Episode 180 - End of an Era

The T20 World Cup draws to a stunning conclusion as some greats finally get their rewards and an old storyline unfortunately gets revisited. We also look at the upcoming second edition of USA's Major League Cricket Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode Transcript

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(01:11):
Hello, everyone, and welcome backto another episode of Two Slips and
a Gully, the last of ourtwenty twenty World Cup Edition ones. And
I've got to say that as I'ma little disappointed. Yeah hi everyone,
Yeah me too. I am.I'm very disappointed. I actually would really
have liked to have seen the SouthAfricans break their hoodoo, but I have

(01:36):
to I'm sitting here reflecting back onjust on the highlights and everything that I've
read about it, and it's lookinglike it might have been another missed opportunity,
politely the run a ball with thirtythirty runs off thirty all six wickets
in hand, they didn't get thejob done. Unfortunately. The Chokers tag

(01:57):
is going to chase the South AfricaGrins around for a while longer yet.
So we're going to delve into theoutcome of the Semis and the final,
and then we'll have a look atthe Major League Cricket. So cricket doesn't
stop in the United States after theWorld Cup. They're about to jump straight
into the second season of Major LeagueCricket, which is anyone who's followed the

(02:20):
podcast for a while known that cricketin America has been a big thing that
I've been behind. I was reallyenjoyed the first one and there are some
really big, big names there forseason two. So yeah, So for
those of you that didn't quite haveyour fill for the pool stages of the
Cricket World Cup over in the UnitedStates, there is plenty more cricket coming
your way. But before we getto that, let's have a chat about

(02:42):
the World Cup Finals. The endof our last episode, the semifinals were
set up South Africa first Afghanistan,the Cinderella story and the battle of the
heavyweights England and India. And really, really, like we said at the
end of the last episode Aaron,that we thought that South Africa would have

(03:06):
what it takes to go all theway. They've been playing really good cricket.
They've just got all the bits andpieces they need. And I'll tell
you what, after their ruthless displayagainst Afghanistan in the semi final, you
thought, is this the year?That was always my worry for Afghanistan is
that traditionally the Afghanians don't play genuinepace rolled in one after the other particularly

(03:28):
well. Yeah, they can playthe odd quick bowler relatively well, but
when you had that fleet of quickbowlers coming at you from the South Africans,
all bowling particularly well, particularly fast, I always thought it was probably
going to be a little bit ofa bridge too far, and it was
probably about six or seven bridges toofar from They were never in it.

(03:51):
Basically from the time that they walkedout to bat, they were never in
it. They are aside. That'sdefinitely needs the conditions to be in their
favor to bridge the gap between someof those those teams with genuine quality pace
attacks. So they got a wicketthat really nullified Australia's pace battery, which
kept them in the game. Australiaalso then historically doesn't play spin very well,

(04:15):
which certainly helped. But in thisone the conditions weren't really there for
that. The South Africans had atrack that they didn't mind at all.
Their fast bowlers ran right and wentto town on the other side of the
legend and what was a fairly highscoring game in the semi final that had
been penned in since before the tournamentbegan. I know, it was extrud

(04:38):
I mean, this is something thatevery I mean, the sad thing about
all of this is that you needto give India credit for the generation of
players that they've produced. And didthey deserve to win this on the on
the balance of everything, yeah,they deserve to win it. But they
had a bit of a hand,you know, the two of the most

(04:59):
contrived World Cups back to back forIndia. Like, I don't know what
India would have done if they didn'tget away with this one. They could
not have had better conditions served upto them. For the last two World
Cups, they made two finals,which is you know, we sort of
that's how good India is as acricket side. We sort of we make
fun of them for losing in aWorld Cup final in the One Day International

(05:20):
World Cup, but they made theWorld Cup final, and you know,
we're sort of saying that if theydidn't win the T twenty World Cup final,
there was a massive slander against them, which in fairness, they probably
would have been. But it justgoes to show the standard that Indian cricket
is expected to achieve. But yeah, so this the World Cup schedule was
certainly panned out to be in India'sfavor. They were too strong for England,

