India & SA set up intriguing World Cup final | Where did it go wrong for England and Australia?

0:01Yeah, gone, gone, he gets his fairytale ending. An epic way to go to a Test Match 100. The London Spirit of First Time win is the most remarkable thing you'll probably ever see in cricket. 604 and final Test wicket for Stuart Ball. It's India who will win the T20 World Cup. England's captain Ben Stokes, while he is there, England have hope.

0:32Welcome to the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast. Welcome to the bustling, vibrant city that is Mumbai. So many things to see and do, so many monuments and historical objects to have in our background. Sadly the rain has driven us inside. Our kit doesn't do very well with the weather, neither does NAS. Jonesy and I would have been fine, but we have to do it indoors. So it's a slightly sterile environment, but we are indeed dry. Now, 35 ,000 people were at that semi-final that you did last evening. We've had two cracking semi-finals for a variety of different reasons. But that yesterday was not just a showcase of the women's game.

1:11That was a showcase of cricket. That was fabulous. What was it like to work on? Yeah, it was brilliant. I've never worked on a game like that and I probably won't for many years as well. I've never felt so completely devastated and distraught and completely ecstatic in the same moment. It was one of those, you know, Australia lose and you're heartbroken for the girls. But at the same time, you're looking around going, this is just phenomenal off the back end of Jemmy's Knock. And all the, you know, it was a roller coaster ride all the way through. And it was pure sport in the sense of there was moments in the game where the Australian team, who had been so clinical in so many ways, you could see the pressure at them.

1:50You know, they drop some of the simplest, most simplest catches you take every day of the week. And you're like, oh, this is the next level here. There's something different going on here. So, yeah, still sad, but happy. There was a brilliant headline in Crick Info about yesterday's game. It said, India have taken down the Death Star. I thought that was brilliant. Well, I mean, there's been sayings over the years. You know, they're the sleeping giant. Don't wake up the sleeping giant. They lost that World Cup final in 2017 to England. You thought that was a moment that they would kick on. And since then, they have been slowly, slowly awakening.

2:30And obviously, they still need to go on and win this thing on Sunday. But yesterday felt like a pivotal moment in the sport for women and obviously in women's cricket in India. If you just panned to the crowd and saw the amount of young girls watching that game of cricket, it. You cannot be one of those young girls and not be inspired by what you saw yesterday. We landed in Mumbai Airport and they were just about to go on air and there's a massive screen at Mumbai Airport, one of the biggest screens ever, and it was having the build-up like an hour before the game. You drive from Mumbai Airport to where we are and every other poster is of Smriti Mandana and it has just gone wild.

3:16It's not quite the moment in Johannesburg in the T20 when the men's side, when Dhoni's side won it, but if they win it here on Sunday, I think you'll find it very difficult to stop the juggernaut that is Indian women's cricket. They will absolutely produce cricketers for years to come after what happened yesterday. The overall scheme of things, Nass talks about pivotal moments. Those pivotal moments in the women's game keep coming. I was looking the other day, I'm pretty sure I need to check this again, but I can't do it now because I'm doing this, but fairly certain there was a women's semi-final of the World Cup that Leigh-Sperry played in at Derby and then yesterday we had 35 ,000 people slightly different and you're right in the sense of those young girls in the crowd, young boys as well wearing those Schmiddy Mundiner shirts and so yes, from a playing perspective you've got the WPL, things will keep growing along that side but I actually think it's the commercial impact that we made from this team and what they're doing.

4:16We've seen one player, Schmidty's face is everywhere. Every second ad is her and Pat Cummins at the moment. It's quite weird. And every billboard and all those sorts of things. And that's her as a player but it's her as a brand and a commodity almost. And this team will now have a branding, a marketing element around them that will just shift them into a whole new... Jemmy Rodericks, like I'd love just to follow her trajectory off the back end of that century as well. And that starts to just shift the complete dynamics of the sport too. So as much as the WPL is in, it might mean that all of a sudden they want two more teams.

4:49And it's that sort of juggernaut that I think will be interesting to watch. Specifically with Jemmy, who was the player of the match last night. I mean, a staggering innings. And she's been through a lot. It was a very, very emotional interview she gave when she received the player of the match award. Openly saying she's been struggling with a bit of anxiety throughout this tournament. She's lent very heavily on people in the team and her family. She was dropped. We all thought she was going to bat five yesterday. She batted three, and she produced things like that. And in fairness to you, you spotted her a few years ago and said, I've done, no, I'm not, but in seriousness, and it's been out on our social today, you spotted her a few years ago, did some throwdowns when you're doing that feature in Mumbai.

