Kate Cross: I had a dream that I couldn’t have dreamt of.

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1:03James Anderson:Hello and welcome to No Balls Tale Enders! Woo! Just us two. Yay! With me, G-Force Craig James, and her, Kate Cross. And that's it. That's it. No one else has turned off. Crossy, in many ways, who needs anyone else? That is so true. That is so true. You told me you're just going to do a Piers Morgan style interview with me, so I'm ready. Well, I said I was going to do a Michael Parkinson style interview and you were like, it's Piers Morgan. And I was like, okay, I'm going for a slightly different vibe, but that's fine. There's two ways. I was going for a sort of a more gentle, laid back Northern approach.

1:38James Anderson:And you went for a more explosive, headline grabbing, offensive approach. But anyway. What's going to get the headlines? I don't know. What do you want? I put it to you, Crossy, that we actually don't need women's, women, let alone women's cricket, actually. What do you think to that? I just think we need women, let alone them playing bloody cricket. Okay, I don't like that. I don't like it. I don't have to say that. No, no, no. Let me just say, how do we do Parkinson? In a way, cricket is life in five days, isn't it, Grossman? In many ways, it really does show off the best of men. No, sorry, women.

2:26James Anderson:And women play it now. I forgot about that. do you know what can i just can i just be me you be you greg let's be real for a second felix is joining very shortly matching should be here but we really look people are tuning in because they want to hear from you you have had the most extraordinary cricket career but why now crossy come on no don't don't because when people plant ideas in my head i kind of think about it for a little bit but no greg it is time it is so time i've obviously thought about it for a little while and i think do you know what it is when you turn 30 everyone asks you about it it's like the only question people like people can think to ask it's it's almost like everyone's illiterate and that's just what you learned when people turn 30 in sport you must ask them about retiring so i've thought about it for a few years but then i think when i lost my england contract last year the idea was definitely planted in my head a little bit more because you naturally get told you're not good enough at something so then you're like oh gosh maybe I should think about stepping back so then I knew I wanted to play for Langs I knew I wanted to finish my career at Langs so I thought I'll do one more year and it's probably just not been the year that I thought it was going to be and like for many many many different reasons it's been great and I've loved it and I've loved being back at Langs and I felt like it's been its own challenging in its own way and I was just speaking to Sharky off air there actually about how county cricket was way harder because it's so relentless like you play a game of cricket you have a day off and you've traveled back from somerset and then you've got a day and then you you do it all again for six months consistently and it's just non-stop so in many ways i found it way more challenging because you think when you go on an england tour you play six games three t23 odis and then you come home and you have a couple weeks off so it's a very different pace And in a way, it was probably the wrong time for me to fall into that at like 33, 34.

4:20I probably have not had the legs and the energy enough to do it for a sustained amount of time. Whereas I think about Lauren Winfield Hill and Georgia Elwes, when they lost their England contracts, they've now had like a sustained period at County Leavenland and absolutely shone and probably got better as cricketers because of it. But yeah, I just probably didn't feel like it was not, it's not my bag. that's probably a terrible thing to say but i don't yeah i don't know it's just it's probably just not hit me the way i wanted it to hit me so i knew that like i signed a one-year deal with lanks so that i had to make a decision about now and i actually made the decision way earlier than i thought i would i made it in about june so i've known for ages and then obviously it took me a little while to to tell everyone well look felix has joined felix hello hello and thank you for having me on tail enders sorry i'm late i was interviewing mark steel matching hello hello

5:11James Anderson:Thank you for having me. And on today's podcast, we are celebrating a cricketer who made her Lanks debut just 13 crossies. I didn't realize it was that young. That's nuts, isn't it? It's crazy. When you're 13, so you've gone on to take nearly 250 wickets for your county across all formats. You played for England 102 times, taking 140 wickets. You retained the Ashes in 2014. You've captained your country. You won a T20 title, an ODI title as well, and claim the 100. That is, it's some career. Actually, what we were just talking about is in many ways, you've done it. You've done, you did more probably than you ever thought.

