Women’s Test Review and Bye Bye Baz

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1:29how are we how how are we and where are we um i'm just i'm just going alan partridge how are you i'm going to just caveat this entire episode by saying i'm in a place away for a friend's birthday with terrible holiday terrible wi-fi so i'm trying my best i've sneaked away and i said i've got an urgent call to make so uh no one knows that i'm recording tailenders uh because i don't want them to know that I'm a workaholic. I'm happy with the listeners to know that. But also a massive crickaholic, as we know, cricket badgers, all of us. And there's so much to talk about. I was desperate to just hang out with you all and talk it all through and chat to Izzy about the test match and talk about the big retirements and obviously Brendan McCullum.

2:19So just to say, Wi-Fi bad. If I go, just go on without me, guys, please. Leave the soldier behind and just do whatever you need. and I'll join whenever I can. But big, big story. Brendan McCollum has been sacked as England men's test coach. We'll get into that in a second. But the biggest story of the week, Jimmy Anderson got Joe Root out in the Vitality Blast. And I would love to talk about your plans. Not for the first time. Did you have a plan? Was that the execution of said plan or was that... Oh, and Wi-Fi. I think he might be finishing by saying, or was that just you bowling on instinct, Jim?

3:05I think that might be the end of his question. The problem with Greg's Wi-Fi, you can just point out that we're obviously recording it so I can see his face. It's pausing it or stopping at the really bad time with his interest in facials. I think it's pausing when he gets overanimated. Yeah. When he reaches peak face animation. He's tipping the Wi-Fi over the edge. His energy is... and he has got an energy definitely yeah you're wicked jim yeah funny enough like i did have a plan oh yeah but didn't execute it particularly well right so my the first ball i bowled at him i was thinking right his first ball i think it was the last ball of my over essentially or the first time i bowled him so i'm just gonna bowl like test match line and length top of four stump lovely nick him off any bounce or movement try and nick him off and it ended up being a long hop sort of at his shoulder ah that got pulled for four yeah so I didn't go well and then so I thought right next ball I bowled him which was the start of my next over try again and again I dragged it down a bit but this time he top edged it to short fine legs so I can't really say that I planned it and it came off.

4:23Yeah. It was a bit of a fluke. It was one of those where when I saw it, I thought, oh, Jimmy won't want to celebrate that. It was that sort of dismissal. Yeah. Well, it's not as bad as my next dismissal, which was caught like deep point from a wide half volley. Okay. Welcome to Vitality Blast. That's a wicket I will not be celebrating ever. But yeah, no, it was a good game actually. I didn't play in the reverse fixture at Headingley. Playing the Roses game is always good. Yeah. As I said, it didn't bowl great, but we won the game. So it was a good day, good night. Buzzing atmosphere? Incredible atmosphere.

5:03Yeah, it was like, I think we had about, I think it was less than a thousand tickets left. So it was almost a sellout. No way. So yeah, it was as good an atmosphere as I've seen and heard at Old Trafford for a long time. That's awesome. Great to get a win. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to qualify because everyone else played better than us in the other groups. So we had an outside chance going into our last two games, which we won both. But we needed Essex to lose, but they beat Surrey at the Oval. Do you feel like within the fan base, though, just beating Yorkshire, that's like, OK, enough.

5:39We've got enough to keep people happy. I think so, yeah. I think, well, it obviously keeps people happy because you want to win the derby games. As I said, we lost the one at Headingley. we didn't we didn't play particularly well that night so we wanted to make amends for that and also it was going to keep our hopes of getting through to the quarter finals but unfortunately didn't that Greg to paraphrase it was not Jimmy's plan to get Joe Rue out that way but they sold just short of 1 ,000 to capacity at Lanx they're knocked out of Vitality Blast but they're relatively happy with the win over Yorkshire do you know what I don't need you to reiterate I'm going to really enjoy listening back to this episode when it's spliced together and I'll get I'll ask all the questions and then here are my answers tomorrow.