5:27This girl's going to be a superstar. Well, last night, she was a rock star. Yeah, I think I woke up to it this morning in the headlines. I hadn't seen the press conference. So in the same way that Mel was disappointed and elated with the Australia result because of what the bigger picture was, my emotions were the other way around. I was elated for Jemima Rodriguez because, obviously, she's just a wonderful person. Anytime you meet her, she's just a wonderful human being. Nice things happen to nice people. But then you don't realize what she's going through. When she does that press conference, the things that she's been through and the anxiety that she's been through, And it's a classic example for everyone that behind a smile and that smile that Jemima's always got on her face, playing her guitar or out dancing and all the things that have been out there on social media in the last 24 hours.

6:19But behind that smile is a human being that feels it and feels pressure and feels anxiety and feels like they're letting down mum and dad and their coach and the Indian public being left out and how much that must hit you and being part of Indian cricket and the pressures that you're under. So it is just a realisation, Mel, that behind a smile, people are going through difficult times. So under those difficult times, to pull off in innings like that speaks volume for that human being. Yeah, and we've been waiting for it. I can remember the T20 World Cup in South Africa, and she had a magnificent knock against Pakistan to get them over the line.

6:54And it was moments like that you go, I wonder what that knock is going to mean for her at some point down the track. And I was sitting there last night watching her thinking, this is it. And she just needed to be given that opportunity. She only found out five minutes before the innings that she was going to bat at three. So you sort of shift your mindset about how you're going to prepare and who you're going to be facing. And maybe that in itself just allowed her to go, I've just got to go do it now. Well, absolutely, get on with it. Yeah. India's progression to the semi-final, much least a win as they did against the defending multiple world champions, it hasn't gone like that, has it, as well?

7:26They've hit some bumps on the road and there is pressure over here from their supporters, as we always talk about when we're talking about Indian cricket. Yeah, they lost three on the bounce, one of them against the opponents on Sunday against South Africa where we were bossing the game until Nadine de Klerk came in and smashed it in the end at Vizag. And that's why yesterday and Sunday is vital, really, because we had that saying in the dressing room, you only win if you win. If they had lost yesterday, they would have been nailed again by people saying, we throw so much money and you've got now the WPL and everything and you've got all these things and you keep losing in big games.

8:04I've been about England at the moment, the discussion about England cricket, women's cricket. So that's why to get over the line and not just anyone to beat Australia. I think we said in the last podcast, if there is one side in this tournament that Australia didn't want in a semi-final, they didn't want India. Because there was a feeling that India at their best could beat Australia and they were at their best yesterday. I think they've actually played good cricket even in those games they lost they played good cricket for large parts of it and then at the end let themselves down even in the game against Australia there was a bit of role reversal from yesterday Australia should have got 370 yesterday they ended up getting 330 or whatever that cost them and when the other game the other way round India should have got a few more before Australia chased them down and if you remember the England game they were strolling home against England and then suddenly for some inexplicable reason and at the end completely succumbed to pressure, which they did not do yesterday.

9:02Ian Bishop as ever, who nailed it right at the end, I'm just going to quote it, he said, that was the greatest run chase in the history of women's ODIs. Would you agree? Since Australia did it against India a few days ago. But not in a semi-final. Yeah, no, no, there was so many different elements in high-pressure games. So, yeah, I would easily put the Aussie, England, India one aside from the round games. And look, I've seen a lot of the games and there's just, nothing comes close to it because of the intensity of it, because of even just the storyline of India winning against Australia in 2017 at Derby in front of, what was it, 2 ,000 people kind of thing.

9:43Was it that many? And we talk about Harmarpreet's knock and we always sort of talk about it. They go through to the final and they should have probably won that final too and they succumbed to the pressure there. You just, there is just nothing that comes close to it on so many fronts and could they do it again straight away I don't think you could like there's just and I look at the Australian team and I think that I don't think they really hit their straps throughout the tournament but I know coming into this semi-final I was nervous and I don't usually get nervous watching the Australian team but I think there was definitely the element of India at home realizing that this is their make or break moment um and they completely did so what happened what happened to australia yeah um i i certainly don't want to make excuses for them i certainly don't know if this is the case or not i think one element potentially is that they had a it was a hard likewise india had a two bilateral series prior to this tournament so that's an eight nine week stint of just hard hard cricket i think a couple of them you just sort of look at them in the field and i'm like you're not quite as switched on as sharp as what you what you usually see i I think maybe there was an element of Megan Chute and Alicia Healy have come out today and said that they won't be playing another World Cup.