5:52James Anderson:Is that right? Or did you feel sort of fulfilled in lots of ways? Do you feel like you just did it properly? I feel, I definitely feel fulfilled, but I don't think it's because of like titles or trophies or things like that. because I think if I wanted to feel fulfilled, it would have been the World Cup that I would have been desperate to have. So I think it'd be impossible to have a sporting career and try and chase your titles in that way. But in many other ways, I feel so fulfilled because of the people that I've met and the experiences that I've had and all the things that I've just had the opportunity to go and do because of cricket.

6:27And they're the bits that I guess when you're like 10 in the back garden playing cricket with your brother, you never ever thinking about going on to do those things so i guess i feel really proud and just content with all the rest of it that people don't see probably

6:41James Anderson:and also consistency and longevity they sound like management speak they are i know you hate that but but those two things they're so hard to do particularly for sports people that's hard to be playing for that long at that level as well you're sort of alluding to it but there must be a certain element of exhaustion of all of that and you talked about it being back-to-back county you know games and that kind of hamster wheel that you're on do you feel a bit like that you're like I gave as much as I possibly could yes I yeah I think yes yeah well I just I don't think I'll ever I think there's always going to be things that I wish I'd done better or like I wish I'd taken my batting way more seriously when I was like 15 years old because batting is so much fun and I'm gonna probably miss batting the most out of everything which is stupid because I've had 22 years to be a batter if I wanted to be and I've not done it so I feel like there's a yes with the caveat but I also think when you talk about consistency like I actually was pretty average for a lot of my career like probably leading up to 2016-17 when I had my mental health break I feel like I came back from that actually as a better cricketer and I think that was probably where my England career excelled and I got more consistency and stayed in the team for long periods of time and I actually feel like I'm probably the best cricketer now than I've ever been because I know more than I've ever known which is probably how a lot of people finish their careers so there's also that bit of me that's like oh I could play I could carry on playing yeah but I just don't want to it's it's really hard to describe I just don't want to do it anymore yeah I can't be arsed mate yeah basically I'm I'm lazy I'm bored I'm not I'm that's horrible i'm not no but it's like yeah life's like that though isn't it i was thinking that to myself the other day like oh i'm ready to be 20 now i could do it now do you know what i mean let me be 20 and have a really good go at it with some money that'd be helpful that'd be dangerous though yeah that would be dangerous i think there's maybe something in um in being millennials which we all are um and that we've worked out that you can sort of still do the things that you loved when you were 15 but actually you're better at them now yeah you've got exactly you've got your stuff together a little bit i guess with the consistency what i mean is that you turned out for years and years playing cricket like it's an intense thing this is what i don't understand about sports people it's what i don't understand about you or jimmy like it's just it's such concentration to play cricket anyway but to do that day in day out that that takes that takes a lot of dedication to stay fit and to keep improving and all of that stuff and constantly being under scrutiny as well to be judged yeah it's a mad thing isn't it that's the bit i'm really looking forward to not having anymore is like not feeling like i've got to prove myself to anyone and try and you know approve to the head coach that you should be in the starting 11 and that that kind of stuff is i'm i'm over all of that side of it but yeah i don't think you can ever try and put jimmy in the same sentence as anyone because i i now how i feel knowing how i feel now and i'm what nine years younger than 10 years younger than him i can't comprehend what is going on in his head that he's still playing professional cricket i know we gave up with that a while ago actually he'll do anything but go to therapy that's so that's yeah that's so true i feel like this could be a bit of therapy as well because i feel like i obviously spoke about this on the pod about a month ago with al we we actually recorded of the episode that I was going to announce it in the hundred and then it didn't go out for a while so I've not actually done a whole lot of talking about this so this could end up being my little therapy session well you're you're safe here we're we're huge fans and we're just sort of endlessly fascinated by anyone that plays this game that we love to a high level and you've you've you know you've done that can we go back to the start of your cricket life can we do a memory like a memory lane type thing do you want to talk about Hayward Cricket Club you've done your research do you still but do you still are you still closely tied to them do you still do you know have people there do you feel sort of welcome when you go back there and like oh yeah i feel not necessarily welcome but you feel like that's that's kind of home that grass just reminds you of really happy times as a kid yeah definitely and i was thinking like if i don't if i don't get a job i could just go back and score for the first team next year and lovely and make sure that i'm you know still getting a bit of pocket money but no i still feel i still feel like I've got a lot of friends down there it's definitely changed I don't know how you guys feel about your clubs that you grew up at but I feel like since COVID everything kind of changed the landscape of club cricket and when I when I was a kid it was a whole community that like I had essentially 100 babysitters when I went down to the club at the weekend and my mum and dad could just not worry about me as long as I didn't go out of the gates they were absolutely fine with whatever I was up to so I feel like I grew up with 17 fake aunties and uncles who are still really involved in my life now that have all come from the cricket club.