6:21How about that? Like the old days. It's quite manic because the second one day, the first one is Nationals happening as we speak as well. And I'll find out about that in three days time. Yeah. In the paper. Izzy, I'd love to just wind you up and let you go on the test match. Obviously not the result that you all wanted, but as an occasion, as a thing, as a spectacle, how do you how do you sort of look back on it now

6:50Issy Wong:you know what as an occasion it was like it felt like one of those weeks where it was like wow this is really cool and I feel like that was really heightened by the fact that everything seemed to happen during those four days I can't think of anything that could have happened that didn't happen during those four days and it just felt like everything was going on so it was good fun obviously like we did not play well enough to get a result and we are disappointed with that but like to be and as it's occasion to be a part of it was incredible quite a chaotic one with Heather and Tammy both retiring that week wasn't it it felt yeah like a lot of information to take in yeah it felt like I think when Heather announced I think it was the evening of day two she was going to be retiring a couple of us sat there they were changing and thinking this test match has taken you know two from eleven

7:44Issy Wong:looking around And for the sniper, like, who's next? Oh, my God. Yeah, that final destination. But no, they're both, like, I think the experience that both of them brought to our squad and, like, the amount of runs they've got, even, like, the characters, like, seeing them around, like, we're going to miss them so much. So, yeah, it was nice for them to be able to have a send-off at Lord's Test Match. It's pretty good. Yeah. And how did you feel like you bowled in the Test? How did it feel coming out of the hand, as I imagine bowlers say? First, Bell felt a bit rusty, to be honest. I think all three of the quicks, me and the Laurens, we all felt a little bit like it took us a couple of overs just to get into it.

8:30Issy Wong:Obviously, me and Lauren Filer hadn't played sort of an actual game of cricket for a good few weeks, which feels weird to say in the middle of July. And Lauren Bell, obviously, done loads of the white ball stuff. So I think it just took us a little while to adapt as a group. I thought I bowled better on the back end of day one, but we just couldn't seem to get out of the pitch what their seamers did, particularly Crunty Gowd, taking Fyfer in the first innings. I thought she bowled really well. Just like trying to nip it, not even trying to swing it, just nipping it, nipping it sort of up the slope and a right handful.

9:00I thought I'd spell after, I think it was first afternoon, after lunch was class. Bit of swing, bit of nip. you got a wicket and then got taken off though didn't you

9:12Issy Wong:yeah I'd sort of so I was like I couldn't get my head around that I'm like surely you've got one more in you just to see if you can get it that had been my one more so Nat had tried to take me off after the one before that and I said I've got a good feeling I feel like I'm getting somewhere just give me one more so that kind of was my one more and then I think if I'd kept getting my way when I said just give me one more I'd have maybe bowled all afternoon but that's an interesting sort of situation to be in, isn't it? As a bowler, Jimmy, you must have been in that situation many, many times before where you go, no, no, no, no, no.

9:47I've got something here. I've got something. When do you know that it's the right time to say, no, honestly, you've got to keep me on because I just feel like there's something coming? Or do you earn that as a sort of, when you progress up the ranks in the team, do you think? I always felt like I was going, that'll do. I'm done. Never asking for one more. Always asking for one less. but I think I think you do get a feeling as a bowler like if you if you're in rhythm you're feeling good like I'm guessing it was hot that day as well wasn't it so you don't want to you know if you've got another session after that potentially to bowl you don't want to expend everything that you've got in that so it's finding the balance of like getting to rhythm and feeling good and feeling challenging but then not completely blowing out so you've nothing left for the rest of the day but interestingly like the first person I think that did it for us was Ben Stokes first captain who looked into when people got their wickets so I think for me like like so Brodie for example would get get wickets into his seventh eighth ninth over similar to Ben Stokes interesting and my my average or wicket taking after five or six overs is pretty poor right so he'd usually give me a five or six overspearl and then off.