10:57Now, will they play another ODI game? So I think there's probably some senior players in there knowing that this will be their last World Cup. Sophie Devine came out and announced it and completely embraced it, whereas the Aussie girls didn't do that. So I think there was just a variety of different pieces. Midge, Healy with her injury. So you sort of have the captain in there who's coming off back-to-back hundreds. She's out and then everyone's thinking, is this going to be like the T20 World Cup and the UAE? We're not going to have our captain through the finals. So that's just that thought process of, you know, how do we re-jiggle things and all those sorts of things.

11:29So I think there's a lot of things, but there probably wasn't just one thing. So if someone's saying that there's probably going to be their last World Cup, you know, the next World Cup's four years' time or whatever, this is a general point, not necessarily about Australia. Should they then move on? You know, Sophie Devine's moved on. We haven't heard what Susie Bates is going to do specifically for New Zealand as an example. right they're not going to play in the next 50 over world cup so they shouldn't play another ODI Australia got plenty of young talent out on the field and I'm sure there's plenty coming through get them in now get them playing cricket yeah you don't want a complete clear out you do want people to set the tone for future generations when people come into addressing room I always remember in the side I capped in when you introduce people like Vaughan and Triscothi you did one Atherton and Stewart and Goff and people like this that really set a good example to the rest of the team and I think that's what you got to decide you obviously got asked the question are you going to be going will you be around how long are you going to be around for and we do have to future plan Australia do that very well their future plan look at the way Litchfield has been introduced Sutherland all these players come in and they come in ready as well and perform straight away but you do have to make sure that there are enough senior what Duncan Fletcher used to call about that critical talk about that critical mass of having senior players that set the right sort of template of how you go about being an international cricketer now Australian cricketers might just from because they've seen it now for so long they just might know this is what I've got to be like and these are the non-negotiables and this is how I'll come in and behave but I think just to clear out all senior players because they're not going to be in the next World Cup.

13:07I personally wouldn't go that way. The interesting thing is India tours Australia in February, this coming February, for a multi-format. So whether or not the conversation is revenge, but you've got something at home to say, if that's the last hurrah, do you have it at home and allow players the opportunity for their services to Australian cricket to have that moment at home with family and friends around, get a little bit of revenge, and then it might be something, that might sort of trickle out over the next quarter. The question is, is the hunger there, really? Australian cricket aren't just going to rock up and play for the money and carry on playing just for the sake of it.

13:44Is the hunger there to continue to improve, to do all the training, to go through everything to be an international cricketer? Do you want to carry on doing that and make sacrifices? Well, if you do, we'll buy into that, but you've got to realise that there is a World Cup eventually, and we might move on. Well, we should move on. We should move on to the set. We'll move back, I should say, to talk about the first semi-final, which, of course, South Africa won. Two phenomenal performances from their two senior players. We'll come on to Marazan Kap in a second. We saw two breathtaking hundreds yesterday in Navi Mumbai.

14:17Laura Wolvart. I've not seen too many innings with better tempo to it. And she's definitely gotten better and better as the tournament's gone on. But the way in which she paced herself. Now, her and Tasman Brits have been a wonderful opening pair for probably the last couple of years and have hit big opening partnerships, and they've had that consistency. Brits hadn't really kicked into gear. This tournament got the 100, but other than that, it had been reasonably lean. So she's sort of managing that. They weren't 100 % sure on their make-up too, so they went with the extra batter in that semifinal with Bosch coming in.

14:52So there was sort of just a bit of re-jiggling all the time. And she'd led her team through to semifinals and finals and hadn't quite gotten over the line. So there's all that playing out. And she got off to an absolute fire against Australia in the last of the round games. I think it was 31 and less than those balls. And out, and you just think, oh, she was close just to kicking in again. Will she be able to get back there? Well, I thought it was just a beautifully timed innings. And she really kicked on past the 100 as well. Yeah, it was probably the best innings I've ever seen her play. She flicked a switch.

