Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features,
and debate from the quirky world of cricket. I'm Eleanor Oldroyd in frosty London today. It feels
very cold, it feels very mid-winter, it feels a very long way from the cricket season here.
And I'm thoroughly jealous of our usual host Alison Mitchell, who is enjoying the sunshine
in Melbourne at the Australian Open tennis. But I'm extremely jealous of all of you and
I'm particularly looking forward to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which is just round the corner
for Australia and India. But Jim, that's something I'm sure you're looking forward to as well.
Yes, it should be a contest and that will be something to look forward to. It's Jim Maxwell for the
ABC up here on the Central Coast, just north of Sydney. Over my shoulder, you can probably see the
Pacific Ocean, perhaps not the beach, but it's a nice spot to be, even though one day it's 32 degrees and
the next 19 and pouring with rain. But that's what you get if you live anywhere near Sydney in the
last 12 months. We know how to do rain very, very well. I'm Sunil Gupta for All India Radio. I'm not
in New Delhi this time, but in sunny Jaipur. Sunny and cold for the Jaipur Literature Festival,
because I have as you know a literary streak in me besides, all the cricket that Alison and I talk
about. Yes, Jim. Yes, Elly. We are absolutely looking forward to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
That's coming up next month, and I'll tell you that is going to be a cracker of a series. I
think we re going to have some sporting pitches and we're going to see whether those wins that
we pulled off against Australia in Australia - I'm reminding Jim - were flukes or the real thing.
If it's anything like that series, it's going to be an absolute thriller. We will look ahead to
that, and we'll talk about India and Australia a little bit later in the show. But first, it's all
change at the top of South Africa's coaching set up; Two big appointments as they try to
recover from what was a disappointing 2022. Since Mark Boucher resignation as their men's red and
white-ball coach after last year's T20 World Cup, Cricket South Africa has split the role into two.
Rob Walter will take charge of the white-ball team and the new red-ball coach is Shukri Conrad, and
I'm delighted to say he joins us on Stumped now. Shukri, welcome to Stumped. Congratulations. First of all,
what does this mean to you? What does it mean to your family? Yeah, good day, Elly.
Thanks for having me. As the cliché goes, it's an honour and a privilege, but it is exactly that.
It is a massive honour for me. I've been coaching domestically in South Africa for nigh on 20 years
now, and my family? We're a cricket family, we're a close-knit family and they are over the moon.
Even my daughter who resides in Liverpool now, she messaged me the other day and said
she's going to be supporting the Proteas as well now. Well, that's great to hear and South Africa
were over here last summer and did not have the best as England went through their extraordinary
turnaround. This is a pivotal time for Test cricket in your country, isn't there because
there is a lot of focus on the shorter forms of the game. There has been a lot of resources
poured into the new SA20 league as well. So, do you have to kind of almost sell Test cricket all
over again to South Africa? I think not, Elly. I think our best players, all our top
internationals still want to play Test cricket. That for me is the thing that's going to take us with you. Yes
the T20 league, the SA20 league has been an unprecedented success. Obviously, it's very
lucrative and everybody wants a piece of that pie, but ultimately our top players still want to play
Test cricket and they want to be part of this new era, for want of a better phrase. So, I'm very
confident that... but I'm under no illusion that it is going to be a monumental task turning this around,
especially on the batting front. I think we've let ourselves down in the last 12 months,
both in England and in Australia on the batting front. That for me would be a massive focus
as we said right now. Shukri, Jim Maxwell. Congratulations to you. Having watched
South Africa here in Australia. How do you go about remedying the situation? And what about the
confidence for the players? It must be a bit low at the moment. Yeah, definitely a bit of a low.
The good part if I can just mention this, I've worked at National Academy level, so I know pretty much
everybody that has come through the National Academy at some stage. I know the characters,
I know the abilities, but I don't think our issues only lie at Test match level. Our
first-class system needs revisiting and re-looking at. Currently, we have a first-class system that
is seven first-class matches long in the four-day game. That's not enough, but it's also not an
pressured enough environment. So, I think we've got to be quite novel when we look at our
first-class system and our first-class fixtures for next year and how we create a slightly more
pressured environment for our players. That gap between international and first-class
is getting ever wider. So how do we fix it in the short term? We obviously need to look at
guys that are in form, guy that have performed at the levels that they expected to and ultimately
the currency remains runs. You can bandy all the fancy words about and philosophies and mantras and
all of the above, but ultimately, you want guys on the field that have been performing at the level
that they were selected at. You mentioned the word currency and I would think that is a
problem for Cricket South Africa, given the T20 formats and how attractive they are to your players.