(05:44):
who quite frankly, I think reputationwas a lot stronger than the actual
output of their cricket. I meanI say that knowing that they made further
than Australia. But you can seethat since that twenty nine in World Cup,
like that end of the twenty teen's, early twenty twenties, the the

(06:06):
white ball dominance, they're not thesame basically since Owen Morgan as they're not
the same juggernaut. We really andI think it's a huge rap to his
captaincy skills and his man management skillsbecause you look at you look at a

(06:26):
lot of those squads that they've takento major tournaments in that time since he
was retired, and it's not thatdifferent to the squads that he was leading.
And this is like England in thein the socially in one days was
a side that was chomping at thebit to score five hundred in a game
and came relatively close at times,and that just doesn't seem to be that.
I suppose that's the one thing thatIndia sort of had, not necessarily

(06:50):
at the World Cup stage, butcertainly in bilaterals, and something Australia had
in spades during their World their alreadyeye dominance was there was this aura of
invinc ability about them. There wasa period where England absolutely where the best
team in the world at one daycricket and white ball cricket. They were
just phenomenal, but you never sortof had that prolonged feeling of the game

(07:14):
belongs to England at the moment.There was always someone just chomping at the
bits and it'd be interesting to seewhere England go from there. They quite
obviously got a lot of talented cricketersin an amount because that they've got plenty
of representatives and all the various Ttwenty leagues around the world. But it'll
be interesting to see where they go. Obviously they're going to be hoping guys
like Josh for Archer can stay healthyfor long periods of time. They are
to a team I think that didn'tbenefit that much from playing on the type

(07:36):
of wickets that were served up.So look, that's just that's essentially how
it goes. But mate, youknow, like England at their absolute best
back in that period when you're describingit didn't matter the wickets. You couldn't
say they were flat track bullies.They were a great all round team.
They're fielding was absolutely outstanding. Theycould score runs in a conditions. They

(08:01):
had a very very well balanced battinglineup and they had a very very potent
bowling attack. All of those thingsyou can't say applied to England anymore.
You know, at the very least, I think they've probably ranked about where
they need to be now, soyou'd say about fourth, I would suggest
it'd be interesting to see how theyreload. Moving forward to the next World

(08:24):
Cup, Moving on to the final. I was a game late. I
called for the Champagne Coalie innings tocome in the semifinal, but he saved
it up for the final. Wasit seventy four off not a lot of
balls really guide India to a verygood score? Well, one hundred and

(08:46):
seventy one hundred and seventy six forseven was probably in relative circumstances, probably
worth two hundred on a normal wicket. It was. It was a very
very competitive score from the outset andI always thought it was probably depending on
how South Africa played. It wasa gettable score, but they were going

(09:09):
to have to play at their veryvery best to get there. And that
remarkable catchdown on the boundary line,and then that remarkable man Jasper Boomera.
They had thirty to get off thirtyballs, but he had twelve of them,
so it made had changed the equationvery much back into India's favor.

(09:30):
He is just he's the great Indianfast bowler of two for eighteen off four
ohs and a file. Hardik Pania, I think also needs quite a lot
of love. Three for twenty offhis three overs, you know, and
he picked up the big wickets ofKlassen and Miller in that run chase.

(09:52):
So it's just and they were theguys that were going to get they were
they were going to get loud,like they were bossing the game at that
point, classing fifty two off twentyseven. And David Miller, we know
what he can do in the clutch. He is just ridiculous at times.
The ball that Wolmer ball to RezaHendrix, I think really set the tone
that just I can't believe. It'spretty unfair, isn't it really that he

(10:18):
just comes up he does, buthe does that at will. He does
it at will. It's like he'sjust he is the great Indian fast ball
of mate, he really is.He could go down if he stays healthy,
could really challenge to be in alltime World eleven for white ball cricket
if we do another one of these, you say, for our five hundredth

(10:39):
podcasts down way down the line.He could be a guy that could certainly
find his way into that. It'slike an injury management is going to keep
him that. He is phenomenal.Unfortunately, as we said, yeah,
the South Africans, you know,you would feel with their batting lineup,
they would have looked at that andwent one seventy for one seventy one seventy

