Emergency Podcast: What’s more than wholesale?

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1:04Hello and welcome to TailEnders. Hello and thank you for having us on TailEnders, your weekly loosely cricket-based podcast. This is GeForce Greg James. Go on, Felix White. Jimmy Anderson is having technical issues and will be with us shortly. Matching will be here later as well. When you say technical issues with Jimmy, that's like in my head, like the bowling coaches are trying to reconfigure his action. And he's saying, no, it's worked to get me this far. Yeah, exactly. It's like Jimmy 2003. He's just messaged, start without me. You go on without me. We never leave a good tail ender behind.

1:38But on this occasion, we do because it's late on bank holiday Monday evening. We have assembled for a semi-emergency podcast, actually. Or maybe we upgrade it to full emergency. Okay. Maybe it's full emergency. There's certainly a Pakistan emergency. We're joined by very funny man, comedian, TMS commentator. Brilliant commentator. Atif Nawaz. Atif, welcome to the Tailenders podcast. Thanks so much for having me, guys. So it's sort of a pleasure. It's almost a pleasure. The sort of pleasure is all ours. Atif, I wanted to talk to you about many things because I've been enjoying you on TMS over this slightly strange summer.

2:26so far in these very strange couple of test matches you had a long you had a lot of work to do at headingly with the rain delays and you did fantastically we'll get into that in a second but when we saw the news break this evening of pakistan making what's more than wholesale complete almost complete changes to the to the squad and the team wholesale sounds too considered yeah well we could i was like well we us us four could talk about it and have a laugh with it and you know whatever but but actually i think we need someone who really knows what's going on or well does anyone does it actually i guess you don't know what's going on but we thought it'd be great to get you on anyway because we think you're great but um how are you feeling as a lifelong England fan, but also, you know, coming from a Pakistani family, your loyalties are split in an England-Pakistan series.

3:26Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll be very honest and be very transparent. I've always been a lifelong Pakistan fan. I've been a fan of Pakistan before I knew what countries were or before I had any concept of borders or anything like that or dual identities or anything like that. Of course, I have immense love for the England side and I always will, but it's England against anyone except Pakistan. That's the way I've always looked at it. Although, I mean, to come back to what's happened today, what am I feeling? Anger? Frustration? Just like at one point I was sort of shaking with anger, but I don't know why because it was somewhat inevitable.

4:02It's been kind of the modus operandi of the Pakistan cricket board over the last five years at least, maybe longer, to do things that are quite performative. after Pakistan have been handed to like massive losses by England, you know, one by an innings at Headingley and then like almost 200 run defeat at Lords being outplayed, outclassed, looking like, you know, what Michael Vaughan described as a championship division two side. And it's very hard to argue with them. They've been criticized roundly. And, you know, I don't know if you've come across many Pakistan cricket fans. They're not shy about expressing their opinion and they can do it quite vociferously and they can do it without any filters.

4:40And it feels like the decision to send seven players back home in the middle of a series, which is unprecedented, even for Pakistan. This is like this has been done specifically to play to the gallery. They've sacked their head coach who only took up the job in April this year. They've gotten rid of their bowling coach, Omergul. What's he done wrong? They both the bowlers. All right. OK, fine. They're a bit one dimensional in their approach because they've got three very similar seamers and they've got a spinner. They also sent the spinner back, by the way. What did he do wrong? He took a Pfeiffer for you at Headingley.

5:12The first spinner to take a Pfeiffer at Headingley in God knows how long, 50 years, whatever it is, overseas spinner. And you send him home. You've got a bowling coach who's managed to bowl England out every time they've batted. All right, England got 400 plus in one of those innings, but they bowled them out. They got the wickets. They did their job. You're sending the bowling coach home as well? Like, what? Where does this logic? There's no logic to it. it's just been done to try and placate the audience it's just been done to put some water over a fire and it's been roundly criticized and surely it does because they've just come along and done the same thing they've been doing for years which is sack a bunch of people and i'm here asking the question who's going to sack the people doing the sacking because surely they're the ones who should be accountable if your team if you pick the bad team don't blame the team blame the person who picked the team let's start by making wholesale changes there and go from that i see i love i love how that's just poured out of you in just one passionate soliloquy that's um that's really what we were hoping for to get to really get to really get under the bonnet of this and i feel like we're just going to keep we're just going to we're going to wind you up and let you go again in a second because that is it's also it's also very considered by the way like that's like it's not it's it's in no way over the top because this is madness like this is real cricket madness.

