Emergency pod: Stokes! This is the last thing we wanted to happen...

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0:30at Whole Foods Market. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number, 10 ,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odoo per month. Join Odoo today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Hello and welcome to Tailenders. Hello and thank you for having us on Tailenders, your loosely weekly, loosely cricket-based podcast. Yes Loosely weekly Loosely cricket based podcast That over there is Felix White With the guitar We are also on the call With Sir James Anderson And this is G-Force Greg James Tailenders Approaching its 10th year As a loosely cricket based podcast And I imagine there are some new listeners Tuning in for this episode There is so much to talk about I was rushing home Very very excited to talk about all the cricket.

1:29And obviously, Ben Stokes. Obviously, the New Zealand victory. But thrown in there as well, what a mad few days of cricket. Ireland beat India twice. The England women's team are in the semi-final of the T20 World Cup. That's happening on Thursday. There are some men's T20 games happening as well. There's a lot to get through. Ben Stokes has retired from international cricket. God. I hope that we wouldn't have to talk about that just yet. I really hoped. When we talked about the Ben Stokes stuff, I really hoped. No, please don't. Not yet. Please. But at 3.25 on day four at Trent Bridge, as he was about to bowl his 11th over on the trot, a memo was passed to lots of journalists and commentators in the media centre in Nottingham.

2:19What a beautiful memo. am i well it looked like it from the tms video and everyone's surprised mike athendon on commentary didn't know that was happening not many people did it then transpired that ben had told the players in the morning before the day's play in the morning with that video which is sweet but also quite an quite an awkward watch because so watching jacob bethel half dressed just about to put his shirt on and he's like what sorry what you've retired not what i've got to go out and anyway he's not really into cricket but he said to me this morning he said that he looked jacob bethel looks like a 1950s woman from a martin parr photo in that so get your head around that reference i mean i need to google that reference first of all but so basically what i'm saying is that scene has transcended cricket yeah um like a sort of vacant woman whose life hasn't gone exactly has as they expected it to looking up into the distance i think he's a reference there and that is the tail end of the difference there will be no other lucid cricket based or cricket based podcast using a martin power reference to compare to jacob bethel and the retirement of ben stokes and it might be my sacrament what i would like to do first is obviously talk to sir jimmy anderson who knows what it's like to play your final test match how are you feeling were you surprised it happened then yes i was very surprised i don't i don't i remember anyone in the history of the game retiring mid-session almost mid-over yeah i know he obviously told everyone in the morning but for the announcement to come but like listening to him he said he almost said like he knew the night before he told the necessary people the night before then told the players on the morning and then left it to them when they announce it so it was almost in someone else's hands when it was announced so it just felt a bit strange and then obviously the wicket and the crowd looked great it's not quite sort of you know broadie getting a hit in a six with his last delivery face and getting a wicket with his last ball but you know it did feel quite special watching it yeah i guess it was incredibly ben stokes to do that because this is a man that operates at extremes yeah and is very instinctive and has always trusted those instincts and sometimes that's gone well for him and sometimes it really hasn't sometimes it's created some of the greatest cricket moments we might ever get to see yeah so he operates in that realm of i'm doing this now yeah i'm actually i'm gonna retire now now 325 day four and then i'm gonna go out and open the batter i'm gonna do that now that's what i'm gonna do i'm decided that's what i'm gonna do i've got to say i felt like the i remember because i wasn't watching in real time because i was in brighton but i felt it was slightly over the top where everyone's like it was so stoked that he took a wicket on the announcement which it obviously is but he's he's nicked off uh he's nicked off a kiwi tail ender yeah fair do you what i mean like it's not and we really like because it's ben stokes we put in these stories like of course and then i heard dan norcrossing yesterday and it was caught at slip in the hands of the incumbent test captain harry brooke as if ben sokes is some magician and it just made me feel like i mean it's lovely romantic but also he's nick toff a tail ender and we're in the getting are england getting battered in a test match so let's not go too far on like the about how heroic at my moment do you know what i mean yeah yeah i sort of felt like that like and i get that the people there will say it was incredibly special yeah you know like all the commentators were saying what oh what a ben stokes thing to do but um yeah like sat home i was like i don't know sort of weird feeling like because i almost feel like and obviously i don't know i feel like there's There's potentially more to come from this, but we spoke about it a couple of episodes ago about we don't want this to be the end of Ben Stokes when all that stuff happened.