11:09Issy Wong:That's really interesting. Which are, yeah. Yeah, it is. Do you know what yours is, Izzy? No idea. No, they're interesting. Probably one test. Two tests, yeah. Two tests. Two tests, four years apart. Yeah, yeah. What was it like walking out to bat, Izzy, through that long run? Were you thinking, oh my God, I'm walking out to bat in a test match hearing your spikes against that wooden floor and stuff. Was that, because that must have been really surreal. I was all right when I got out walking out to bat. it was like waiting to bat and I think there was a word I think I called it sickening I was just sat on the balcony and every time someone just like played at one outside the off-stump and missed it and I was just sat there and you think because you sat there thinking A, I'm going to have to go and bat in a test match that's quite stressful and then B you're thinking I've got to get off the balcony through the changing room over the kit bags out the door down the stairs through the long room down past the little row seats onto the pitch all in two minutes and i was just it was just oh yeah hated every second of it yeah that's the thing that you're freaking out about it's like going like a gig i'd always feel like i'd just be worried about tripping up when i got onto the stage the gig would be fine but it's just not falling over getting to your guitar the dream that a lot of cricketers have is the not having your pads on when a wicket falls and you're next in that actually happened this year so mitch mitch stanley who plays for lanks didn't have any pads on we lost two wickets in quick succession in a in a t20 i think it was and the panic was like and i'm obviously then next in after him so i'm like getting my pads on but watching him out the corner of my eye like scrambling around sweating and leg out to the middle it was frightening one of the girls almost got timed out in the hundred a couple of years ago because you know at the oval there's that lift down from the changing rooms are up the lift yes she got in the lift and then it stopped at every floor

13:15Issy Wong:but it stopped at like and she was trying to go up i think and i don't know she might have gone past or something and basically there was this thing where she if they'd have appealed she'd have been timed out but they didn't appeal because i think she was about 11 and it was just quite funny that's amazing that's amazing why did she take the lift i don't know no one knows to this it's three years ago now no one knows why she took the lift that's absolutely hilarious for the benefit of a tape greg's face again is um frozen and it is very animated so it's beginning to correlate that greg's over animation equals wi-fi going down for the benefit of a tape i also say it's now 160 for four in the first one day between england and india you see the carver drive that Shubham and Gill played earlier.

13:58I saw a couple, yeah. Oh my God. If I, if I had a wife and children, I would leave them for it.

14:05Issy Wong:Specifically the cover drive. You would leave them for Shubham and Gill's cover drive. Just for the cover drive. It was unbelievable. He held the pose all the way to the rope. All the way to the rope. Absolutely mustered. He just watched it, guided it as he, beautiful. That is nice. Do you know what I I wanted to ask Greg about, but he's gone. Wayne Madsen playing his last T20 and walking out to bat with his children and wife. Have you seen that? Yeah. I've never seen anyone do that. What are your thoughts on that? I'd love to know what you two think about it. How far did they go? They got quite near to the pitch, didn't they?

14:43Did they cross the rope? Yeah, oh no, they definitely crossed the boundary. Yeah, no, no, they were at sort of, yeah, mid on or something when he said goodbye to them. Oh, were they? They didn't go onto the pitch and mark his guard for him. I was going to say, they could have...

14:56Issy Wong:Is that middle, please? What did you think, Jim? Did you think you wouldn't, would you not take your trip, would you take your daughters and... No, when I saw him... So the start of the video is walking down the steps from like the pavilion. I thought, oh, that's quite sweet. Quite a nice touch. Yeah. And then when they kept going, I'm like, hang on. Where have they got?

15:22Issy Wong:do you reckon they talked about it before like you're gonna come on till you get to sort of extra cover and then you're gonna he can't go too far because if he then marks his guard waiting for the ball to come down he's got to wait for his wife and kids to get off to field he might get timed out he might get timed out yeah walk back with him at all yeah i pop off to the lift um i don't know how many i thought it was sweet yeah he's a friend of the show we've got to say it's sweet he is a friend of the show so um is he the tests overall had little feel at the end of it obviously disappointed not to with the result like was it a good positive experience for everyone so much emotion going on with the retirements and all that kind of thing yeah yeah what's your what's your sort of summary of the of the week lots of emotion i think like we are like we were disappointed i think with the way we played obviously the prep going into it wasn't necessarily ideal but you still want to turn up and and play play your best cricket and we we didn't do that to be honest but I think like given the circumstance how everybody went into it like mindset wise we were up for it and the skills just probably didn't match that but in terms of mindset we were all fully bought into it but then like at the end it just hit us I think that we've been on on the go for like yeah I think 8th of May I think people left home some of them and there's a couple of them that haven't been home since the 8th of May because we have an ODR series two T20 series T20 World Cup straight into the test match so it yeah I think there was a lot of just tired tired people by the end of it yeah yeah do you think do you think the wicket because I was thinking like the obviously the weather we've had recently the wicket looked quite dry and it looked like it changed even throughout the day on the first day do you think that probably played into their hands more than ours yeah yes and no I think there were it did definitely play differently during the days and then across the days as well but I don't know if that's how they bowled on it more than necessarily the pitch really changing.