6:29And look, we're used to cricket madness as well. Also, this is so great for the ECB because suddenly a madder cricket board has come along and is doing even madder stuff. It's like, oh, okay. We forgot about all the other stuff because, well, thanks a lot, Pakistan. This is great. We've forgotten all about Rob Key and all that and the nightclubs and the handcuffs and everything. It's all fine now. This was supposed to be England's embarrassing summer of cricket. You've got a player being arrested. You've got all these things going wrong. And yet somehow Pakistan have said, no, absolutely not. Nobody shall take our title of being controversial or the most controversial.

7:07We will come along and do this. I'm genuinely worried about this, Greg, because I've seen what happened to the West Indies, you know, sort of 10 years ago and how that team was starting to sort of pull apart because of really poor administration. If you're a Pakistani player, a young Pakistani player, why would you want to play for a board that is so disloyal to you, that would discard you in the middle of a series with, in some cases, absolutely no reasoning whatsoever? why would you want to play for a team where you don't have a secure future where someone can promise you a series promise you a summer promise you a run of matches and then just throw you away like yesterday's undies why would you want to play for them when you can go and play in a bunch of t20 leagues go make a bunch of money look after yourself secure a better financial future uh for your family and your your loved ones it this is this is what they're doing they're breaking the confidence of pakistan's best talent to want to play for pakistan and we're sure atif that they nothing's happened where inside the squad people haven't gone I'm off there hasn't been some sort of like inside you're sure about that like they've just been told absolutely that there's been you know discussions there's been uncertainty and obviously when you lose two matches in the manner that Pakistan lost you're not feeling great there's probably tempers are flaring in some stages as well I'm sure people are not the best version of themselves but nobody wants to leave a tour in the middle, especially not a Pakistan team touring England.

8:30For Pakistan touring England, it's a big deal. It's a heritage series. My love for Test Cricket goes back to the 1992 series, where I watched Pakistan and England square off. It was a fantastic series. There was a huge buildup, 16 warm-up matches Pakistan played, if you can believe that. And they always fielded their strongest team as well, because they were playing in something called, there was a sponsor that was a beer company that offered them£50 ,000 in 1992 if they could win 12 out of 16. So they fielded their strongest possible team to win 12 of those games, which they did, and they took home the money as well.

9:03But those days are long gone. People don't do long warm-up matches after warm-up matches. I get it. There's like a calendar. But Pakistan was the team that was better set. They're the team that just played the Test Series against the West Indies. England have been playing 100-ball cricket and lost their last series at home to New Zealand. How is Pakistan coming off a drawn series against the West Indies. And then a win at Bekkedum, by the way, in a heat wave, to have cooler conditions and being completely flattened two games in a row. Like, I get it. There's a frustration about the performance, but the way to move forward with that is not to just chuck the whole team on the first flight back to Pakistan.

9:39I mean, the embarrassment of it, the hanging out your players to dry, the scapegoating, it's maddening, maddening. Yeah, I've got that maddening bit, definitely. Go, Greg. So I'm not laughing at the situation. I'm laughing at your passion. Jimmy Anderson, good evening. Hello. Good evening. Go World Series. You join us on a heated episode of Tail Enders. My question to you, Jimmy, is while you were playing a series, how many changes have been made in teams that you've been in? Can you remember? What's the most number of changes? That 2014 one. Everyone went home, didn't they then? Yeah, that was retirement and mental health issues.

10:22There wasn't like, I don't think, other than injury and replacements for injury, I don't think we've ever just dropped people like mid-series. If we got told the team or squad was picked for three out of five games or the first two of the three-match series, that would be the squad. But I just, I wanted to jump on Artie's point there. I know it's easy to say Pakistan weren't great, But they've played against a very good English team in very helpful conditions. Very helpful conditions. And Pakistan did not pick the right bowling attack from my point of view. You shape your attack around Mohamed Abbas.

11:02He's one of the best bowlers in world cricket. You shape your team around him. And they didn't quite get that right. They picked two other seamers with him. They needed probably another one and maybe some different personnel in that group. Especially after the first test, you think, ah, maybe we should change it up. But then for them to all of a sudden, so they stuck with them, which actually, to be fair, some is credit to them, the selectors for that, showing faith in them. But then don't go from that to them going, right, you're all going home. Thanks a lot. Here's your airfare. So they did have, they had some options on the bench that they didn't get around to using, which they could have used.