6:49We love watching him play. I feel really fortunate that I played a huge amount with him as well, one of my favourite teammates, and watching him and how he goes about his business, not just as a leader but as a cricketer, I feel like it's a really sad time that he's felt that this is the right time to retire. sharky i would like to bring you in producer of the tailenders podcast the the fifth beetle he is um and you had an a really interesting vantage point didn't you you were watching all this mania unfold and you are not a man who's easily seduced by mania i would suggest being an evertonian you always err on the side of well let's just see how it plays out probably not going to be great you were editing or producing the quick the tv highlights weren't you this week i faded up yes you faded george martin yes i was part of the bbc tv highlights crew at trent bridge it sounds like you've given evidence now in a way he is and in the way he is

8:00Go on. Please continue. Well, it was very bizarre because I was downstairs. I wasn't actually in the box. I was gone downstairs to meet my friend Paul and his kids, Jack and Freddie. And I was about to give them a little tour of the media centre. Yeah, doing a little tour of the media centre. And I literally... Did you or did you not tell Ben Stokes to retire? I did not, Your Honour. But I literally just met them and given them their media passes to come in when... My phone went and it was Adam. Are you certified to go to the million passes? I was certified. They were all over 18. All over 18.

8:36Anyway, the phone went and it was, and Mountie knew I was out of the building, so to speak, and the phone went and it was Adam Mountfin, the producer of Test Match Special. And he literally said to me, just had a call, Ben Stokes is going to retire in 15 minutes. So I then took the passes off Paul and his friend, said, sorry, got to go. Couldn't wait for the lift, so ran up several flights of stairs, which for a man of my age is quite difficult. A few minutes of that. A few minutes of that. And I just said to Rob, who was the producer of the highlights and everyone in the box, which was Finney and Cookie, I think.

9:09I just said, everyone needs to listen to this. And I repeated what I'd just been told. Oh, you announced it to them? No, yeah, I said, because, you know, I need, you know, Finney, bless him, it's his first year on lead comms. Yeah, he's doing very well. He's done very well. and I knew that he would have to get his thoughts in order. You told Finney. Well, I know. You told Alistair Cook that Ben Stokes was retiring? Yeah. Because, you know, obviously we're a highlights programme so we weren't going live. So we had to talk about how we were going to reflect it. This is like Franz Ferdinand starting World War II.

9:42This is how it all started. World War I. World War I there. History lesson. He came back for the second one as well. This is like Franz Ferdinand starting World War I. Yeah. And Bear 4-2 as well. Okay. And also, Ben Stokes retiring in a way. That wouldn't have happened without Frank's Ferdinand anymore. Letting the free world allow Ben Stokes to retire eventually. Exactly. Not an arch-occupied United Kingdom. There is an argument that the Peace of Versailles that ended World War I started the ball rolling to World War II, but we won't get into that. That's all right. So you're Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

10:18I'm Archduke Franz Ferdinand. I've just announced to the box that Ben Stokes is going to retire 15 minutes. Sorry. And then we, you know, obviously we were trying to work out how this would be reflected on the TV. And, you know, basically we knew that it would be people would have the earpieces on and they'd be listening to Test Match Special or Sky Sports. And the news would go round and we needed to reflect the fact that, you know, people would be working out what happened. And then, of course, he got a wicket with the next ball. And fair play to Finney. He really nailed it on the commentary.

10:53but what was slightly not annoying but there was a moment we didn't know what was happening because we were told it's 15 minutes they got to 3 o 'clock and nothing happened right I have talked back to Mountie and I was saying you know what's going on what's going on and there was just kind of this vacuum for a bit and then it sort of dropped to the media with a sort of this embargo for 5 minutes and then on the dot at 3.25 Sky and Test Match Special read it out exactly then so Ben Stokes in one of his interviews he said that as you said fee he passed it over to yeah the media people and neil fairbrother his agent and then they they had agreed to go when it was like seven or eight down yeah and he also said that he'd made a plan two days earlier to go and open the innings i actually i don't believe that's true because right at the end he said that but right at the end if you see they um Emilio Gay and Ben Duckett actually run off the pitch right if he has planned to do it he hasn't told everyone because as they're leaving the pitch he has to stop Emilio Gay and say no I'm I'm opening yeah so if that was a plan he hadn't told anyway well none of it none of it feels very well planned and I'm talking about all of it you know the sort of oh now I'm I'm I'm gonna retire now that's fair that's the very Ben Stokes bit of it the the getting a wicket with the ball or whatever it's just like you know a uh a subject was he also a substitute it was a concussion substitute tailender anyway but um so what did you think sharky when that news came through because obviously you were in game mode but also you're a big cricket fan and a you know an avid follower of this mad sport good question well you know we've reflected on the pod there had been rumors leading up to the oval there'd been rumors but you know nobody expects that mid-test i mean I think it genuinely shocked everyone.

12:45I mean, you go back to that TMS video and you can see Zoltz sort of peering over Agnes' shoulder, looking at the statement, and you see his face, you know, probably similar to another Martin Parr photo from back in the day. You know, he's in total shock. Why are you referencing Martin Parr to AIDS? No, I don't think anybody knew. I think everybody was shocked. And, yeah, just kind of. And then the next question is, why now? as in literally why while we're playing, not, you know, a tea or lunch or the end of play. Everyone's like, why is this happening now? That's what we couldn't really quite get our heads around.