(11:01):
seventh victory, you know, notgreat, but there we could do that,
I mean there was. It wasobviously paced by that fantastic innings up
front from Vat Kohli, but youknow, South Africa would have been really
looking forward to getting out there whenthey knocked over Shama for nine part for
a duck you had have for three. You know, India would were reeling
a bit at three for thirty fourinside the powerplay and then yeah, it

(11:26):
was just a brilliant sort of rearguardingings, not only from Kohli but then Ax
a Patel rated player. He's alwaysdoing ridiculous things, but he never seems
to get that that star billing,you know what I mean, He's he's
going to be one for the future. You got to think now that the
guy that probably has been the reasonthat he hasn't been as posing all three

(11:50):
formats for it would be Ravy Jadasia, who was announced his retirement for the
T twenty side, and he wouldbe probably not far away from retiring from
the rest of the formats as well. He's getting on there. Yeah,
as we said, so brilliant clutchbowling from India. A little bit to
you know, you'd say, isthe old South African Chokers tag came into

(12:11):
play. Run a ball required forthe last five over? Was it?
Yeah? Five overs, six wicketsin hand, you're supposed to be walking
that in. You're looking to finishthat in another three over. Is basically
at that stage of the game,with the field spread, with the players
they had in there, and theyjust couldn't get it done. And so
India win their first ICC trophy inthirteen years and their first T twenty World

(12:41):
Cup in seventeen. Yeah my name, And I'd just like to point out
that since the inception of the IPLand it absolutely has done a phenomenal job
at producing young white ball cricketers forIndia, it has been just a factory,
an approving ground and coming out batalready battle tested, along with a

(13:01):
very strong first class system. Butin that time India have won the exact
same amount of World Cups or sorryT twenty International World Cups that Australia have,
who historically have been very poor atnot only the T twenty format,
but producing T twenty players through theirdomestic systems. So you know, just

(13:22):
just that little slight jab to theribs from a plucky Australian fan about it.
Yeah, and look they I basicallythink that the only reason that that
that has happened has been because ofinternal factors. I mean, they've always
had these very very talented squads.I mean you look at I mean,
Coley played in the first in thetwo thousand and seven one, didn't he

(13:46):
I'm pretty sure he was in that, I think, so I'd have to
go back there, You'd have togo back. They've had a generation of
guys who've just been playing in allthese things, and the only reason they
haven't got the dog done on mostoccasions is quite frankly, they weren't good
enough on the day and the situationswere in their dressing rooms at the time
probably contributed to some of that jealousyis about whatever people should have been playing

(14:11):
and other people should not have beenplaying. Whatever it happens to be.
Does this fixed the Kohli, Sharmaand Jadasia era legacy? I mean,
prior to this World Cup, youknow, let's say South Africa got over
the line. You know, Kohliand Sharma and ms DONI really sort of

(14:31):
know they won. That was attwo thousand and seven seven and they won
twenty eleven, so it's been apretty bad since they won. Yeah,
so they'd won two World Cups infour years, won both both types,
and that was really announcing the stagewhere Australia was on the downhill. You
know, guys like Ponting were gettingolder. You know, Husky was getting

(14:54):
older, they'd already farewell worn McGrath, those guys, Lee was getting on
a bit. You know, therewasn't it. There was definitely a vacuum
there for a team to come inand have that run like the Aussies had
from the late nineties through to basicallythe late two thousands. And personally,

(15:15):
I think India was primed and ready. They had this massive, massive investment
in the IPL which has, aswe said, has produced quality cricketers.
There had some generational talent coming through. They managed to time their arrival at
a side that really, you know, teams were going through rebuild. South
Africa was still very strong, butAustralia was in a rebuild or West Indies

(15:37):
were definitely on their way down.Sri lank were probably at their peak,
but you wouldn't say that they werea proper international powerhouse the white ball game
perhaps, but you know they certainlynot not comparing with teams like India,
and then India again haven't won anythinguntil right at the end of this generation's

(15:58):
life style with Sharon R. Cooleyand days are all giving the game away
at the end of this game.A very very cynical person who might look
at the history of the last fifteento twenty years of Indian cricket and look
at what's gone on, certainly inthe last two or three years, as
far as let's say favorable draws,favorable conditions for them to win other trophies.