11:38I mean, they could have made changes from within the squad that they already had. They had those options. They have Amir Jamal, who's a bowling all-rounder who's played against England before. He's played well against England in white ball cricket before. You had Ubaid Shah, who offers you a point of difference. Again, he's not been the best of form, but he's a quick bowler, which makes a difference from your three very similar sort of pace bowlers. Like England have, obviously, Josh Tong and Joffre Archer, who can bowl really quick. And then you've got Ollie Robinson, who can exploit the conditions, Gus Atkinson, line and length.

12:06But, you know, that's a sort of nicely wearied and balanced bowling attack. Pakistan have Mohamed Abbas, as Jimmy's saying, who's superb. But then you've got two bowlers who are kind of similar. so you don't have that point of difference you don't have like a bowler who can do something different offer you slightly different tactically i'm less concerned about their bowling though because as i say they got the wickets all right you know england got quite a few runs and they played really well and credit to jordan cox in particular and i and i thought him and dan lawrence playing in you know slightly awkward positions of knowing that they they're sort of playing as an audition for their future in an england shirt i think they played brilliantly and that in those conditions absolutely brilliant there was a fascinating partnership actually between jamie Smith and Jordan Cox and you felt like you were watching a battle you know for England's next wiki keeper because they're both they could both but like they they sort of came in that scenario their body language was superb England looked like they were there to play a series have remember it's only two days removed from the 100 final for some of the players and they've all played in the 100 completely different competition and yet they've come with really good body language they've achieved their goals all right they weren't really tested in a way that I think you know England fans would like to see but people were worried what's their endurance going to be like what's their fitness going to be like are they going to be able to adjust back to test cricket pakistan sort of handed them a little bit an opportunity to ease their way back in you know they only made england bowl for less than what 40 overs in that first innings and headingly like they gave england a really nice transition back into test cricket without ever really challenging them and you know that was very frustrating to watch from a fan's perspective yeah i get that but what i was saying is you know i'm not disagreeing that maybe the the batters didn't do a great job but I think you just said they only could stump up 40 overs worth of batting but the bowlers allowed from my point of view on those two pitches that they've had in test cricket the bowling attack allowed in them to bat for longer than 40 overs so if they've got a better attack I think they've got that for for less I think the games are closer if Pakistan pick a four-man seam attack in both games and potentially change up the personnel in the second test that is That was my point.

14:08That's fair enough. That's really interesting because I was watching, because there was no other cricket to watch today. Actually, apart from a little bit of the European T20 Premier League, which I watched, which I'm going to get into on the next podcast because it was absolutely insane. I watched the highlights of day one and I was struck that I'd forgotten that England were actually 120 for five. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it really, and then 187 for six. And then the pressure was taken off a little bit, maybe because what Jimmy's saying is that there wasn't somebody else to come and help Abbas out.

14:44There wasn't that variation in the attack. So I guess what Jimmy's trying to say here is it's not as bad as the PCB are making out. It's not send seven people home bad. Yes, it's never that. It should never come to that. Yeah, that's right. It's never that. And it's also, by the way, it's a three test series. it's not like you're playing five tests five T20s, seven one more game, it's done fair enough, you're in a bit of a dismal situation give your players a bit of confidence and say okay look this is the third test show us what you got, you know we probably will make changes going forward for our next test series but show us what you got for the batters in particular, you've got a better batting surface at Edgebust historically at least, you've got a chance to show a little bit more of what you're made of have another crack, have one more crack We believe in you.

15:33We picked you. We stand by our decisions. You just look indecisive. You look completely ill-equipped for the job you have as a selector. If you're having to second guess yourself after two test matches. And I understand they've had loads of pressure. And Pakistan has more news channels than it has any other channel. So there's a cricket show on each of them. There's something like 45 news channels and they've each got their own cricket talk show, which is good to know because you might have to work on one of them one day. But the whole thing is like, you know, Every single one of them is screaming blue murder about the performance that Pakistan have put in.

16:05But as a selector, your loyalty is not to those reporters, those broadcasters, those critics. It's to your players. Your players need to know that you've got their back. Your players need to know that, all right, if I didn't put in a good performance for a seven-day stretch, that doesn't mean my test career is over and I'm going to be hung out to dry as a scapegoat for the bad performances. Is that what it is? But it's like there's almost like a blood first every time Pakistan have results like this. but back home there's just that feeling like you need to do something almost like in the political sense that we have it where there's just so much pressure applied.