13:22Well, the end of the summer. Can you answer that, Jim, for Shark? Do you have any inkling as to why Ben? No, I don't. It was very odd, middle of a session. Yeah, really odd. Or towards the end of a session, yeah. You've heard all the interviews, Jim, or you've seen all the interviews. What did you take from them? You mentioned that you think there might be more to come, but did you see a man who had rushed into it a bit or a man that has been sitting with it for a while? It's very hard to read the situation, but you know him the best. You know how the ECB works, you know how the inner workings work to a certain extent.

13:59What did that feel like? Did it feel rushed and slightly out of the blue to you? I don't think he's someone who would make a knee-jerk decision like that. I just think there's a build-up of everything really. There was what went on in the winter. He came back and said all he could think about was test cricket. and then he said something along the lines of in his interview after the game he said it like the lord's wind didn't feel the way it should or something like that along those lines so maybe he sort of you know he wasn't all that energy he'd spent like in the build-up to that he didn't get the same buzz or adrenaline from playing that game so i wonder whether that was sort of the sort of start of it and then you know he said i think he said he was putting his pads on in this game at trent bridge and just thought now this is yes it's not not right and then he also references the game he played for durham in between the two test matches and said you know he loved every minute of that and that's how he wants to you know he still loves playing cricket and yeah i think this this is potentially a a way of elongating his career a bit because i think you know if there's obviously a lot that comes with being test captain and i think it's just you know he's he's done a good stint of it and i think now he wants to just enjoy playing cricket again exhausted i guess yeah we did say he looked quite drained at lords and seemed a bit spaced out he referenced that as well actually he said that he was a little bit out of it at lords it's interesting of you jim i think because it's like because so many crickets be like you know when you have that feeling but you never had that feeling did you of like no yeah still not had it i just i just hope it doesn't come at like 73

16:06that mid midway midway through the over 70s ashes yeah press conference yeah yeah it might do it If I go into your 70s, you're like, I can't go to Llewell one more time. We go to Llewell for 60 years, you guys. That would be very Jimmy Anderson to do an announcement on your 70th birthday. I just want to say I'm announcing from all forms of cricket. Officially not available for selection. And people are still saying, allow he take a few on this.

16:40Yeah. Yeah. Greg, what are your things? We text a little bit about it. What's your... Well, Jim mentioned the Durham thing and I thought that was quite sweet and I thought that was a nice insight into his brain. Because I suppose all cricketers and all sports people really want the playing of the game that they have loved since they were tiny to be very straightforward. Yeah. And to be without clutter and extra pressure and stress and scrutiny. And when that gets too much, you stop loving the thing that you love. And I really liked what he said about going back to Durham. And I thought that was interesting.

17:18This is me completely reading into it, but it made me think, well, if you still love playing cricket and you're still bowling really well, and yes, the batting's dropped off a little bit, but he can still hit the ball unbelievably well. Maybe when his brain's not cluttered. I mean, he hit 95 for Durham, didn't he? I wonder whether that was a slight, well, maybe a slight on the way this whole period has been managed by people who pay him his money and employ him in the way that he just he wasn't really supported publicly by yeah the ecb or anyone not even brendan mccullum really no one said uh we want ben stokes to continue as captain nobody said that when he was and then he was dropped and all the rest of it and i felt like all of that is just i understand it i listened to that interview and i just felt really i felt really sad because this is a man who has sort of been ground down by lots of things some of it is i'm making obviously but yeah my my main thing i'm sorry the thing that i keep going back on is if you want to back ben stokes to be england men's cricket captain whenever he became captain i can't remember what year it was you make a deal that you know he's a maniac sometimes and that mania creates some of the most unbelievable bits of cricket you'll ever see so you can't celebrate all those bits and hitch your wagon to him then and be like hey Ben so it's amazing what we're doing is amazing this is changing cricket and then when it doesn't go the flip side of that as we said he's a man of extremes the flip side is he's going to have some lows along the way and you have to be good enough as managers to manage the highs and those lows and i just don't think that really that's been done properly and i i feel like you've got to protect those amazing those amazing sports stars your assets like and i'm going to bring him into it again but jimmy that wasn't sort of yes a lot of his career he was well looked after and he had a wonderful career and all the rest of it but like when it matters sometimes you you do need to be around these people that protect those people that we pay hundreds of pounds to go and watch every week that's the yeah that's the deal so i feel sad that he's he just it looked like he was burnt out in that interview it just looks like a man suffering burnout but let me let me just quickly firstly i love what you just said i think it's really interesting though isn't it that this if you remember four years ago we were talking about all the time about how stokes was embodying like oh maybe being england captain isn't what we thought it was and that you don't have to be like all those other england captains but like it bled you dry and you end up leaving a beaten man and it felt like for a year or two we're going like oh they're just going to wear it really light and just enjoy cricket so as a sort of shakespearean story the fact that he's leaving with almost a heavier crown than any england captain you can remember is just an amazing story yeah but the thing i wanted to ask you when you were talking about them that was so interesting he said i just don't didn't don't enjoy it anymore so a non-cricket question for you but did it make you because we put cricket metaphors in our lives often there was a simplicity in that comment did it make you think like oh yeah that's what the with work or whatever i'm just not enjoying it anymore so i'm not going to do it did it make you think about your own he said he wasn't enjoying it as much he went to durham and he enjoyed it more he didn't say he's not enjoying it anymore he said he wants to he wanted to love cricket Yeah, he kind of said a reduced version of it.