(16:27):
They come up against a very veryfine Australian team last year who just
absolutely kicked them in the final.I'm not going to say that they choked
in that because we were just sogood, but they hadn't got it done
here with everything that's been laid onfor them, certainly in their last two
major ICC tournaments, you've got tolook back on that generation and say that

(16:49):
didn't reach its potential. Now they'vegot the silverware there to say we've done
this, we've done this we've donethis. Do you think do you think
one one day International World Cup andone T twenty International World Cup in that
period for those players is achieving soover thirteen year span they've won one of

(17:10):
each. Personally, I don't thinkit is. I think but as I
said, I think there was alot of things that went on in the
times when they fail where it wasn'tjust that they got beaten on the day.
They've been getting it been leading upto that. So whether they've got
much more harmonious relationships and much morestructure and everything we've within over the last

(17:32):
couple of years when they decided wereally need to get serious. Otherwise these
guys are going to retire and they'vegot nothing to show for it. And
I think that in the Indian psychethat would have been a very bad thing
to have guys like row At Sharma. When people can take a pot shot,
an't say yeah, but you didn'twin this or he didn't win that.
Now it's very hard to do thatbecause they actually have won something.
I still think, well, whenyou look at Australia went through a rebuild,

(17:56):
England went through a huge rebuild andboth won multiple World Cups, Australia
one multiple fifty overs plus a Ttwenty. England have won one. I
say inverted commas have won a fiftyover and a and oh no they won

(18:17):
one one T twenty international one sincetwenty eleven they won the twenty ten one.
And yeah, I just think that'soverall fantasy like and I think this
is people going to seem like,say, it's going to be us bashing
them, and it is a littlebit because of where US is, we'd
like to just find the silver liningwhere we don't seem so bad. But

(18:38):
I think it's also a big complimentto how impressive these players were, is
that we're talking about a team thatwas consistently making the semifinals or finals in
these World Cups, and we're sayingthat they've underachieved. Yeah, and I
don't think anyone could really stay withany sort of degree of confidence they haven't

(19:03):
underachieved. Oh, I've got nodoubt that. I mean, you have
to look at those things. It'sreally really hard when he's sort of just
at the end of it all.People are going to look back on this
on this area of Indian cricket veryfondly, but there will always be that
question, because let's face it,the teams that have dominated the world win
all the time. You know,like there's a there's a what they call

(19:26):
in Australian rules football or whatever,the premiership window where you've got a group
of players and you're going to takethem forward and they're going to win multiple
things. And you didn't do that. No, they just didn't do it,
unfortunately, but credit to them.Well, it's going to be a
big shift. I think it's goingto be weird to see in India running

(19:47):
around now and now they announced theirretirement from the T twenty internationals, but
you can't you kind of feel like, surely one day. I don't remember
them having any big announcements after theone World Cup loss, but you can't
imagine that they'd be limping around carryingSharma, Todaysia and Koli through. I
think with the new guy who's comein can be he's said we're going in

(20:12):
a different direction and that's going toapply all the way through. So I
mean Sharma and Coley basically I thinkwill be better off just saying look we're
just going to play tests. Okay, they'll prolong our career and you guys
to come through that haven't got bulktalent in the in the white ball game,
They've got plenty of guys who theycan throw in there. I mean,

(20:33):
who heard of ars Joe Ching unlessyou've been following the IPL for a
few years, who've never heard ofhim before this year? Okay? And
his performances all the way through thistime, we're absolutely outstanding him and Brake
a very very fine new ball attackthere in. You aren't going to have
too many difficulty is there going tobe? Like I said that the machine
that is the IPO is just goingto keep churning out players at an unbelievable

(20:57):
rate. There are always going tobe a sign that's going to be up
at the point the end. Asfor South Africa, they've made their well
the back to back World Cups,the women's Women's T twenty International World Cup
and the men's T twenty National WorldCup. They both made their first finals,
unfortunately coming up short. I thinkthat it's on the one hand,
it was good for South Africa tomake the final. On the other their

(21:19):
performance in the final isn't going toyou know, there's some psychological scarring that
I'm sure guys like Donald and playin callous and players from that ear have
about that choker's tag and that justnow seems to have followed them this one.
And the sad thing about it is, I mean, as I think
I said at the beginning, regardlessof how you look at it, and