16:37Sack someone. Is that where it's coming from? It is. It's sort of, it's a political system that's been applied to the cricket board, you know, like that's what happens in politics, right? So you've got to find somebody to blame for a certain thing or certain policy that's gone wrong. You sack them and that's kind of what's happened in the cricket board as well. Now there was a lot of sort of, there was a little bit of optimism coming into the series. England were always heavy favourites in this series but he He was expecting a contest, especially as Pakistan had just broken their run of eight consecutive away losses in test matches.

17:05So you thought, OK, they've got a win in that second test against the West Indies. You know, players getting hundreds, players getting runs, players taking wickets. You think, OK, there's reason to be optimistic. They were superb at Beckham as well. They had a couple of lazy days. And that third day, they kind of moved up a gear and they really blew away the PCA Select XI in that particular game. But, you know, comeheadingly, and I understand the conditions change. And to Jimmy's point, it was difficult for them because it was completely different. Your warm-up game was in 37 degrees at Beckham.

17:36Your first day of test cricket is under clouds at Headingley with rain hanging around the corner. It is different. Ollie Robinson nibbling the ball around corners. And it was tough. England did bowl really, really well. So I don't take anything away from England's performance. But equally, with a world-class batting lineup, they did not play to their potential. I wouldn't say they played to 50 % of their potential. man to man they're not as bad as they've made themselves look in the first two tests you mentioned that the pcb are playing to the gallery but first of all i guess i think you've just explained what that gallery is but also this is this is too many sackings they've someone's gone mad there you maybe you do one strategic one you bring in one strategic person that that feels like it's not going to go down well that can't have gone down well on all those channels and all those outlets.

18:24Well, it's optics, isn't it? It's all about the optics. Somebody somewhere in a committee has decided seven is the number. Seven is what it takes to make an impact. Six isn't enough. Eight's too many. Let's go with seven. Seven feels like a good number. It's a lucky number for some people. Let's go with seven. Let's send seven of them home and let's let the press release read First Flight Home just to really ring in that embarrassment. I don't know. There's people that have made noise. There's some people, by the way, believe it or not, who've commended this move as well and said, you know what?

18:53It's the right thing to do. Those players didn't deserve another goal. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. Some people think this is a good idea. But what does it achieve? Just think about the players you've discarded. Two matches ago, you thought this team was good enough to play competitive cricket against England. Were you that wrong? Have they all of a sudden become terrible players? Have they all of a sudden become unselectable? All right, Imam Al-Hak, I give you. He's injured. He can't play. So you've got to send him home. Some of the players have had a long sequence, but you give him to the end of the tour at the very least.

19:20It's now a dead rubber. you're not going to make the final of the world test championship because you're almost certain to finish last for a second consecutive cycle so what are you achieving by this you try and at least the gallery you should be playing to is your players the gallery you should be playing to is your assets these are players that you want to play for you you want to get people to get excited about wearing that star on their chest rather than thinking oh do i want to do that or do i want to go and get a two-year contract in the bangladesh premier league because that's much more enticing to a player that has been mistreated by their board and that's you know I mean, yeah.

19:51Sorry, Asif. I'll tell you what doesn't help the optics over here, I don't think. It's because there's been rain delays on the TV often. They're playing back 96, Saeed Anwar scoring 200, Wazim Waki, Yassir. You know, you've got Miz Brohak, obviously the press-ups, Amir coming back taking his wickets, Yassir Shah. Actually, I don't think it helps Pakistan that much, but in all the gaps, they're playing back these moments and it actually punctuates and reflects really badly. on a current team, do you know what I mean? This is a feeling. Think about this, right? It was only 10 years ago, not even 10 years ago, that Pakistan was the number one ranked test playing nation in the world.

20:32They had that ranking for about three weeks, but they had it for long enough to get the mace. So Ms. Baul Haq, and I have a lot of respect for him because he inherited Pakistan at its lowest possible moment, the spot fixing crisis in 2010. Nope. Have I lost you? Oh, he's passioned himself out. Who got rid of him? Did you get rid of him, Sharky? No, I think he was so... I think he just blew up, didn't he? Maybe we have a Pakistan Salutes on the call as well. He hit him up. Make that eight. Some big brother's watching. The PCB have got wind of this. That's so funny. I could see the steam was coming out of his ears.