17:20Issy Wong:I think they were really clever just trying to use the pitch and get it to seam around whereas the three of us, from the quick's point of view, were more trying to swing it and I think probably could have looked at what they did really well just wobbling it into off stump every ball basically. Having said that, I thought our spinners bowled really well. Soph and Mads. Soph obviously becoming England's all-time leading wicket taker across all formats for the women. So, and she's taken a five for 50 in the last inning. So she definitely did her part. She had a pretty good test match, to be fair.

17:53Go on, Soph. So Greg, Greg's back to summarise. No, no, no, don't summarise. Don't summarise. Don't summarise. I actually cannot wait to hear Izzy's take on his test match because I was so interested in it. Can you hear me now? I'm on one bar of data. We can hear you. Great. We want to know what your thoughts were about Wayne Madsen walking out the back of his wife and two children. I've got to say, there's too much to talk about on this episode of Tailenders. It was a toss up for me between that story and Jimmy getting Joe Root out. And I picked Joe Root. But the Wayne Madsen needs its own emergency podcast, I think.

18:25But I'm really interested, Izzy, to hear about this test from your perspective. And I also wanted to just say that I'm sort of, I'm slightly away from the country. And I'm just enjoying the stories from that test match. And I absolutely loved the video of you on the balcony with the Rubik's Cube. And I want to publicly say that was brilliant. And you must continue to be yourself in every situation ever. And never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever listen to anyone who tries to tell you to not be yourself. Because that was the most brilliant Izzy Wong thing I'd ever seen.

19:01And you have our full support on Tailenders. And everyone else can f*** off.

19:06Issy Wong:Do you want to know how that happened? yes so i was into about necks and as i've already said it was absolutely sickening i hated every second of it and i just had like all this nervous energy like i had like verbal diarrhea poor heather was sat next to me and i was just spouting the most utter nonsense ever and like you know when you just you just like you're going into fight or flight and you're thinking about the walk down the stairs and through the long run my god um i didn't actually have my cube with me but alice capsey She looked at me, she said, you all right? And I said, have you got a Rubik's Cube on you?

19:39Issy Wong:She was like, yeah, yeah, there's one in my bag, obviously for emergency, emergency cube. So she pulled it out and passed it to me. And I found that when I was like just doing something, I was a lot calmer because I don't have to think about it. I know how to do it. And it kind of just happens. And I was, it calmed me down a lot. Right. So I've been doing it for like five, 10 overs and like the heart rates back down to like 150. I'd been like 180. to and then across the balcony at Lord's where the members sit there's this kid sat on the corner called Alex I didn't know he was called Alex at the time and he starts waving at me and I'm thinking behind the boulders arm stop waving but what's he waving and he's waving at his cube and he's pulled it out of his bag he's brought one with him and I'm like oh like no way he's got one how good is that they're like shouting over and I'm trying I'm watching the cricket and they're like do you on a race and I said I'd love a race but we're gonna have to wait till drinks because I'm in next and then we're like yeah right so drinks happens and there's like the brollies the drinks have gone out the bananas whatever and he's like ready so he's chucked his over Lauren Fyler scrambled it for him chucked it back and then Nat Siver Brunt the independent adjudicator gave us a three two one go and i'm beating right and we had a deal that if he won he got a shirt and if i won i got his signature so i won so i got his signature i've got i've got it in my in my kit bag actually it says his signature and then i went inside to put it inside and one of the girls said i think you should give him a shirt anyway so i went to try and give him the shirt right and i've we'd been chucking the cube back and forth right and it's not that far it's like two and a half meters maybe they're quite close the balconies and i've like right okay i'll just chop the shirt so i've shot the shirt and this is the biggest gust of wind and it's it's just boomerang back at me and i thought oh crushing it's crushing well i'm absolutely thrilled that there's a nice story behind all this and yet again let izzy wong and every sports person do what they need to do to feel comfortable playing the sport that we want to watch them play So up yours to everyone who's annoying.