How will you be able to work on their contracts to make sure that you can keep players to play Test cricket?
Yeah, I'm inheriting a system where our contract periods end at the end of April,
I think it is, where there're going to be guys that are still on a roll over or second year of a
two-year contract when I take over. But, I don't think any of us can be held to a contract only.
Obviously, conversations need to be had with said players, but I also think globally, Jim...
We've got to admire what England have done in terms of their Test side. I think globally,
the transition is not such a big one from T20 into Test cricket anymore. And I certainly don't feel
that the two formats are as far apart and far removed as they possibly were a couple of years ago. So,
we find a lot of top players transitioning from T20 cricket into Test cricket.
Whilst the lure of representing your country at the highest level is still there, I think players
are going to be hungry for that. Can you tell us something about the goals you've set your
bowlers. You have some of the best bowlers in the world. Jim was remarking about them - Rabada, Nortje, and Janssen,
who bowled so well against India when he made his debut. I think we've got a fabulous
bunch of fast bowlers. We've hinted at all of the fast bowlers, which has always been a strength of
South Africa. When you're not scoring runs, you've got to do both facets well. You've got to bat
really well, and then obviously you've got to bowl well. But I think it can become quite a draining
exercise when as a bowler you come off the field having done your bit, you want to put the feet up
and almost the rest of the day and a couple of hours later you find yourself back on the park
again. When you bowl to few runs, it becomes very difficult. You can't carry that extra catcher,
you can't set the fields particularly, so you've got to marry the attacking and defensive stuff.
So that can have an effect on the bowling group as well. I cannot speak for what the bowlers went
through there. Sitting here where I was and knowing the little bit I know about the game,
when you've got runs you generally get the best out of your bowlers. Similarly, as a batter,
when you're blowing teams away, I think your batters get confidence from that as well.
Finally, about the leaders in your team. Dean Elgar's 35 and did not have the best series in Australia,
Temba Bavuma Is 32. Would that be one of the parts of your building block going forward for South Africa?
Yes, it's something I'm going to be looking at. I like the word leader rather
than Captain because I think they are slightly different. We find really good captains. I think
South Africa is needing leadership at the moment. If Dean Elgar is the right person? As it stands
right now, he is the current South African Test captain, so I'll obviously be engaging
and connecting with Dean soon to find out exactly where he is at.
And then obviously I'll start also looking towards the future. When we start implementing
if its new leadership we need, when we do that. You don't want to come in with a scattergun
approach and start firing left, right and centre and hope that one or two hit the target. You've
got to be brave strategic in this and I'm really comfortable. Maybe it's not a bad thing that we
don't play so many Test matches right now. For me personally to get things right in the short term,
leadership is definitely something Sunil that I'm going to be looking at, yes.
Well, Shurki, we wish you all the best of luck in your new role. Lots of challenges lying ahead,
as you've outlined for us here on Stumped and we cannot wait to see how you get on.
Thanks, Elly. I really appreciate the support and thanks for having me.
Well next on Stumped, we want to talk about Shubman Gill. He has become the youngest man to score a double century in a
one day international. The 23-year-old hit 208 as India won their first ODI with New Zealand in
Hyderabad by 12 runs. Sunil, it feels like a while we have been talking about Shubman Gill. He's had
a bit of pressure on his shoulders, hasn't he to perform, but he has really shown how good he can
be and the way he reached that double century as well with three sixes in a row.
I think he has the gift of timing; something that Rohit Sharma has, and he has been able to put it to
him. He was spotted early. He made his mark as you remember in the Australia series win when India
were there in 2021 and scored that magnificent 91 at the Gabbatoir, which India won and broke that
record from Australia. But he has class, he has class. You could see it in his strokes. You can
see that in the game yesterday. The way that he was caressing the ball. But even as he
was caressing it over the boundary, there was no wild hitting there. It was scientific hitting and
I think he has a long way to go. I compliment the selectors and the captain for keeping their faith
in him because Ishant Kishan scored a double century, if you remember, against Bangladesh in one of the
earlier ODIs. There was a lot of pressure on them to included Ishant Kishan at the top of the order,
but they stuck with Shubman Gill. If you stick with class, class is going to repay you.