15:26Yeah, absolutely. Is that how she's added again? because when I first saw her, she was very much a touch player and the ability to do what she did in the last 10 when England conceded 112 probably wasn't there a few years ago. I mean, I just spoke about the Aussies and that sort of will to keep improving and there's another good example of a woman trying to improve. She could just coast and play for South Africa for the next decade. She's Laura Wolfhard and just play the way she did is my point and be very good. But she wants to be better than very good and she wants to win games for South Africa and she went one way with a fluency through the offside.

15:59England probably bowled a fraction-wide fifth stump where she loves it. And then at the end, over mid-wicket, mid-on, cow corner, the power hitting, the six hitting. Some hits even you could see on her facial expressions. She was more proud of those and amazed by those than the standard cover drive that she's played for a number of years. So worked at it and it came good in a massive game. Meanwhile, she's finished her science degree over the last couple of years as well. so we know that she got into medical school early on out of high school. So she's quite annoyingly good. Oh, it's one of those.

16:31Yeah, her and Elise Perry and those guys. OK. I haven't finished my Masters. What about South Africa in the field, though? Are there concerns going into the game on Sunday? Malabra's obviously the spinner. Not real much back up there. The keeper doesn't look like he's going to take some of the catches that perhaps should be a potentially regulation. And, you know, in big games, you've got to take your chances. as we saw with Alyssa Healy yesterday. Yeah, they're going to have to improve, but they've got a lot of fight and a lot of character and a lot of resilience about them. They were bowled out by England for 69, and then on the same ground in a semi-final to come up and play the way they did, they were bowled out by Alana King against Australia, and the next game they come out and get 300.

17:16I like the coaching set-up. They seem to just move on. They learn from it. They move on from the 69. They move on from Alana King in Australia. and just focus in on the next game. For me, the biggest challenge is both these sides feel like they climb their Everest. They've won massive semi-finals and all the hype with Jemima and Harman Preet and beating Australia. That's not your Everest. The next game, it's the final. No one will remember that if you lose a final. And same with South Africa. They're now through to their first final. We're going to have a new name on the trophy, but you've got to treat this as your big game, not the last one.

17:53I'm going to be two. Laura Woolbach, she's done that. But your point about moving on, I think, is a good one. That was going to be my next question about South Africa, actually. But it does rightly, as you say, apply to what we saw with India yesterday and the emotions there when they beat Australia. South Africa were very emotional when they beat England. Everyone was piling on. They've got to park that. They had to get on a flight from Guwahati to get here and then a quick turnaround for a World Cup final. They've got to park that emotion and move on. But both sides, NASA's right, both sides have got a partner in motion.

18:25And I think it's probably going to play into their hands that they did play in Gawati because you do have to then get back onto the roadshow of World Cup. So you've got to pack your bags and get on the train. That was 1997 and they don't do trains these days. Flight. Flight to Mumbai. So you automatically get back into the rhythm of things. You get to the hotel, you go to training. Whereas I think if they were here and they would have been back at the hotel, they were celebrating, they settled down into the celebration of it. So I think that's probably played into their hands. What have you made of England?

18:55It was always going to be an interesting one, watching the flip from going back to the Ashes to new coach, new captain, and then building into this World Cup. And again, a build-up into the World Cup, I know they went to the UAE, that there wasn't a big tri-series just before it, in terms of warm-up games, to see how that sort of played out. They played New Zealand, was it, over there? And there's all eyes on Charlotte Edwards. And I don't think you can just flick things around so very quickly. I think you can certainly see the impact that she's made in terms of players going back and playing county cricket and at that level to make sure that they have an understanding of their own game.

19:35So I can certainly see that in moments in the players, that shift. The challenge now is to get those moments just being more consistent for longer periods of the game. and that's where the biggest challenge is. What would you say to those people in England who would say, same old England, you know, too reliant on Heather Knight and Nat Silverbrum with the bat, play well against oppositions below them on the table, but higher oppositions, play well until you get to a knockout game and then succumb to the pressure. Do you see a different England is my question. I see in some players I do, in some I don't.

20:12And I think that's when you're talking about clearing out players. and it's not clear out, but I think if I was, you know, 20, 22 years of age playing county cricket at the moment in England, I would be like, right, I'm ready. I'm going to do everything I can this summer because there is a massive opportunity for you. I'd be pulling out all the stops and it starts with, we've spoken about it quite a bit, haven't we, about the fitness, the agility, all those sorts of things. You're putting in the hard work now, having a look at the gaps in which you can see because you do, you've got a four-year turnaround, but you want to get in this team right now.

