Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features,
and debate from the quirky world of cricket. I'm Alison Mitchell in Northamptonshire, the county I
grew up in and just beyond the camera looking into it here I can see some lovely green fields.
So surrounded by greenery, which is lovely, and it's the start of the men's County Championship!
The domestic season gets underway today, so good luck to everybody involved in that over the course
of this week and this weekend. And since the last show, I stayed up all night to broadcast the final
of the Women's World Cup. I was just pleased to show that even at my age, I can still pull an
all-nighter! But it was a brilliant match and an astounding victory for Australia, and we will talk more about that in the show.
Ali and Charu, Jim Maxwell here in Sydney and we've already had the annual rainfall within the first week of April.
That's how wet it is. It is serious armageddon; floods everywhere and some people have been flooded for the second,
third or fourth time. It really is an awful situation for them. But for those that live in these parts,
the cricket season's over, we're watching it on TV or listening on the radio in other parts and I
think it's the IPL now that we've moved on to with Pat Cummins getting an amazing half century in the
IPL! What about that, folks! Is he a batsman? Is he a bowler? Is he Superman? What?
Hello everybody. Alison, Jim. I'm really happy to be back after spending a few weeks traipsing around
middle India, lots of ancient forts and temples and of course the tiger safaris so quite a few.
Then I went to Jaipur for the board meeting of a major hospital run by a friend of mine,
then back to Mayo, my school and college near Ajmer because there's a building coming up in
the memory of my father and now I'm in my hill home in the Himalayas. It's beautifully here. Jim,
I do feel sorry for your floods, and Alison I suppose you're okay with the greenery but great
to be back on the show. And of course, by the way, yes, there is an IPL going on, which I've kept a
quarter eye on it in these early stages. Yeah, the cricket never stops does it and I love
greenery Charu, but I love mountains even more. So sometime, we will descend on you in the Himalayas,
and we'll do a Stumped outside broadcast from there. I'm getting on to the producers about it!
Like I mentioned the Women's World Cup final. I said a brilliant match, it became in a sense,
felt one sided quite quickly because of an outstanding performance from one individual... And
a couple of dropped catches as well from England. But Australia were crowned World Champions for the
seventh time. They finished the tournament with a perfect record of nine wins from nine matches,
and they really won it in style. Yes, Australia beat England by 71 runs largely thanks to Alyssa Healy's
sensational 170 off 138 balls. It was one of the great ODI innings of all time.
Yes, she was dropped on 41, but an innings of superlative quality on the back of her century
in the semi-final as well. And she was toying with England at times, we saw the inside out
cover drives, the sweeps, the scoops as well. And she accelerated, she saw off that early bowling
and just really dominated. Jim on the team itself, though. I mean, we're running out of superlatives
to describe this Australian side, aren't we? Yes, they've maintained a very high standard,
they haven't slipped. They haven't had that bad game that everyone thought they might
have somewhere along the line. And hopefully it wasn't going to be in a semi-final or a final.
They were in prodigiously confident form and Heather Knight, she must have been umming and
ahing a bit after winning the toss. Might have been better to bat but would it have made any
difference? I mean, Nat Sciver was brilliant in the reply, but there's too many to chase
and Australia's domination with the bat, the ball and as we've mentioned a number of times,
in the field. Their fielding was another level like everything else, just magnificent and
the Laureus awards will be very interesting later on in the year because if that women's
team is not one of the best teams in the world, I'd be very surprised.
I know, you do wonder sometimes whether cricket slips off the radar of Laureus somehow because it's not say that the
global sport in the way that football is or even the reach of an Olympic sport but Charu, I mean,
Healy played with that patience through that power play; nothing sort of impetuous to try
and go hard out. She and Rachael Haynes just saw off the quality opening bowling and then really
flourished. England were undone by a superlative individual performance when you look at it like
that. Was it overall, a case of the best team won? Undeniably. I mean here on Stumped too, we
might have our differences every once in a while, in terms of opinion, but I don't think anyone
here I thought that Australia was not going to win the World Cup. They were the firm favourites and,
of course they did deliver in spectacular style. We'll be talking about one individual, of course,
Alyssa played a magnificent innings, and she loves throwing bowlers off their length because she
keeps rushing and charging and doing all sorts of fabulous things at the crease. That can be really
disconcerting for even the best bowlers in the world. Now, you talked about the drop at 40, but
Australia were far too strong, and England did well enough to get to the final after the kind
of start they had Alison. You would imagine they wouldn't even make it to the knockout,
so they did extremely well, no doubt. May I add, if you don't mind a little touch of pathos
about the Indian team losing very narrowly to South Africa. I watched that match and it was
just heart-breaking. But who knows, they may have given Australia tough fight. But yeah,
the best team won, no question about it. Nat Sciver certainly just kept a degree of interest
going because it felt with that record, you know, the chase that was set that it could just be
an extremely one-sided run chase. But you know, back-to-back centuries for her against Australia;
one in the group stage and of course now in the final underlines her absolute star
quality. In terms of the dominance Jim, does this just go back to the fact that Australia
have been professional domestically for longer than anybody else and longer than England even?
