revolutionise
the women's grassroots game in Pakistan. How that idea occurred and what she's done to actually propagate it.
To be fair with you, I'll be honest, I stumbled upon women's cricket in Pakistan. So,
we started Khelo cricket with the idea that we wanted to do something for those who love to
play cricket on a grassroots level. Now, whether it was that you wanted to be the next Sana Mir
or the next Shahid Afridi, or whatever it is that you wanted to do. Whether it was to be part of the
national team, or to play as a weekend outlet, we wanted to give you the opportunity and a platform
to have your voice heard. Have your statistics speak for themselves, highlight your key moment
and celebrate the game itself and your love for cricket. It was the Ramadan of 2016 and
every nook and cranny of Karachi had men's cricket happening. And you know you have to bowl on the
streets and Ramadam is traditionally a very festive cricket kind of a month, which is funny
because I don't know why it is that way. I think it's because people essentially stay up all night
playing tape ball cricket and then everybody is used to in the day. There's so many men playing
cricket, but what's happening for the women? When we started doing our research, a little
bit of digging, we found that there was actually no women's night tape ball tournament happening,
not just in Karachi but in Pakistan. It was kind of like an understood thing that the men
play cricket at night and the women are mostly at home or they're spectators. We wanted to change
that a little bit, and we didn't know what we would expect. We did not know if there would be backlash,
we did not know if five girls would turn up, will 50 girls turn up, will there even be a tournament
worthy of playing? So we just put a feeler out, and within 24 hours we had an absurd amount of
registrations and people calling and saying 'oh my God. This has never happened before! We want
to play!' We had parents calling because of course, it's a women's cricket tournament
and so it was parents calling and asking 'is this legitimate? Can we send our daughters? Is it safe?
It's night, from dusk until dawn' and that's kind of how we stumbled upon it. The response
was so overwhelming that we realised we'd actually found something that was absolutely incredible, and we
wanted to be able to do something and give back to the sport. I read that you'd started it
only with men's cricket until you brought in the women's cricket back in 2016, if
I remember. Did you find any resistance from the boys who were playing at night?
It's never come up and I have to say I'm so proud of the boys. When my first women's cricket tournament happened,
I got a lot of backlash from religious communities and we got a lot of heat on social media and we
had to consistently keep blocking. I made sure that the security at the grounds was
very good, because we were afraid of somebody coming in and shutting down our tournament.
But the boys who came in to watch the cricket, the guys who were commenting on our social media
because we live streamed matches, will have seen the videos and writing on the pictures and doing
all of that were really supportive. They were very excited. A lot of them were actually very
family oriented, said they would say 'I'm sitting in South Africa and my cousin is playing here,' or
'I'm sitting in Dubai and I'm so excited to see that my female cousin is where my sister has the
opportunity to actually play. She gets this chance.' It was really interesting. I had so
many fathers be so excited because I remember this particular dad on the first one, sitting
with the team and got in the team huddle. He came to me and he was like 'you know, I never got to
make even the Pakistan A team, but I'm going to make sure my daughter who's 13, she gets to the
Pakistan XI.' There was just a general sense of 'finally, even the girls get to play.' It's been so
interesting because I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting there to be some sort of resistance to
say 'this is our space. Why are you entering?' I'm sure there were a lot of boys who had that, but I was
fortunate enough to not come across those that felt that way. What about the sponsors? I'm
sure you're getting sponsors, but how does that work because that is such a fundamental part of
any success in any sport today. It is very hard to get sponsorship. You still are in a country where
women's cricket is a Corporate Social Responsibility campaign. We are still empowering
the women. It is the poor Pakistani woman who does not know anything, and she is oppressed,
and we are giving her money and a platform to be able to do something. That is the general
corporate mindset. We have been fortunate that every year, even at the 11th hour, we have somehow
been able to manage getting funding for every single tournament that we have set out to do.
However, the idea that you are investing in something, that this is a real sport is not
something that has caught on yet. I think it will now, with the way that women's cricket is changing
the environment. The amount of money in women's cricket all over the world right now; from the
women's Indian Premier League to the women's Big Bash League, you're seeing a general shift when
women's cricket has less of an afterthought and it's now high. This is the future, let's invest in
it, but from my personal experiences it is still me knocking on a door every time and saying 'hi,
this is an initiative worth funding. Get behind it because you are seeing the results. You are
seeing women's cricket move ahead. Why would you not want to be a part of it?'