21:11They were like... They've hacked in. They've hacked in. While they're on the call, I'll say, I enjoyed the interview with Imran Khan's sons. What'd you make of that? oh Greg's gone

21:28oh my god that is hilarious that is so funny while he's gone are we still cracking on yeah yeah yeah go well cheers so I was just going to say it's such a weird thing for us as Englishmen to you know when we've been test cricket fans for 30 to 40 years. And we're used to like, after England's biggest ever series, we'll have a three months deep dive into the sort of the background of it. And then maybe we'll make a decision at the end of it. You know, to see. Yeah. So it's really hard to get your head around it. Because even when I played against Pakistan over the years, I think it was my last, the last test tour I was there, actually.

22:19And I saw, I can't remember who it was. I was like, what are you doing here? He's like, I'm a selector. I was like, I'll end up. No, I just, this guy. Who was that? It was amazing. But that was so different. It's such a different setup to any other international team that I've seen. Prep for a busy week with Whole Foods Market. Start your day with fully cooked breakfast sausages from Amy Liu. 365 brand frozen waffles with no bleached flowers, and of course Whole Foods Market eggs, which are all cage-free or better. In the evening, bring home a build-your-own family meal that feeds four for just$35.

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23:25Sorry, Atis, but... Atis, we fought the Pakistan... Greg was saying the Pakistan border is hearing what you're saying, mate, and you got deselected then. Yeah, I was on the first flight back to East London. Yeah, actually, make that eight changes.

23:45He won't hear me on TMS for heading for Edgbaston. Oh, God, I hope I'm still there. Mountie, sorry, if any of this is out of turn. But, I mean, I was going to say, I think before I got caught off, I said something about Ms. Bolhak, right? Like, he took a team that never got to play at home, that was in the middle of a spot-fixing crisis, that doesn't get to play in the IPL, so they miss out on that as well. And he managed to somehow take them and turn them to the best test team in the world. Like, that was extraordinary. It was less than, it was nine years ago. This is too much of a drop-off in the subsequent period.

24:16It's unacceptable. Every administration that's come since then has to take responsibility for it. Like, OK, players can have bad runs and you've got to not select them or drop them or what have you going forward. But what about the selectors and the people who select the selectors? Can we have a little bit more transparency and accountability there, please? That's why I'd like to see people who make the choices. how about you take a bit of accountability for these decisions because you pick the players you pick the team you had the input on who the starting 11 was they didn't do well and you feel the need to make some changes let's start at the root before we start getting to the branches yeah it's a shame isn't it that we we've talked quite a lot over the last few months maybe years about protecting players because they're your they are your they're your asset they're the ones that going out and and and making fans out of people and and getting people to come through the gates and watch the game.

25:05And it was, we talked about this with the Stokes thing and we were like, please, just whatever, you just look after these players, please, because they're all you've got really. So maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle, the ECB approach and the PCB approach, that something in the middle is where we need to land. Make some decisions, but don't make seven decisions. Maybe that's it. Just like, but do something. Three and a half? Make three and a half decisions. Three and a half decisions, please, is all we need. What, Jimmy, can I ask from a player's perspective, what you would be feeling like if you were one of the replacements that are now currently, I imagine, quickly packing a bag, getting flights booked for them, telling their mates they can't see them next week because they've got to go to Birmingham.

25:53What do you think they'll be feeling like? Will they see this as an opportunity or is this just really, this is too intense and they're too exposed? No, there's nothing to lose for them. it's a free hit yeah so we weren't meant to be in this squad we were never planning to play any of these test matches so they've got an opportunity now in the third test it's an absolute free hit for them it's a chance to put themselves in the shop window you know if 3 or 4 out of 7 quit in performances then there's a chance they're going to get picked in the next test squad so yeah for me I'd be thinking it doesn't look great like they've probably got they're probably teammates with a lot of the guys that have been moved on but you know the ruthless side of you will go right you know there's nothing I can do about that that someone else has made that decision it's now my opportunity to go and try and do something that's going to impress everyone impress the selectors impress the English team impress the world of test cricket and you know it's a great stage to do it play the edgebusters in a test match against England yeah yeah incredible great opportunity the problem is if they do do well then the Pakistan selectors prove that they were wrong that's what they're going to prove if they go if that team go in there.

27:04They're going to prove themselves wrong. If it works. So they'll be hoping in a way it doesn't work. Pakistan are going to beat England at Edgbaston, by the way. Yeah. That has to happen now. But at what cost? I mean, look, I get it. It could happen. And everybody will say, see, genius board. But I don't want a genius board that's trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. I want to see a board that's building a team over the course of the next 10 years. You know, the rest of the world sort of moans about England and Australia's obsession with the Ashes and they only care about that and they don't care about the World Test Championship and so on and so forth.