20:47I don't know. I don't want to put words in his mouth or whatever, but I think he loved being captain so much and he put everything into it. And he had everyone's back. He had all the players' backs. And I think at some points he's felt like maybe he's not had that from above. Yeah, that's what you're saying, Greg, really. I don't think he's not enjoying playing cricket. so you think that whole so you think the whole thing the way it all went down this week would you again i don't know if it works in the mouth but would you the subplot of it is him make because you could read it as he's just making a physical very visible point where you know what i've done too much for you guys and i'm just gonna throw a grenade into this test series now just to make a point that's one way you could read what happened but i don't know if anyone's like rebecca like because couldn't you that's that's the way it felt like a bit of a sulk really i'm sorry i was just thinking yeah i i agree i mean but it was a sulk that was yeah and that was maybe not a soul it might sorry not it might be but it might be i mean like yeah i think we're still discussing it this is why i was so excited to talk to you all about it and to get jimmy's take on it because i was i was actually listening to it all and trying to piece it together in my head and like okay well the commentators are telling me one thing i'm thinking another i'm hearing another like he's you know he he did go out and score 30 runs quite quickly but i think we can agree that ben stokes is a very emotionally charged man and i think he's so great and the in the conversations i've had with him have been really lovely he's always been just very yeah you know just been great but i wonder whether he finds it hard to emote sometimes verbally and does it through so he does it through his his actions whatever they are off the field on the field but on the field you see him going insane essentially going into like his outlet for his emotion is through bowling a ball rallying troops and hitting the ball as close to out of the ground as possible.

23:00And that is how I feel like he dealt with it yesterday. I don't know how to actually talk about this and really get my thoughts on it. So he went, right, well, I know what I can do. I can put this energy and bat at number two and try and win this thing myself. And I'm like, f*** you, whoever is in his head. I'm like, this is how you do it. So that's what I, yeah, so you can call it petulance or you can call it whatever but i think that was him exorcising something yeah yeah it's not unlike kp during the text when he scores that innings against south africa yeah it's like a similar thing isn't it like i'm so unhappy in there and here's me showing you how unhappy i am without being able to say it and also he likes being maybe surrounded by the people that are just they like him because he's an amazing cricketer and they don't know much more about him he just feels accepted there we're putting a lot on this by the way but these are these are the things that we're just trying to work through i quickly just want to say as well i i was sad because i was really enjoying the cricket and we were talking about that we were talking about how much we just want to watch some cricket just please just some cricket for this series and we have had a really good test series especially this third one it's rhythm of it but back and forth of it i was just i had that giddiness when you got really good test cricket it was right in the balance on the decider of a third test and it's a shame for ben and for everyone i think a little bit is that when he retired i felt a bit like what are you we've got the thing we all want a fantastic test match it's happening here and as soon as he did that it just became a complete sideshow and the fact that new zealand have come and won for the first time since 1999 almost just got a tramp on as well.

24:49So I think from a competitive perspective, like even on the mic, it got mic'd up, didn't it, when Harry Brook gets out and their New Zealand fielders are saying to each other, what are they doing? And they're laughing at each other like it's a club game. But it was so sad that it came to that because we had, we'd been starved of really good individual test matches that we lived for. And we had one. Well, we had two. we had the oval as well yeah well basball's dead which is that's that's happened and it very very um symbolically died on the same ground that it kind of was birthed um back in 2022 that's good wasn't it with johnny yeah jimmy what happens next first of all with the england men's cricket team because there are there's a bit of a break now but there are some tests against pakistan in August and then what happens to Ben Stokes now well he's retired thank you thank you James yeah as well did you get that memo to him yeah what happens to him he'll I imagine he'll take a little bit of time just to let this sink in and then as he said he wants to keep playing cricket so I wouldn't be surprised if we see him playing for Durham this year wouldn't be surprised to see him in potentially some franchise leagues in the coming months depending on what he wants to do but he's, I mean, he's only 35.

26:14Like, there's a batter he gets in a lot of teams. He's still got a huge amount to offer there. And if he can keep his body fit enough to bowl four overs, then he'd be an asset to any team. But again, it's down to him. Like, we're just guessing here. We're throwing darts in a... Interview base. ...lindly, you know, and trying to hit something. But I do think that we'll find out more, you know, I think once the dust has settled on all this, then I imagine we'll hear from Ben at some point and he might go into a bit more detail around it if he wants to. If not, I think it's just, I don't know. I don't like speculating because, I don't know, it's just his life, his career.