11:37So it'll be nice now actually to have a bit more time to be able to get back there and probably go and just watch for the beer and actually enjoy club cricket again and not worry about upcoming cricket matches that I've got to play in. Was that photo, Kate, that you put on Instagram, you put on like a double slide of you now and you then? Was that at that sort of age? You're feeling on a boundary, I think. That was one of my first proper matches where I played, I think I played under 11s when I was about nine and it was obviously all lads cricket but the actual zoomed out photo of that is my dad's umpiring which is super super sweet and he's like got this old umbro tracky on and he's it's not lbws back then but it was great to obviously have like your family so in involved in a club as well so my uncle bob was actually the the under 11s coach back then so I think that was one of the reasons why I found cricket so homely in a way was because I had all my family down there who were encouraging me and I had a coach that was desperate for me to do well because he was my uncle and he played at the club as well so it was I never kind of had the barriers that I know a lot of girls have yeah at cricket clubs as well it really pierced me that photo because it made me think like oh my god that you must have always like if that girl knew what was going to happen to her you know what I mean she wouldn't do it

12:51she'd have picked golf no I'm only joking you wouldn't have even been dreaming of that at a time would you at a time it felt like it was even a thing to dream about no and i god i thought about this like really lovely speech that i was going to give on my final game to like the youngsters in the dressing room because we've now got crazy young kids in there that are like 16 and starting their professional journeys i thought about this amazing speech i could give and it all went out the window because crying too much no well what i wanted to say was my big get the guitar get the my big line my big don't make me cry my big line that i wanted to say was that i had a dream that i couldn't have dreamt of because it didn't exist yes like you couldn't be a professional cricketer as a woman yes i was watching men on the tv the first female athlete i ever saw on the tv was when kelly holmes won the double in 2004 like that was my first experience of women being incredible at what they do so i yeah i i it was my dream but it also couldn't have been my dream because it wasn't a thing that ever happened back then.

13:51So yeah, it's changed so much. And so much has happened in such a short amount of time. And that's also why I know it's time to step away because I don't have the energy to try and keep up with that anymore. I'm happy being good, but I'm also, in T20 cricket this year, I was terrible. I was just getting hit into the stands every single day. That's just not fun. It's not fun anymore for me. But your generation specifically will always be like an unbelievable sort of case point in cricket because you're going to be the only generation of women that understood what cricket was like before and after.

14:27You know what I mean? You could trace the entire history through that 15 years of your career or whatever it is. You're essentially part of the biggest transformational era of women's cricket. Yeah. Yeah, but you weren't, obviously you didn't, you did know it at the time, but you're not doing it because of any of those reasons. You just, I just wanted to play as much cricket as possible. So anytime an opportunity came up to go and play county under 13s, county under 15s, I was just saying yes, because it just meant I got to play more cricket. So it was, obviously it was never like my intention to, to be part of the change, but you just kind of get swept up in it and, and go with it and try and make the best of it while you can.

15:06But I think that's like when I get actual, I've not had the realisation yet, by the way, that I've retired. So this all, I feel like I'm in a bit of a fever dream. But I feel like when I do get the chance to step back and like reflect on it, it will be like, oh, wow. OK, that was that was really cool that you were part of all of that. And, you know, got to, you know, challenge people and try and make the changes happen quicker. And yeah, it's just been so cool to be even linked with that kind of era of the game, I guess.