Yeah, they've had a surfeit of talent, not just a number of talented players. There's so much depth,
and they keep winning. And I mean, it's a bit of a cliche to say that winning becomes a habit,
but when you win like this Australian side, you do bring a level of confidence and assurance
to every match you play. So that's why. It did surprise me that Heather Knight sent them in,
but she had her reasons, no doubt. It didn't work out and I'm not sure
where this Australian team in a match that they're going to be up for, can lose. Not for a while,
anyway. This was a mighty, mighty performance by a magnificent team and
it's the high watermark of Australian cricket at the moment, you'd have to say is the
domination, the performance of the women's team. The men are going all right, in various moods but
the women is just brilliant, brilliant. Well, now to the Indian Premier League where Rajasthan
Royals have got off to a near perfect start with two wins from the opening three matches.
Now the reach of the Royals franchise extends far beyond India with the presence in Abu Dhabi
and London in the shape of Royals academies. So, one in a major centre of the Middle East and
one in the capital of the UK.. and now a second in the UK, in the Cornish seaside town of Truro. Now
Cornwall's very close to my heart, I actually lived there for nine months in Falmouth. It's
where I trained as a journalist and I reported on my first ever cricket match down there as
well which was St Buryan versus Callington in the Cornwall Premier League. No first-class cricket
there, no Hundred team based there, certainly no international cricket goes to Cornwall. So why
has an IPL franchise based an Academy there? Let's find out more with the academy's head coach, Sean Hooper.
Sean, welcome to Stumped. Just tell us then why has an IPL franchise gone to Cornwall?
Good morning, Alison. Good morning, Jim. Good morning, Charu. It must be nice to have with four
great cricketing powers in the world: England, Australia, India and Cornwall represented today.
Exactly, well this intrigues me because I reported on the Cornwall Premier League. Of course,
Cornwall is not a first-class county, so the club level and the minor counties level.
What has led to an IPL franchise deciding to base an academy in St Austell?
About 17 years ago I left teaching to watch my youngest daughter grow up and yesterday was a big day it was her last
day of formal schooling before A-Level exams and so as part of not knowing what I was going to do, I set
up a cricket business. In 2007, I took a group of youngsters from Truro across to Mumbai, and
we stayed with CCI with grade one stadium where some of the IPL games are being played. Fantasticly
hosted by World Cricket Academy, which was Zubin Breukelen, Sachin Baja's company - two great guys,
and I made great friends with the two head coaches - Monty Desai, who's currently head coach of
West Indies and Umesh Patwal who's been head coach of Afghanistan, Nepal and whatever. They became
great friends. Umesh came and spent a summer with me in 2007 and developed his coaching in
Cornwall. Monty, I mentored him through his level three ECB course, and we've just kept cricketing
contacts going. As you rightly pointed out, Cornwall is not your natural cricket Mecca.
But it is a fantastic place to do a university course or to develop. Tell us a little bit more about the actual setup
at Truro school and how it will work. Basically, Monty and I had conversations and we developed
things over a couple of year period. So, we're trying to run the Academy slightly different to the ones in
Abu Dhabi and Reed's School in London. Cornwall is a very, very poor area as you're probably aware
from your time here. It looks amazing when you see all the coastal pictures and everything going on,
but two miles from where I live is the highest index of mass deprivation in Europe. There's
a lot of poverty in the middle of Cornwall where the mining industries no longer exist.
So my great passion is to try and make sure the Cornish youngsters have opportunities that they
wouldn't otherwise get. They need some hope, they need some aspiration. And in conversation with
Monty, we've basically somehow become a fantastic part of the Rajasthan Royals Academy.
Jim Maxwell here, Sean just to kind of get a bit more of a handle on
the relationship with the Rajasthan Royals and where it leads to? Yeah, Jim. You know, the absolute dream for me
would be that a child that has never played cricket before in Cornwall
hooks up to a Rajasthan Royals programme, goes through a programme and ends up playing for
England and Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. That's the absolute dream and realistically we run good
coaching programmes in Cornwall and we have done for many years before the Royals came along, but
linking in with them and giving our children some star dust, some hope, a little bit of
aspiration that there might be a route for them, that's where it really benefits us down in Cornwall.
I'll give you a for instance: I had a seven year old he's actually six years old in our under seven
programme. On Sunday morning came to me said "Sean, Sean, Jos Butler scored 100 for the Rajasthan
Royals yesterday!" That brand awareness, brand identity to get a six-year-old that fascinated by
the IPL was fantastic for us to see. And the child was so excited.