27:01You've got to respect that decision and just enjoy all the packages that Sky are going to put together for the next three. speak to yourself that's from someone who knows you know all the highlights of his career but just back on that um you know him opening the batting and i did think at the time like i get it to an extent that they wanted to attack that new ball on a pitch that's going up and down but a couple of things peak ben stokes comes in at six or seven with us needing 200 to win exactly and then and fights that's that's his you know his niche there exactly and also you then watch this morning and atkinson and smith put on a partnership going actually yeah there is a ball in there there's a there's a ball that's going to go through the top but you hope that it doesn't catch a glove or something if you get if you knuckle down like mitchell did you can score runs it's a fast out field that there are runs to be had there so i just you know i did think that at the time but when you're not in that dressing room brendan mccullum said that it wasn't like one person's decision it was a you know the whole group decided this is the best way to go about it and you got got to live and die by that sometimes so symbolic though when we just watched mitchell just wear about 20 balls on his chest that physically marked him one of the bravest knocks you'll see just to see our response to that very symbolic another symbolic moment this will always be remembered as the series but Kane Williamson and Ben Stokes retired mid-series and it shows you so clearly about how different personalities are the way they went.

28:44We hardly talked about Kane Williamson, one of the greatest cricketers ever. He just looked at the New Zealand side and went I think they'll do fine about me. This is a good time for me just to quietly go. And then the nightclub thing happened and everyone forgot about it. yeah and then ben stoke just pulls a grenade open puts a thing in his mouth and just said watch this

29:07like it's just a different like i mean both fantastic elite all-time cricketers captaincy wise jimmy what what do you think happens next with england no idea it's a tricky one isn't it yeah yeah what do you do I mean Harry Brooke vice captain but they didn't want to make him captain of the one game that Ben Stokes didn't play do you go back to Joe Root which I think would be a proper hospital pass they dropped Pope who was the other potential captain because he was a vice captain does he come back I don't know do you give it to Bethel too young too young he's played about two tests um rory burns

29:57it sort of has to be brooke it has to be brooke i think i think the captaincy will sort itself out and that that we'll find out in due course but i think the biggest hole that ben stokes leaves is in in the actual playing 11 i think the balance that he brings to a team to be able to bat top six and bowl be one of your strongest bowlers as well that there aren't any players around that can do that at the moment so the balance of the team completely shifts we saw that in the second test they didn't want to play Bashir because the tail would be too long so how do you manage that how do you fit you know piece together a team that's got the balance of enough bowlers and enough batting without having that specialist all-rounder in there it's a really difficult thing to do yeah Yeah, and Pakistan's turned up next, so it's going to be totally unhinged, isn't it?

30:51That test series.

30:57Yeah, fun though, I guess. It was an entertaining day yesterday. We're less stable than Pakistan suddenly. Uh, yeah. We are. This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic and bursting with flavour Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yoghurt Build a grazing board with fresh fruit, prosciutto and artisanal cheese Then fire up the grill with no antibiotics ever Proteins and fresh produce Savour the season Shop Summer Fruit Fest at Whole Foods Market By a long way Can I just quickly, when I was walking to rehearsal I'm from rehearsal just now I was thinking, in a minute what can I remember that Ben Stokes has done just out of interest and I literally in 30 seconds wrote this down I haven't even done stats or anything read any pieces like the moments Ben Stokes did Henningly 2019 obviously the World Cup 2019 that 300 in South Africa off that many balls that catch that we commentated on Greg when he took it to start of that World Cup on the boundary that quickest 100 against New Zealand the debut in 13-14 when he took on Mitchell Johnson and scored that debut 100 winning the test in Cape Town with the ball the Ashes cut slip off broad at Trent Bridge in that diving one right to his right the first 18 months of basball and he was even better to watch when he was out of form that's just even off the top of your head the amount of stuff he's done is ludicrous that bowling spell at Headingley as well yeah did you mention that?

32:36maybe you mentioned that no I didn't oh yeah Jimmy what were your favorite Ben Stokes moments while playing with him good question I think like I I didn't play it headingly in 2019 but I was there for it so obviously I I think I don't I don't really necessarily like remember all his great innings or great bowling spells but like when I think about Ben Stokes I think about when he was batting to some weirdly partnership with Johnny Birstow like they just batted really well together like for some reason JB I think about when I'm getting into a battle with a batter and who's the first person on my shoulder to back me up and it's Ben Stokes those sorts of things like he's such a loyal teammate like and i think that's where not just recently but i think generally like a lot of there's not really a lot of a place for loyalty in elite sport because you just get shafted in the end um so i think you know i yeah that's what i remember that you know in the dressing room if you're struggling or whatever who's the one who'd come up to you and ask if you're right it's ben stalks or joe joe root that's what i like they're the teammates that you remember those people that yes they're amazing cricketers but when you're in the heat of the battle who's there next to you going i've got your back it's all right and and he was comfortably the best at that do you think that's maybe partly what it is jim you think he's probably just got it's so exhausted of that do you think there was a statement about that like as greg was talking about earlier about like i've just gone i've just carried everyone gone to have that side of me for way too long and it's just not there anymore oh maybe i don't know like i do i remember when he first took over as captain he was really conscious that he wanted to protect the players he wanted to shelter them from any outside noise so if if there was a an appearance or a media function or something that he didn't think would benefit the team he would step up and say no I don't think this is right for the boys they shouldn't be doing it we want to focus on cricket or whatever so he was brilliant at that but that's just him I don't think that that would weigh him down to the point of yeah wanting to retire Jimmy I just want to pick up on you saying about everyone getting shafted in the end I just I just have to just pick at that thread slightly because that is that's an interesting thing to say When you were playing for England, did you ever, the team I'm talking about, the team or the squad, did you ever really consider those hierarchies in the ECB or whatever, team management, as just working for the ECB or actually supporting you as players?