20:42What did you make of the comments that Charlotte gave to us when she joined us at the end of the show in Guwahati? I think you have to be as a coach, and my coaches that I played under Bumble and Duncan Fletcher were exactly like that. What you say in the public and what you say in front of cameras and press conferences and people like you and me is completely different to what you say in the dressing room. Occasionally you use the media to get a little message across, occasionally, but you back your players in public and behind the scenes you tear a piece off them. if they're not doing what they're supposed to do.

21:14So she was trying to back the players. Having lost, you'll know in that dressing room, they're hugely disappointed. They're out of a World Cup. You can't change that. So there's no point suddenly going out there and throwing them all under the bus unless you feel you have to, to change the culture. So she was just trying to back her players. And behind the scenes, who knows what she was saying or thinking. To change a culture of a team doesn't happen easily. It doesn't happen overnight. Otherwise, anyone would just come in and do it. if it was so easy. You know, we would just copy what Australia do or whatever, and that'd be fine.

21:45That's our culture change. It takes a very long time to do that. The things that concern me, I thought the fielding was better. It went missing a little bit in the semifinal. The fitness looked better. The things that concern me would be, yet again, in a knockout game, they succumbed to pressure. The growth of young players in the last few years in English women's cricket is just not happening. So players come in like Dunkley, like Capsie, come in and it seems to be taking a long time whereas if you you're Litchfield or you're Sutherland um you know Laura Wolff and all these players are just growing like that Ash Gardner's just going like they're all coming in and growing England players younger players are stagnating and and that that is a concern for me another concern is a lack of left-handers they don't have they have one in Lindsay Smith who bats at number 10 and even that we saw at the end of the game They shook South Africa a bit.

22:39Yeah, the bowlers had to change their line. Fielders were running around a little bit. So trying to get and develop some left-handers that play in your side. So too reliant on Nat Silverbrun and Heather Knight. Once Nat got out in that run chase, the game was over. And you cannot be like that as an international side, that when one player gets out, you think, we're done here. Moving ball did them at the top of the order. Sorry, yeah. The moment the ball moves back in, they look vulnerable. Yeah, and then no game plans to King. And you've already played against her and she did so well in the Ashes.

23:11And it was just copy-paste repeat in this tournament. So, and to play her, that's probably not so much the technique side. It's just the game plan and the want to, you know, bring out what's needed. When I spoke to Nat and Guwahati ahead of that semi and I asked her what she felt she and Charlotte had brought to the team. And it's the same group of players, really. You know, it's the same team that's been playing for a while. It's not like they've brought in a fresh load of talent. She was saying it's about role clarity, it's definition, whatever. Do you think, though, that perhaps they can be too defined in the way they want to play it?

23:41For example, team selection for that last game and reading the pitch. Yeah, that was a difficult one, and I did put it to Charlotte, and she just brushed me aside, which she's allowed to do. I thought she really had to pin with you. No, she just didn't look at me at the time. She just turned and looked at you completely. I was grinning inside. She said, oh, with hindsight. I was like, OK. Well, not with hindsight, because at the toss, the captain said, Nat Siver-Brunner said, this pitch looks different. And she went, yep, this is the red soil of Mumbai. It's not the black soil. And for those who are listening or watching, the black soil, the pitches that start the tournament, slow, low, grippy, not great to bat on.

24:21Red soil, bounce, comes onto the bat beautifully, perfect for South African cricketers, coming onto the bat, hit through the line, not so good for spinners. and so England had this problem where all through the tournament they've played four spinners and just Nat Siverbrum with Lauren Bell and they then turn up to a semi-final on a pitch that Marysand Cap got Fyfer on so it's doing a bit for a seamer and carrying and they England didn't use the short ball enough slow ball bounces back of a length they didn't pick Lauren Fyler and they could have but you're going into a semi-final and Lauren Fyler hasn't played all tournament Ed Marlott's played one game when Lauren Bell was ill in Colombo so do you in a big game like a semi-final change it or do you stick to what you've had?

25:07They stuck with what they had and they looked a bit one-dimensional with the ball.

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25:52Right, let's move on these two are either going to have an argument or they're going to find some common ground this has changed by the way you whatsapped me yesterday when Australia were 220 for 2 and said we'll have our team of the tournament which will be Australia with one or two other players that's just moved a little bit hasn't it? so we have to pick our team of the tournament team of the tournament please now at the start of the competition there was a sort of a general pattern that the top of the order sort of struggled to begin with. So you need to find a couple of openers. That's not my problem.