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23:16question when you're having a mouthful of food sorry Izzy what what's your reply to that please

23:22Issy Wong:my reply to that was I thoroughly enjoyed the sticker chats and it was even better than the I think it was a salmon stir fry that I was I was trying to get down so it was a welcome distraction Dave in Cavisham says it was clear that Izzy was enjoying every minute getting the crowd going in the field barreling in from the nursery end and always smiling test cricket needs more of that joy and enthusiasm but he can also get a shout out and a go well to my wife Sarah who's become through no choice of her own, a cricket mum over the past two years, and now spends her summer Fridays and Sundays ferrying our two oldest boys to training and matches.

23:54Cricket mums and parents in general for ferrying kids around don't get the credit they deserve. Go well, Dave in Caversham. Go well, Dave. Go well. Cheers. Go well. Go well, Dave. Before we move on to the Brendan McCollum situation, I would love to chat to you, Izzy. Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Heather Knight and the Tammy Beaumont retirements. these are two titans of the game. It's a huge situation for someone like Heather Knight to retire. She made her England debut in 2010 and is of that first generation of central contracted players, which are now slowly coming to the end of their amazing careers.

24:34We talk about paving the way a lot in cricket, particularly the women's game, but this was a step up from the previous generation, the generation before that. But this is a generation that have set records, then broken on those records. She was the first England player to get centuries in all three formats. She won a World Cup. She is, you know, a legend. It's a huge loss for the game, isn't it?

24:55Issy Wong:Yeah, it was like crazy. I think it's crazy looking forward to think that they're not going to be there. They are sort of ever-presents in our changing room and both of them, I think, the amount of experience they brought, the runs that they brought, the personalities around the group as well. It's going to be a big loss. One of our batting coach actually put it really well in terms of the impact that both of them, but particularly Heather, when in her time as England captain, have had on wider the game of cricket. He said something like, when Heather became England captain, rounders was the girls' summer sport.

25:34Issy Wong:That's what girls play in summer. They played rounders. And through the course of Heather's career as England captain and grubbing the game and reaching new audiences nobody plays Rounders anymore everybody plays cricket and Rounders has basically been put into extinction by Heather Knight which I thought was quite a nice image of like Rounders is now down there with like the dinosaurs and other things that have gone out of fashion like I love that you just said dinosaurs went out of fashion

26:09it's a nice way of putting it i was gonna say i love the the clip of the indian team coming to the home dressing room and did they present shirts to to both tammy and heather so that was

26:21Issy Wong:a really nice touch yeah yeah they came in and jemmy said some words and then they gave him some shirts and then they actually stayed around a bit after and we got to kind of mingle with them which was really nice because they're they're a really nice group of girls actually and you know We don't necessarily get to see them that often, but a lot of us have played with them in franchise stuff as well. So to kind of be able to chat to them was really nice, but I think it shows, I guess, A, the class from them to kind of recognise how good these two are. Equally, it speaks volumes of the class of both Heather and Tammy.

26:55That's brilliant. Guys, while Greg's away, I feel like we've done it quite well, even though there's so much to take in. I'm happy that we haven't talked about Brendan McCullum till towards the end of the episode because it's taken up so much oxygen in the last week. Obviously, that was dropped in the middle of the women's test, which a lot of people were saying was quite controversial and bad timing. There probably wasn't going to be any good timing to drop that while with all the cricket going on. Jim, firstly, your thoughts on it. Have you seen Brendan's interview? Do you feel like the timing for that was right?

27:26I haven't seen his interview, no. But I mean, it's so hard timing-wise when you've got 12 months to the next Ashes at home. I guess if you're going to make a change, then it's got to be sooner rather than later ahead of an Ashes series. But I texted him actually. I said, like, just sorry that it didn't work out because that two years or last two years of my career under him and Stokes, he was some of the most enjoyable cricket that I've played. But I think, you know, it's potentially, it was a perfect fit for that group of players. You know, I think back to some of the most memorable test wins that I've ever been a part of.

28:06The Trent Bridge against New Zealand when Johnny went mental. Yeah. We won 3-0 in Pakistan. Yeah. Scored 500 in a day. You know, stuff like this. It was sort of game-changing for English Test cricket. So I feel like it's a shame that it's not worked out because I know how much effort he's put into it. But saying that, you know, the results in the last 12 to 18 months, probably, you know, well, they are the reason that that change has been made. And I think now it's quite an important appointment because I don't think you necessarily have to go for the best coach in the world. You have to go for someone who's going to fit with this group of players.