35:33or did it did the support was the support network solely coach squad captain vice you know physio that sort of thing the people in the dressing room or did you ever did you ever feel like you were working with them looking out for you as well or did you feel like they were the business owners um i'd say a lot of the time it was it was just it felt a bit us and them but in my over my 20 years 20 or so years you know if there was ever an incident it would be what how is best to spin this for the ecb rather than how do we protect the player how do we look after the player like you know i think about that the the curfew thing to me it sounds like not a lot it's someone else causing some some issue in a in a bar or nightclub or whatever we still don't know if that curfew is in places all that you know it's really unclear what's gone on it felt like they were thrown under the bus a little bit like gus saying he didn't know there was a curfew so that's a weird thing to say if he if he did know there was a curfew it's a poor excuse stokes he was just there but i don't know it felt like it could have been handled better and the players protected did they need to i mean the other thing is it like who is this cricket regulator like is that i don't know i don't i've not spent any time in business or anything like that so i don't know how things work when people get disciplined or whatever but surely they're just the manager of a business or managing director whatever or the line manager your line manager that sort of issues the not punishment but the whatever the thing is they deal with it but we're handing it to some outside yeah yeah people to deal with it who don't know any other i just don't understand i'd never heard of the cricket regulator until this nightclub thing and all i could think of when everyone kept saying cricket regulator i was in my head i was hearing the fat controller oh right from thomas the tank engine that's all i all i could picture was that guy in the top hat and it felt like a it felt like it just made up some odd character to sort of pass the buck or something but that i that is a really interesting answer jim and thanks for being honest about it because sometimes i think us lot on the outside might just go they're all operating as england cricket and but that's not the case that's way too that's way too general and it is interesting to think of the players kind of going oh yeah well i don't necessarily feel like they might have our backs they might do if we do well but i think what we're understanding here is that ben was trying his best to keep everything going while there was also chaos somewhere else i mean i don't know what happens now no one does but it doesn't feel like who was it i think i think sorry i just just to sort of pick up on that a little bit the i feel like that it's not necessarily just england though i think like my experiences of and it is i imagine it's very difficult being in charge of a cricket club because you have a business side of the business but essentially you're a cricket team yeah both things need to work in harmony i guess and and success doesn't come without the other so like you won't have a successful business unless the cricket team is successful but you won't have a successful cricket team unless you invest in the cricket team which means you need income coming from somewhere yeah so there's like all these things to balance i get that but it just feels like from an england point of view like i'll use that crawley as an example like there's all sorts of stuff you know around his selection and stuff like that but he was showed loyalty like for for a period of time and i actually quite like that and he did you know he's a talented player and i've got a feeling that he he may well play for england again yeah but i think that needs to go throughout the whole come from everywhere not just not just the captain and coach i think that you need you need the backing of the whole corporation what's the cricket regulators organization hold organize it the whole organization thing so interesting isn't it because that's like yeah so it's almost like we were seeing that a little bit how splintered it can become internally basically you just get a little moment of seeing it publicly it's a it's tricky because you're managing very very famous well-loved talented people who have a public profile but also you've got to try and manage them behind the scenes and it is not an easy job but that's why those jobs are highly paid and doesn't it feels like this has been fumbled a bit somewhere sports people like whatever sport the players are assets surely to that yeah business so treat them like assets like and i know it i know england players played well but like there is more to it than just remunerating them yeah of course like yeah they need support need backing i feel like at times like certainly throughout my career i'm thinking years back now but it felt like we're just literally we're not people we're just really pawns that they're using so interesting we used to turn up for like i don't know why i'm getting into this now we used to turn up for like appearances and you'd get called by your last name like anderson's here where do you want him oh my god yeah like yeah just i just find it we know what you hear like i've had a really famous pop star say to me that they hate that kind of thing because you feel a bit like mickey mouse you're getting dragged around like for a photo of people and i always just feel like what are you talking about like you're clearly everyone loves you so much you're the center of this room out of respect but that's so interesting to hear that because but you can just feel like you're like this little puppet that's getting dragged into a room and talking of which which like um what greg just mentioned i don't know after you jim obviously joe root but after ben stokes i'm not sure if there'll ever be a test cricketer for england as famous as ben stokes again in the future i just can't imagine after this with jimmy joe ben i think once those three have gone like culturally in england i don't think we're gonna have do you know what i mean can it feels like there won't be i feel like ben is like across some non-cricket fans in england know ben is yeah you could say something about fred but i think that's happened more since you went into tv but from a solely cricket point of view you hear loads if you mention cricket ben stokes is the one name that yeah people wouldn't talk about him yeah and they do this week well it gets people talking about cricket i mean well i'm sure you've had friends of yours messaging going okay explain to me as if i've just landed on earth what's happening here and also very very strong opinions about it okay he really provoked a lot of feeling of every single description this week people have a total overwhelming sycophancy and people that think he's done something like treacherous it's true though like there's both of that happening at the same time yeah but not to be dull but the truth is often somewhere in the middle isn't it very much so with all that sort of thing definitely but the but the the really sad thing at the core of it is he's not going to be playing international cricket again that that is a fumble yeah whatever way you look at it huge fumble like that he is the most famous cricketer of this generation by a long way maybe i mean i don't know it's difficult to compare but as you're saying he is unbelievably famous and good and successful and he's not going to be turning out and a whole generation of test cricket fans aren't going to get to see him play totally it's even recently like we've been saying greg it's like oh ben soaks in he's really out of form doesn't matter have to watch this yeah like have to watch him scratch around for half an hour that will be the best cricket you'll see for five days can we also jim i think that michael Paul Vaughan was talking about this a lot today.