15:32James Anderson:And so your message to those 16, 17, 18 year olds that are in that dressing room now is you can do anything you want to do. You can play cricket in any cricket loving country in the world, basically, whatever you want to go for, you just go for it. Do you see that in them? Do they know that? Or are they still a little bit apprehensive about, you know, the direction of travel for the women's game? I think they know it because like I'm now being the old auntie on the bus on the way back being like are you going to school tomorrow like make sure you go make sure you've done your homework like I'm now being I'm being that person that's like someone's left their lunchbox like this is great yeah everyone's got a little buddy that they've got to make sure they turn up the warm-ups with um but yeah like it's great but I'm also like there is the other side of it now where these girls are desperate to be professional cricketers and what if it doesn't work out.

16:26So I feel like now there's the flip side of it, which is amazing. I'm so glad we're in this position because this is basically where men's cricket's at. Think about all the young lads who ever want to be a professional footballer and they put all their hopes and dreams on it and don't go to school and do all of that. So it feels like we're now getting into that side of things with women's sport, but they know how good it is. We had Sky Thomas, who was 16, who debuted for us this year, and young Venus, a leg spinner. I don't know if you've seen her play, but she's such a talent. Like she's one of those that still nets with her dad every day because she just loves the game so much and she wants to be so involved in it.

17:00And I just think like the world is at your feet for these girls and how cool is that? And I don't know what type of player I'd have been if I'd have had that opportunity, you know, when I was their age. But in a way, I'm just so grateful that it's going that way. Like I'd never sit here and be bitter about it and think I've missed out on things. I've like missed out, I will miss out on things, but I guess everyone does when they, when they leave sport. Were you a natural fast bowler, Kate? Did you like run up and just bowl fast when you were just asked to do anything at all when you were young?

17:29Was that just sort of an, yeah, a thing? I think so. Yeah. My brother, my brother, so Bobby is, he's the eldest of the three of us and he's, he always just said I was quite a natural bowler. Just right. Yeah. But I did bowl googly's. It was the only thing that, like when I bowled spin, it was just googly's. I couldn't bowl leg spin. So my nickname when I was a kid was googly.

17:46James Anderson:Was it? By the way, that's a really good humble brag. I mean, I can bowl a bit of, I mean, it's, it's only Googlies, but it's only one of the most difficult deliveries possible. It's just natural. I can't do anything else. I'm so silly. I just don't know what I'm doing. But yeah, quickly turn to, I mean, pace, call it pace, call it what you want. Someone called me a medium, no, someone called me a fast off spinner the other day, which was nice. Was that Hartley? Yeah, she calls me a lot of things, Greg, that I probably can't repeat i'm here um well that is unfair because you um that isn't that isn't your that isn't your thing and but the the thing that we'll remember about your bowling is the the control and the swing and the like there's just those moments when you were on a streak it was sort of it was just going to happen you just knew you were going to get a wicket is when you see any great bowler like that you're like oh my god they know exactly what's what's how this is coming out of their hand here so what what do those moments feel like when you've worked so hard at trying to perfect to delivery or a type of bowling and it comes off that's that's something that we can't imagine we we hope that we could get close to imagine that but you can't yeah they're the moments where i actually don't i think it happens in every sport but i don't think you can describe it because you're kind of just in this like flow state of it just happening and everything just just working but my big thing as a bowler was always rhythm i was always feel like i could feel when my front arm wasn't in the right place and i could feel when i wasn't landing on the crease in the right place a lot of my like way that I learn I don't know what you call it is it kinesthetic so like that's that was always me so a lot of my yeah a lot of my when I was in good spells they were it was all just my rhythm and I didn't have to think about anything I wasn't yeah I wasn't thinking about where my front arm was or whether I was landing half and half on the crease line or anything like that I was just able to think about trying to get batters out and that that was that's the bit I missed so much is like that battle and I don't know how I'm going to fill that which is obviously always the worry when you leave sport and what like how do you you know fill that void of your life of competing and and getting into those battles but that they were just my obviously they were my favorite days because you didn't have to think about anything you just trusted all your training you trusted your body you were able to trust the conditions and you're just able to go and have fun with your mates and help impact your team win a game of cricket yeah in your quieter moments your reflective moments maybe you haven't had them yet because you said it hasn't sunk in properly but when you think about the the great spells you had do you have really vivid sort of golden memories of particular spells or wickets or victories or team sort of team triumphs that you look back on really really fondly I can still like remember the sensation that I had in my body when I took my wickets on my test match debut back in 2014 like I can remember the elation Was that in Perth?