Sean, it's been great to hear the story of Rajasthan Royals in Cornwall, of all places. Thank you so
much for joining us on Stumped. Good luck with it all. Absolute pleasure, Ali. Cheers now.
Finally, on Stumped, the squads for the UK's Hundred competition are falling into place.
This was the new 100-ball format that launched in England last summer. Its build up was full of
controversy, you'll remember and discontent over the impact that it could have on the longer format
of the game and maybe that's yet to take full effect. You know, having so much focus on white
ball cricket in the height of England's very short summer, certainly the Test team at the moment
is not having a good time of it. But the competition once it started drew
huge crowds as well as new free-to-air cricket coverage, particularly elevating the women's
game. Now in the men's competition for the second season, a draft was held to fill the squads with
West Indies big hitter Kieron Pollard selected by London Spirit as the first overall pick for around
$160,000. The other star names in the top price bracket were Andre Russell, who has been signed by
Manchester Originals and Rashid Khan, who has been retained by Trent Rockets. There wasn't a draft in
the women's competition, they were able to retain an unlimited number of players from their 2021
squads, and those who are released are free to be signed elsewhere. Now we've already chatted quite
a bit about Australia, but I mean those Australian names were being referred to as the superstars of
The Hundred for this season and of course World Cup winning Captain Meg Lanning is featuring
she'll play for Trent Rockets. Alyssa Healy will be playing for Northern Supercharges and England
opener Tammy Beaumont is going to get a chance of captaining. She's moved to Welsh Fire. But in all
19 of the 22 players who featured in the World Cup final between Australia and England are going to
be in The Hundred's second season. Now, Jim last year because of Covid, the Australian players
men's or women's couldn't play in The Hundred. Do you think the tournament can measure its success
and early reputation by the fact that so many have opted in and have been keen to be involved now?
Well, it's not it's not quite the IPL is it in terms of star players? So, until it becomes that
it's got a lot of work to do. I actually think longer term, the women's Hundred will probably
work but the men don't need it. I'm sorry, it's not necessary. You've got enough cricket going on
in England. You don't need men to be playing. If you're going to seriously concentrate on
getting the Test team back somewhere, how many white-ball competitions do you need around the
time of the year that they're playing? I know it's allegedly drawing more people to the game and
so on and it is on free-to-air at times and perhaps that's a bonus. So, I won't go too hard on
it at this stage, but like the BBL, as we've seen in Australia, if you don't have the best players,
every season, you're in trouble. It's certainly providing a big payday for some
lower-level domestic players giving them that opportunity. Charu, in terms of those big names,
you know that Jim was saying, aren't there? There's no David Warner, there's no Chris Gayle,
no Babar Azam. It's pretty clear to see that some teams may be deliberately steering away from
spending their money on marquee overseas players and deciding to stick with domestic players who
actually can guarantee their availability. I guess in a way, that's the tactical move by some?
Well, let's not underestimate the intelligence of those who run these tournaments or those
who run the teams. It is a very clever mix of who is available, who is a global star,
what do we need for the marketing of our team, and also the affordability? I mean,
there's a price to everything, so there are T20 stars, and I think they're slightly different from
otherwise global cricketing stars. You mentioned a couple of names and even in the IPL, which is
the Big Daddy and some of these really big global stars who are perhaps the best cricketers in the
world...of course, Pakistan doesn't make it on other grounds, are not a part of the IPL. So, individuals
are getting different kinds of reputation. And maybe England and I have not fought England
are thinking about the future of the game itself because they need more support domestically,
more visibility, more spectators, more viewership. If they feel they can go there and get there
through white-ball cricket, well, that's just where the game is evolving towards. So,
I'll have to bow down to the wisdom of those who planned the 100. Obviously,
England needed this kind of attention on cricket, which it wasn't quite getting. So
something will have to give for something else to grow and it looks like white-ball is the way
forward for England as well perhaps the rest of the world too. So, there are enough stars,
you're not going to impress anyone with the money. That $160,000 is kind of loose change in the IPL
and Jim's right on one count that if you don't have the best in the world,
it will never rise to that kind of height in terms of the men's Hundred. But the women's Hundred
could set new standards and they have players, and for whatever it's worth from India as well,
unlike the men's Hundred. So, there is a true mix of the very best in the women's Hundred,
unlike the men's Hundred. Well, that's all we've got time for on Stumped this week on
All India Radio. Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter, we're @BBCWSSport and use #BBCStumped and
of course go to the BBC World Service's YouTube channel to watch the show as well. My thanks to
Charu Sharma and Jim Maxwell, and to you all. We'll see you again next week. Bye bye.