44:18He said he just thought in his waters that Ben Stokes is going to come back and play the Ashes. As a cricketer, as a former England cricketer, that is a nice romantic idea again. But that would mean you have to, that's a long shot, isn't it? I mean, the way you've got to stay in form, stay fit, stay around the group, how do you fit into the team? That feels like an odd thing that probably won't happen. I mean, I could see it happening.

44:52Seat crawl. If he does go back to Durham and carries on playing, if he starts next season with Durham, I don't know what the situation is with the IPL and auctions and stuff, but is there a chance he goes to the IPL next year? Very big one, I would say. If not, does he start the season with Durham? If he does and plays six championship games, averages 50 with the bat and 20 with the ball yeah and england haven't shown any signs of you know if they're missing someone or they they want someone there it's definitely gonna happen it's like that's definitely what's gonna happen i mean and we lose the first test it's definitely gonna happen well we'll be ready for it and look i know stokes has said today because someone asked him about that and he went no i'm done yeah of course he's got to say that he's not going to leave the door open for all of us to yeah we'll give it we'll give it six months and see yeah he's like no i'm retired but he needs to i guess what he needs to do is to feel like he's stopped and actually get off that treadmill and just having to stop answering to whoever he answers to all the time it did remind me of the beatles like this week about like when they're splitting up like the little internal fight of who was splitting up the Beatles you know when John was like I'm gonna quit and then Paul went to the press first and said I've broken up the Beatles it was a bit like that like I'm like I'll get ahead of the news I split up Bazbo I do feel for Joe Root in all this as well yeah because he's now comfortably the most senior player in that squad I didn't come run out today back to being the leading wicket taker in that squad oh my god Joe but he's like yeah he's just such a gap now between him and everyone else and I know he'll keep going because you know he's very driven and I'm sure he's got his own goals with the bat as well but I feel like for him to keep going for as long as we possibly can something needs to happen with the test side we need to find a way of starting to win test matches again.

47:02Because as good as you are as a player, being in a losing team is tough. Yeah. Well, that clearly drained him, didn't it? A lot, as we mentioned. Australia and then not having a great couple of years. First two years of basketball, really good. Second two years, broad brushstrokes, not that great. They've just lost too many games, haven't they, recently? They've lost, what is it, 7-10 or something, Sharky. They just lost way too. They've lost to Australia, who didn't have Cummins and Hazelwood for chunks of it. They've lost at home to New Zealand for the first time since 1999. We have basically a third string bowling attack this week.

47:39That last test at the Oval, when they were way in front, they lost that somehow. They've just lost way too many games of cricket now for it to glue together. Time for a new coach? Jim. For the tape, Jimmy is shrugging. Leave that silence. I don't think you'd need to throw the baby out of the bathwater. Hey! We're not going to throw the baby out of the bathwater, John. Would you say it's become untenable, Jim? No, look, I think it's... I think it's been a really messy six months. Mm-hmm. And something's got to be done to sort of galvanise the group. And I do think Brendan could do that. I think his positive nature.