20:36Yeah. And I can remember being like, what the f*** is going on here? I'm making my test match debut in Australia at the WACA and I'm taking wickets and it's like Meg Lanning and Jodie Fields and all these people who I've heard loads about and was then able to go and compete against. And I was like, oh my God. And we won that test match. Didn't you take six there? I took, weirdly, three for 35 in both innings. Yeah. Great. And then the next test match I played, I took six for 70 in the game again. it was like weird you know when things align and it's just a bit odd but i remember that test match my obviously back when you didn't really have like data on your phone so i remember turning my my not my wi-fi but like my data on it was probably costing me about 16 pound an hour turned it on at the wacker and my brother had texted me saying go and take yourself off and have a beer and just have a moment and i went and sat on the hill at the wacker with a bank and i remember i remember i've got a picture of it somewhere probably not on my iCloud because it's too many years ago but I just and I can still remember how I felt in that moment so there's definitely parts of like hopefully parts of my career that'll never leave me and that'll be able to just reflect on and like remember those moments but I like I'd I feel like Stuart Broad's a really good example of that kind of when he gets on that spell and he's unstoppable and he goes on and gets eight for like I never really had many many days like that I had like one time at Lourdes where I took three in the power play and that felt like it could have been one of those days and then I never got on the honours board, which is, that's annoying.

22:03I've got a four-foot lords twice. How annoying. How annoying. Well, that's me.

22:09James Anderson:Is that part of that? You're like, you try too hard for the fifth. Yeah, absolutely. I asked, it was when we played Indy. Do you remember the ManCAD game? Oh, what is it? Yeah, Charlie Dean situation. My fourth has been completely forgotten about because of the ManCAD. Oh, it was that game. And Amy Jones was captaining because Heather was injured and Nat was having timeout. and I remember going up to Amy and they were eight down and I was like Amy I would never ever ask my captain this but please come back on and try and take my fifth wicket and she was like I've not even thought about that of course you can yeah you have the next over so yeah probably tried a bit too hard that's so mad of course but that that's the stupid thing about sports sometimes is the is the daft um I was gonna say off the field it's not off the field but like the daft thing that isn't in the normal run of play grabs the headlines takes over the thing you know and often if it happens at lords that's like something something outrageous has happened at lords you know the mcc members have had a go at the aussies or there's been the johnny best o alex carey thing or the charlie dean manco thing or the ben stokes world cup final thing or all that stuff you don't actually remember some of the game yeah you just want to shout on the balcony can you please remember that I got a forfuck.