So, they're right in the midst of another white-ball series having just come off the back of a record-breaking
win against Sri Lanka in the one day international there. 390-5, India were, at the end of their
50-overs, before bowling Sri Lanka out for a measly 73 in 22-overs. The former England
captain Michael Vaughan summed it up on Twitter, saying: "In my era if you scored 275 it was deemed
a big ODI score... India have just won by 317". With the 50- over World Cup coming up in India later
this year, Jim, the rest of the world will look at this and quake in their boots, I suspect, but
I mean it is a remarkable win however, you look at it for India. Yes, and I think we will seeing more
big scores in 50-over cricket, but more so because there's more of it in T20 cricket. Just the other
day, Steve Smith scored a hundred in a T20 game with seven sixes off 56 balls. The frequency,
the rapidity, the boldness of the batting is just becoming more commonplace and on easy pitches.
Well, it wasn't so easy for Sri Lanka. It seems like they gave up the ghost when they got the
chance to bat. We're going to see more of this because batsmen are clearing the pickets, clearing
the boundary more often and they're playing the game with a confidence we have not seen before
and it's carrying over into Test cricket, which is why Test cricket's become even more attractive,
particularly the way Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have been leading the England side.
The beneficiary of all of this is the spectacle and it's not such a good one for the bowlers,
mind you. Most of the fans go out to the ball game and they want to see the ball hit over the fence
or into the stand and that's what we're getting, so look forward to more of it I reckon.
Well, let's talk about the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The squads had been announced on both sides this week.
Still no Jasprit Bumrah For India, Sunil, which of course is a big blow. Still, he has been out
for a while with injury. But a bit of a shock that Sarfaraz Khan has been left out again.
Yes. he doesn't look the quintessential languid creased batsman. He's short and tubby,
a little bit like lets say David Boon, but David we all know what he was capable of. This boy,
he's been... 982 runs at an average of 122 - just under the great Sir Donald Bradman. But. But,
and there's always a but, when he played the three India A games
last year, I think it was, his average was only 33 and scored 99-odd runs in three Test Matches.
I think it's that little step up to the next level that the selectors are worried about. I saw him
play a magnificent innings for Mumbai against Delhi in the Ranji trophy when Mumbai were down
and out and he came up and scored a century and took them to about 300, so he has... I saw him play
and he has some absolutely beautiful shots. He had all the time in the world to play those shots. I
think his time will come. I think he's just got to put those runs on the board as indeed. Look
at Sky - Suryakumar Yadav. He has been on the fringes for so long. He came in and made a bag
and now he's there. He came in in his 30s, so there's plenty of time for Sarfaraz to make a mark.
Jim, a word on the Aussie squad. Four spinners included, but none of them is Adam Zampa,
and I know he's not terribly happy about that. He 's been talking about it, but do you think of the squad as a whole?
Well Australia's playing with a lot of confidence and a lot of skill
and in fact, the best bowling attack will be Nathan Lyon and three quicks. That'll apply in
India unless the pitch looks like a Bunsen burner from day one, which it might on a few occasions,
and remembering that Australia has back-up fellas like Travis Head, Labuschagne and Smith - not
frontline bowlers, but they can add some variety there. And they might be better off going with
that kind of balance than playing a spinner who lacks skill and experience at this level. So,
when Australia last won in India in 2004, it was the pace bowlers that did it in Nagpur. You might
remember that game where Sourav Ganguly cried off at the last minute because they left a bit of
grass on the pitch. He didn't fancy that, and he was quite right not fancying it. India went down,
so I think Australia will fancy their chances against India if they can win the toss and bat
more often than lose it and have India batting. The toss will be a big factor
and another big factor we should mention here, of course, is the absence of Rishabh Pant with
that unfortunate motor accident he had. He'll be a huge loss I would have thought for India,
because he is a game changer. He can bat for an hour and change the course of a match and
he has done that on a number of occasions. So can they cover his absence? It will be interesting to watch.
Somebody's misfortune is somebody's opportunity. Somebody's got to grab
it and take it. He made it his opportunity when he came in. Nobody gave him a chance. The fast,
bouncy Australian pitches and how he played... I still remember that magnificent innings at the
Gabba. It was outstanding, absolutely outstanding and as Jim said the game changer. Well,
here's a chance for somebody to step up. Why not? Very well put Sunil and Jim as
always cutting to the heart of the story. Really great to see you both. Have a wonderful time.
It's been a pleasure to be with you on Stumped today. Thank you to Jim Maxwell
and to Sunil Gupta and don't forget to join us again next time. Bye for now.