Oh, yes. I think some of the Pakistan women cricketers, we all know about them. Your captain Bismah Maroof,
and I read about Fatima Sana. If a couple of them come out and start making that difference
in the senior team, is that something that you foresee happening with some of the girls
who are playing with you? In Pakistan, there is a lack of continuity. There is a lack of
consistency, even in the infrastructure on a grassroots level - even the Pakistan Cricket
Board. As much as they have improved, there is no mandate. There is no schedule that sees X number
of women's tournaments will be played a year and making sure that those will be executed,
or there are X number of tours that are happening in a year. Or a season and those will be executed. So,
when it's not happening at the top level, then sometimes it gets harder even at a grassroots
level to try and make sure that there is that consistency. Now, where Khelo cricket comes in,
is that that is exactly what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping to make Khelo cricket a movement across
Pakistan, so that it becomes a nursery. It becomes a nursery almost whereby you know you've created
a platform for women cricketers, and then the Pakistan Cricket Board can come in and look at
the stats. Look at the women cricket as part of a tournament in a sense and say this is the talent
worth identifying and investing in and then taking it into their camps. At the moment, there's no
real nursery programme. You have a talent hunt and some five girls will be selected and then
they would get lost in the system or they will be inducted. But the association's coming that
was kind of creating a little bit more women's cricket, but then that recently got disbanded.
Now there are talks of a women's PSL. If a women's PSL comes up, which they think is going to come
up in September, that's great. But you cannot recycle the same 45 women in the circuit. So,
what do you do? I think that's why the step below, the most basic grassroots level needs to be
taken more seriously. And that's kind of what we're hoping for from 2023 to 2025. We want
not just double; we want to have at least... I'm talking about four tournaments this year, but I
would at least love to have eight. I would love to do it in different parts. But I would love to
have consistently keep getting in the statistics. Tape ball for women isn't taken that seriously. I
don't understand it because so many of our men cricketers have come through tape ball. So, for
me, this is crazy. Just cos she can't play hard ball cricket, doesn't mean she can't be taught to
play hard ball cricket. As long as you're seeing the talent in tape ball. And I think,
of course, the PCB is an organisation that has been working towards the development of women's
cricket. However, they also have their limitations in their resources, and I think that's kind of why
I've been so passionate about Khelo and the initiative which is all about women playing
cricket. I think if we strengthen the baseline, you'll actually see it move upward and we actually
be able to see that. I'm not saying that our women's cricket team will win a world cup, even in the
next 10 years, but I'm saying you won't be losing by 114 runs to England either.
One question that I have for you is that it is cricket that drives everybody's imaginations. You intend branching out
into Khelo Pakistan instead of just Khelo Cricket? I've been asked that quite a bit. People have come
up to me... a lot of footballers have come up to me and said, 'why aren't you doing football?' I had
a few volleyball players come and ask me 'why is there no Khelo volleyball?' My short answer is my
love is for cricket. The reason why I started Khelo cricket is because I always felt like cricket here
is everything in this country. And no matter how bad things are going personally or in the country
itself, cricket was the one thing that just healed you. I wanted to give back to the sport that has
given me so much. And that's why I had started Khelo cricket. I understand the need to venture
into other sports and that has been something that's been on our minds. But in my head, I wanted
to tackle one well, before I started something else. I'm not saying it will not be... maybe in 2027
we could be having a very different conversation. But at least for the next three years, I don't
see Khelo doing anything but cricket. We were talking about Fatima Sana and of course she's
now an integral part of the Pakistan team. She was the ICC's emerging Cricketer of the year in 2022,
so that's a great honour. Tell us a bit more about her and her evolution and her journey to that state.
I actually came across Fatima Sana when she was 12 or 13 years old. This was in 2016 when it
was Khelo cricket's first tape ball tournament and she ended up winning player of the tournament that
particular time. There were so many girls who were older than her, but the number of wickets that she
took and the way that she played was absolutely incredible. And I remember seeing her and thinking
to myself 'wow, there's something special about this girl.' We've been following her career within
the PCB, and we've been seeing how well she's been doing. And then to become the first Pakistan
women's cricketer to win the ICC award that she did, and just seeing her evolution, it's been
incredible. And I don't know whether Khelo played a part in it or not, but I felt honoured that
somebody like her, who I had seen her journey and that she had been a part of our events and we have
witnessed that kind of talent. It made me think of all the girls from her age and in that
particular bracket that had done so well. And you are seeing their careers and you're seeing them
get to the Pakistan cricket team and beyond. Oh, that was a fabulous interview indeed. Sport gives so
many people a sense of belonging, whether that's at community level or higher. It really, really
runs deep. Sunil, that's a lovely chat, thank you. Hadeel Obaid, the founder of Khelo cricket.
That is all for this week's Stumped. So, I'll say thanks to Jim Maxwell and to Sunil Gupta
and of course to all of you for listening. Make sure you join us again, same time next week. Bye