23:21James Anderson:Can you all agree that that's the takeaway from this? It's reminded me of though, is that, um, I remember an interview with John Lewis probably a couple of years ago and I think it was TMS, but he was saying that the difference with you guys with the women's team was that he felt that you all genuinely wanted each other to do well. And it wasn't an environment that he was used to with the men's team because there is, there isn't that sense of like, you know, it's obviously a line that you, that you feed out a lot but generally it's they're so competitive each other but he felt like there was a different support system between would you say that's right kate yeah i'd agree with that and i think that's again i think it's a bit of a generational thing because obviously a lot of people are talking about my journey at the minute because i've retired but there's so many girls in my era who've had exactly the same journey of me that had to be the first girl onto the academy at their county who had to do something for the first time who signed the first professional contract in the year that you know I did so I feel like there's so many girls of my era who've had to build each other up and make sure that we're all fighting for the same thing so shivers so my yeah my fear is that when like maybe the next generation now might have a bit more of that like ants in them to kind of you know like go up against each other I don't know I hope not and I hope it does stay like a really genuinely friendly sport but you obviously never know when more competition for places comes in then that that could always tarnish that but i do definitely agree with louis there i feel like that was that was one of the main reasons why we had so much success through probably through the ashes series actually i know we didn't win the ashes but the 2023 ashes where we actually beat australia in the white ball series it was an amazing series but all of it was about how we supported each other on the field and we learned we did so much work about learning about how we react under pressure and recognizing this so like we'd recognize the signs of Heather being under pressure so that we could support her and what does Sophie look like when she's under pressure and we were just able to support each other through that and it just naturally became a better environment to be in that is so nice I know that collective sense of like knowing where you'd come from and the cause was bigger than individual causes if that makes sense that just gave me shivers that idea that you write a song about that food.

25:35Write it now. No! About me and my plight. Write it about my career. All right, well, yeah. Shall I just pop up and do that now then, guys?

25:49James Anderson:Yeah, well, we can do that while Matchin does his quiz. Oh, cool. September's always busy. Whole Foods Market can help. Their September Stock Up event makes it easy to load your pantry and freezer with flavorful, nourishing food. Even better, there are hundreds of sales. Get dinner going with canned soups and veggies. Lean on frozen pizzas, pastas, and seafood everyone loves. Their Build Your Own Family Meals feeds four for just$35. Stock up at Whole Foods Market. Can pop music ever be apolitical? I'm Tristan Redman. And I'm Asma Khalid. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC.

26:30One of the most successful pop stars in the world, Ed Sheeran, is facing the biggest controversy of his career because the rapper Macklemore has been dropped from tour after he made pro-Palestinian comments on stage. Now all of Sheeran's supporting acts have dropped out too. For more, listen to The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your pods.

26:53James Anderson:is this a celebratory kate cross quiz of course it's a celebratory kate cross quiz thank you for having us on a celebratory kate cross quiz quiz kris kris kris kris kris cross you know my mum's called kris cross is she called kris cross your mum's called no way does she wear her jeans back to front she might do now i don't know that is such an old reference mega old reference geriatric millennials it's not even just millennials actually do you know what you mentioned you mentioned your mom um was she she's sporty as well because your dad was definitely sporty dad was definitely sporty mom played she played sport but she was never like she never played anything to a high level of anything but it's funny because my mum's probably like not our biggest critic but she thinks if you ask her if she was on this podcast now she would tell you i'm really bad at cricket like caller so no she would embarrass me far too much but she i only found this out when i had people who would sit in the boxes with her that i knew who would feed this information back to me but apparently like I'd go out to bat I'd be batting for like what nine for England and she'd be like oh god I've got no chance now Kate's in this doesn't feel this doesn't feel very John Lewis like everyone having each other's backs and whatever she's kind of going against the ethos of the whole of women's cricket literally yeah and then on the flip side my dad obviously has been there done that got every single t-shirt in professional sport and lots of people might not know this but your dad was a professional footballer yeah yeah he was so your dad played didn't he win the FA Cup yeah 1980 I get with it was against Arsenal with West Ham which is it's biggest claim to fame I mean you're saying like yeah it's a bit of a he boasts about it he's won the FA Cup mate in the 80s when it was actually a thing he's like um he's like Ron Burgundy and um in Anchorman though he's like I I don't travel around with my medal and then he pulls out his wallet and his medals in his wallet so anyone who wants to talk about it he's got the medal with him I'm sorry, not prepared for it.

29:05Yeah, I'm not prepared. Wow, I didn't know. What position did he play? He was a striker. He was like a traditional number nine. Okay. So yeah, he had quite a long career and he was, from what I gather, pretty good. I, you know, I didn't see him. I didn't get to see him play. But yeah, he also... One year in the cup, he's been decent. Yeah, he won the golden boot one year. No way. They're the two things. Two things he's got is the golden boot and the FA Cup medal. and apparently one time he came home and my brother, he was like four at the time, he's like using the golden boot as like a digger in the garden.