(21:44):
we are talking about it once ina lifetime bowler and Jasper Bomber, he's
just an absolute superstar. But evenif you just got to go out there
at that stage, you're looking atsurviv him. You're not trying to score
off him. You just want toget through. And he was. He
was too good for at the timeswhen they really needed him to be too

(22:04):
good, and then hard at chippingin with those two big wickets. I
mean the guys who were going totake them home for him to come in
and basically bang bang yeah, atthe point they would have been sitting in
the dress room going on no,not again, I know, not again,
and became a self fulfilling prophecy.They never got to a stage where,

(22:26):
certainly by that last day it didn'tlook like they were going to get
him. It really didn't look likethey were going to get them. And
I've got no doubt that you know, the devastation in that dressing room must
have been absolutely enormous. Yeah,but you know, you only have yourself
to blame if you're not even tryingto play any sort of shot to boom

(22:51):
rather than to survive. You mayhave got a way of it right off
those twelve balls. It's all thoseat thirty or eight a man with six
wickets, even if you go twoor three and over, so you get
six off that leads are twenty fouror eighteen, which is still incredibly doable.
I think South Africa as song astheir financially stays able, are well

(23:14):
placed. They've got a whole listeningof youngsters coming through. Brevis, Tristan
Stubbs. You know, they've stillgot the cop going around. I think
he was planning on giving it awaysometime soon. But then you've got Martha
who was certainly coming into his ownas a T twenty batsman and captains.
His captaincy actually throughout the tournament wasreally really good. He overchieved to me

(23:37):
in this World Cup from a captaincypoint of view, I have my doubts
about him, but he showed alot of He was very astute with his
bowlin changes. His field placings werealways very on point to the batsmen who
were coming to the crease. Obviouslydoes his homework and the guys seemed to
really wanted to follow him, andhis performances were very, very good.

(24:00):
One of the players of the tournamentfor mine. But unfortunately they just felt
that that step short again and likehistory again, the history is going to
look back and go, well,boomb are coming and did this, and
then hard It come in and didthis and that changed the game. Well,
yes it did, but it alsoprobably could have been prevented. Yeah,
you know, like hard It takeMiller Bean called on the boundary like

(24:23):
that, you know, I meanclass had been caught on the boundary like
that. It was classes with thecatch boys, yeah that, And then
people are going on about the boundarywas moved and everything like that. Yeah,
but it's not the boundary. Theplayers responsibility to pull the boundary back
if it had been moved previously,I still leave it there too, you
know what I mean, You've gotsame full of stewards on the boundary to

(24:47):
come back and adjust the thing foryou. So yeah, you exactly.
And it was a brilliant catch.They had a lot of when the toss
of the coin went up for whowas going to get the major already of
a luck in this game, Indiagot it, which is a shame because
they, like I said that theydid very well. They played excellent cricket.
I'm not taking anything away from that, but this was a very contrived

(25:11):
tournament for them and turning the youknow, making sure they got to do
whatever they wanted, so that theprime Indian television audience was going to be
there at all times. It was, it was, it was. It
was sickening to watch a little bit, to be honest, well sickening from
the point of view of we justwanted to see everything being equal, and

(25:32):
it's not equal when one team isgetting extraordinary, extraordinary advantages as far as
draws go, as far as accommodationand travel goes. In a place in
a tournament where travel was massive,where you know you've got hours between these
islands and stuff like that, orbetween the US mainland, they had a

(25:55):
very very favorable run. It's essentiallyjust a sign of where world cricket's at
at the moment, as that Indiais saying how high exactly, But again
I don't know if take too muchaway. We should be celebrating. This
is one of the finest generations ofcricketers from a nation. Historically they have

(26:18):
underachieved, but it was really goodto see some champions of the game get
rewarded for what has been an absolutelystellar, record breaking career in certain points.
So it was good to see themfinally done with some hardware. From
a neutral point of view, hopefullySouth Africa can take a little bit away