48:24Yeah. I mean, who knows what's going to happen. How have we lost Ben Stokes? He's landing with me now, but it's quite sad. Yeah. The Brass Eye quote always rings around my head. That is the last thing we wanted to happen. That's not happening. No. Lose anyone. Literally lose anyone else apart from Joe Rooke. lose anyone else but just whatever you do don't don't lose ben stokes over this that was the that is literally the worst thing that could have happened isn't it that was the other good bit we've got joe we've got ben and the rest of it work in progress some really good stuff going on eventually but not not quite yet like the worst thing that could have happened is ben to find his new zealand passport or dig it out blow the dust off it and then go actually i'm gonna play next world cup for new zealand as simon dole on sky was was very bold to say it was very very funny in the tributes and stuff just as he'd retired he went one of the all-time great kiwis great great comment which is really fun well who knows who knows i feel quite sad now after that chat is it's such a shame like we're talking about it that like it shouldn't be happening and we're not really celebrating his career which exactly like that's what should happen with him he should get a fanfare yeah it's too early to celebrate his career because we haven't we're dealing with it yeah but you're you're right he hasn't i think next episode we can't go into the obit mode now the obituary is next episode but this this is like we need to sing the shock well we will get over it but yeah i know but it's just like like everything was because it was so rushed like even the the sky thing with putting the cinema voiceover guy on thing like i'm like surely i know you had five minutes but no yeah it's not yeah yours was yours are ready for about 10 years and they keep adding stuff to it didn't they every year they literally had yours ready to go for about 12 years that's that's the truth that no one talks about with jimmy is that sky sports had a team of five people working on his leaving montage for 15 years and actually when jimmy did leave all those people were sacked that's the real tragedy because they finally finished adding to the obituary whereas they didn't put anyone on ben stokes's one and they just got it sounded like butch was putting a voice on but yeah like like we said earlier we should we should be celebrating the new zealand team for playing so well coming back from that game at Lords you know it could have put a dent in some teams but they found a way to fight back and I thought they were really impressive throughout and not just as we've talked about injuries, Kane retiring you know they've had a lot to deal with as well throughout this series and they've handled that sort of thing better than England did.

51:27That's what has played better cricket last two games. Really like watching that team. Brilliant. To see Daryl Mitchell and seeing Tom Blundell standing up to see Matt Henry in the oval test to see Ratchin Ravindra played a great innings as well we've talked about him for a few years now and he really had a proper innings at Trent Bridge as well match winning innings I think O 'Rourke's going to be a player as well I think he's a serious bowler yeah Sharky your hands up am I faded up? yes faded up George Martin from the last time I'm going to take the world's smallest amount of credit for Ratchin Ravindra's innings because we're staying in the same hotel as a New Zealand team.

52:06Yeah. And he was stood at the bar with his Deliveroo, desperate for a soft drink. And I said, you go ahead, because I know you just want to get your drink, go to your room and eat. You don't want to hang around. So I let him jump the queue so he could be hydrated. What, you went up to the bar? You want to get your Deliveroo? You want to go up here? No, I said, well, but I said, do you want to go first so you can get a drink? He went, yes, thank you. That's nice. There you go. I also said to Tom Blumdale, I said, well kept, because his keeping was magnificent. World class. Did you say... Tell him you're a keeper?

52:36Yeah. No, I didn't. I was going to. I was going to, but I thought... Coming from a keeper. He'll think I'm a right sad ****, so I didn't. No. Yeah, he would have given you a little, like, oh, yeah. No. A little simple. I'm sure he didn't think that. Actually, because one... Actually, just one... He probably did. Just one thing. One thing, and I don't know, Jimmy will know, but all the New Zealand players are here. and all their families are with them, or those that have family. And it's a lovely atmosphere. You know, breakfast, all the kids are there. They're all running around having fun. And they do walk around the hotel like one big happy family, smiling.

53:16Wow. Just being, you know, and maybe that exudes onto the pitch as well. Yeah, it was... I used to have breakfast in bed on tour. Interesting. Not being seen around. They are a great team to play against. they're super competitive on the field incredibly difficult to play against but then off the field they're great. Love them. Really friendly. Well they play cricket like a happy family as well don't they? Yeah. And England don't currently because dad's just walked out so

53:59leaving mum to do everything Joe Root I guess sort of stretching that analogy a bit so well done New Zealand thanks for a great series sorry that it got overshadowed by literally everything but you're great and you deserve the victory not that we're listening to this but we enjoyed lots of fantastic Test cricket and we look forward to more with another favourite team of ours, the Pakistan team, who will be over in August. Shall we do some go-wells? Are we glossing over completely Ireland beating India? Well, I mentioned it. We did mention it, but that's mad, isn't it? They beat them twice. And India being knocked out of the Women's World Cup as well.

54:45Can I also say, when England were playing, who were we playing? New Zealand. We knocked out New Zealand the other day. amy jones played the best shot of the week outside of stump she just guided it like half front foot half like almost you know like half sort of driving front foot half cut shot and he just it just goes through cover played it late that's my shot of the week felix's shot of the week you know you see that like that's the best thing i've seen a week felix's best thing he's seen of the week.