29:43Give me that. Yeah. So yeah, I don't think we take it all too seriously in our family. Clearly not. He loved cricket, right? Yeah. Yeah, always played cricket when he could come back from football in the summer. So yeah, he was a wicketkeeper. I don't think he was very good at cricket, but he loved it.

30:01James Anderson:it's um it's a funny one isn't it because maybe it's i don't know maybe fee you have a similar thing or but until you until you see someone that becomes a professional something that you might want to become you go oh maybe i could i wonder if that helped it must have helped for you to see your dad or at least know that your dad managed to do that and it sort of demystifies it in a weird way yeah and he always had he always had the advice that you needed like when i remember when i first signed my first professional contract he sat me down and he was like this is gonna be really hard kate because if if it was easy everyone would be professional sports people so he was like take this seriously and do it properly but yeah he always just like his big thing for me when i was talking about retiring was just he said to me do you enjoy it anymore and i said probably not as much as i used to no and he said well now's a really good time to finish them because you know you've given it everything you've enjoyed the moments that you needed to enjoy with it but actually once you stop enjoying sport then that you shouldn't be playing it because that's exactly what it's there for so he that was probably the contrast with my mum and my dad was that my mum was always the don't give this up keep going you've worked really hard at this and my dad was always able to reflect and go oh hang on a minute there's a bit more there's a bit more to to life than yeah then you know like flaunting yourself and making it even more difficult than it should be your mum's really all over the place she's saying don't give it up but also you're yeah it's been how do you know what i need very confusing messages from your mom from crisscross i mean she's literally crisscrossing she's all over the show yeah but she's no they've been i this is what got me really upset on saturday because everyone came to watch me ahead of me and um i walked off the field and i've retired at the same time as fee morris in our team as well so she's one of my best mates so it's lovely to have like split the attention in a way because i was dreading the day and then i looked up at my family and i was like oh no and that just set me off because i was like they're the people who've ridden this entire wave with me who don't get any money don't get any plaudits don't get anything but they've you know been there at my worst times been there at my best times and i'm also taking it away from them now so i'm like i said oh sorry mum but what you're gonna do about watching cricket now she's like i don't know i don't know what i'm gonna do so i'll have to get her into some boxes somewhere and a bit of hospital yeah she can complain about whoever's batting nine names so they're crap yeah get her a job as a motivational speaker for each game it's work though it works in its own weird way some tough love from chris cross she'll make you jump yeah but that is something that is that we do talk about when when players retire any any sport when you retire it's the entire village that's got you there yeah and the person that took you to your first net session whoever went and bought you your first bat or in probably in your case the first ball and all of all of those things your first cricket coach and all that sort of stuff it's it all leads to this one this one person who's going out there doing the thing but it is it will be a loss for lots of people but it's um and also people who have watched you fans like us we've watched you like oh oh i sort of could rely on kate cross coming to bowl and i sort of feel like i know that and that's like a really nice thing because it's been a constant for a while so we're all gonna we're We're all on a healing journey.

33:14James Anderson:Oh yeah, we are. And the best way to start that healing journey is to do a matching quiz. Okay, this is going to be a change of pace. Which is Kate's speciality. So basically I want to celebrate the life and times of Kate Cross through the prism of my favourite TV show, which is 24 Hours in Police Custody. What a show. What a show. I'm nervous. So Kate is going to be charged basically and we're going to interview. I've got some witnesses to come forward and we're going to get to the bottom of some stories. Welcome to cross-examination. 24 minutes in police custody. So she's been brought into police custody.

33:56She's been brought in for interviewing. I've got Detective Inspector Greg James who will be playing the role of bad cop. And then Detective Constable Felix White who will be a good cop. What did the policeman say? I was going to say, Your Honour. Evening all. Evening all. so basically I've got I've got a few witnesses a couple of stories some threads of some stories and you want you want to give a I want to hear the full story this is why you rang Alex Hartley yesterday isn't it I don't know what you're talking about nothing gets someone always gets a call I'm so nervous okay so the first one so just want to find out like kind of the the ins and outs of the story basically.

34:42I don't know what some of these are okay, this person's in witness protection so I can't reveal who it is Sadie Hartley The year is 2021, the nation

34:53James Anderson:indeed the world is in the grip of Covid-19 England women are in New Zealand where they have just successfully won an ODI and a T20 series and it's March, March 2021 we're in Wellington I'd quite like the witness to talk about how she ends up injuring her finger on a night out and where she ends up having it fixed. I know who that is. I know who that is. They're not in witness protection anymore. No. Wow. Hen. I'm trying to think where I got it fixed. Well, we need to ascertain how the finger was injured in the first place, Ms. Cross. So, I... If you don't tell us, you're going to get me bloody cross at this rate.

35:38James Anderson:Detective Chief Inspector cross. I don't know if this is a good story, actually. I'll be the judge of that. Stop wasting our time. We went out as a team and we went to this rooftop bar in Wellington. And I ran to this bar because it was closing soon. So I was desperate to get everyone in before the door shut and it was last orders. And you had to go up in a lift. And as I've gone into the lift, I've like held it, but put my fingers into the, like in between the doors to make sure that there's like physical presence there. And what I didn't realise was that the metal of the door like curved round.

36:18So obviously you wouldn't normally put your fingers into lift elevator doors. No, especially not as a fastballer. No, and then I've just carried on walking and it's basically sliced my finger open. I can find you a picture actually. No. It's fine actually, we don't need to see it.

36:33James Anderson:We've seen the evidence already. Have you seen a picture of it? I've got all the evidence I need, Cross. It was pretty grim. It was pretty deep. And I'm pretty sure that I wasn't due to play, but we were in between T20 games, so I was never really a massive part of the T20 series, like in the team, sorry. And I was just like this bit of a free night. So I ended up getting really quite drunk. I'm pretty sure that Hem wants me to say that I had it fixed in, I think in Jimmy Neesham's flat. so we ended up back in gym yeah so the new zealand lads were out and we all went back to his because there was nowhere to carry on drinking and we ended up in his flat and the like the concierge man came up with this this really teeny tiny bag of plasters basically and they they like duct taped it back together because my skin was like hanging off and then being the true professional that i am i then turned up the next morning for my massage because i had a massage booked in at nine o 'clock and i i was still really quite drunk like going through the hole was quite a traumatic experience it's a vomiting hole yeah yeah it was not good and then i went up to the physio and i was like look mal i've really injured my finger and it's if i play it's my bowling finger so hopefully i won't play but he was like right what's the story what happened what are we telling the head coach it's like i like you you're you're you're on the player side i really like this and um yeah i didn't end up playing but i was i think i was down as 12 and i just like went up to the head coach i was like look lisa i've f***ed up here i've really cut my finger up and it's quite severe but i wasn't drunk when i did it which was a frustrating thing but then i proceeded to get very very drunk after that so then it didn't bode all that well i put it to you miss cross that there's a drinking problem in the england cricket ranks i disagree right i'm i'm actually the good cop so I've just come in with a bagel and a coffee to be nice.

38:27I'd break for a bad cop just just for a little bit of context. I think you probably it probably wasn't great yeah poor professionalism. Do you want another story? Yeah of course we do. Okay Alex Hartley here I would like to hear the story about Crossy bumping into her neighbour who she was dating while carrying her own stool sample.

38:49James Anderson:I think I've heard this on No Balls. Yeah, we don't need to repeat this. I've heard this on No Balls. This is f***ing hell. I love this story. This is really, really good. Go on. On the celebration of her career. Tell the story about the s*** again. The life and times of the parasite. Oh my God. Yeah, I mean, the story is what the story was. I was seeing my neighbour, as you both know from being on the Valentine's episode, and I was peak parasite at this time. And every day I was having to take a sample of stool into the hospital because they couldn't find out what was wrong with me. So I basically had to sh** every day.