(26:40):
and come back bigger and better.You bounce off the SAT twenty and really
start to finally get themselves over theline. And it's interesting of the T
twenty World Cups is because they comearound every two years, so essentially the
very best teams that are looking totake the same squads through two cycles of
the World Cup. I would imagineyou you basically you start on one and

(27:03):
you've got an idea, but you'realways look into that next one and you're
looking to take most of those guysthere. India aren't going to do that.
They're going to they're probably going tolose four or five of those players
and you know there'll be attrition likethey're always is in the Indian team.
Competition for places like US we're goingto be in a similar boat as well.
Yeah, we need to be.That's another story. We'll we'll touch
on that that a later day,you know, but look, good luck

(27:29):
to them. They probably in thebalance of things, they probably deserve to
win that game. Oh yeah,they did. They deserve to win.
And you know, especially when you'rewhen you're batting like that, it's much
harder, I suppose to choke thanif you're bowling. India had to go

(27:49):
and grab that game and South Africarelinquished control of the game, but they
didn't do it just with India throwingup wobbly half volleys. Now that's interesting
thing to India had to execute tothe best of their abilities and South Africa
didn't. When they're going got tough. India executed, South Africa didn't.

(28:11):
And that's that's the be all andend all of it. Just one more
quick sidelight about the Indian team andabout one player of Chicilo, and that's
Hardik Panya. The potential of thisguy has been evident for years and years
and years, and in this tournamentwe actually probably seen the best that he's
ever played for India. And that'ssaying something because He's been a high standard

(28:33):
performer for India for quite a while. Are we now seeing the emergence of
him as a really genuine gun allround it in international cricket or is he
get as is this a flash inthe pan? I'm I'm kind of of
the feeling that it's maybe a littlebit of a flash in the pan.
I think he's going to peak Pandia. I think he's been one of those

(28:55):
guys like Stokes a little bit wherethey're always going to be a world class
arounder and depending on the day,you go from being a world class all
rounder to a proper elite elite allaround the if you get him in the
right and I think hands like thatis a bit streaky. Some days his

(29:17):
bowling is going to come off betterthan others, some days his batting is
going to come off better than us. I think. I don't think it's
ever going to go on a runlike Callous or Shakib where they're just the
all rounder in world cricket for along period of time. But I think
there are points where on any givenday, with battle ball in hand,
hard it pand It could be aguy that takes the game away from you.

(29:38):
So he's just going to continue tobe that that mercurialematic sort of player.
I've never been a huge fan ofhis, even though I do a
mile way that he goes about hiscricket because he doesn't really think too much
about it, just goes out anddoes it. But in this tournament he
showed what a really class US playeris in a lot of facets of the

(30:03):
game. But I think that's asbout as good as it gets for him.
Yeah, I would think so.I still think he's going to be
one of the best going around.It's just yeah, whether he's going to
I don't think he's I don't thinkhe's going to springboard to the next level.
I think it's just going to bemaybe you get more games more often
than not were you get the betterof Panda. But I think he's going
to be those ones where on anygiven day, yeah, he could win

(30:27):
your game, or it could justbe a guy in the team. M
H. Absolutely. All right,Right after this, we're going to have
a bit of a chat about seasontwo of the Major League Cricket Beautifully ball
well, fresh on the back ofwhat we can only argue has been a

(30:48):
successful World Cup campaign for America.You know, making it to the Super
Eights would have been absolutely huge forthem. They move now on to the
second of their domestic cricket scene,the Major League Cricket Tournaments. It's coming
back for season two and there havebeen some huge names that have decided to
get amongst it and well begin playing. Me. Yeah. The interesting thing

(31:15):
that, because we've been following thisreally carefully, you basically dragged me on
to this almost as soon as Icome into the podcast you know talking about
is We've been following the development ofcricket in America for a couple of years
now. I've been doing the podcastsfor a couple of years, and I
certainly take a lot more notice ofit now than what I used to or
I was aware that there was afledgling thing happening in America. The steps

(31:40):
forward that they have taken over thelast certainly the last three years are extraordinary.
And now you look at the qualityof these teams that they're putting out
to play in America's heartland, It'sgoing to be very interesting to see what
sort of bounce they get from theWorld Cup. But certainly if you want

(32:00):
to go and see some some goodquality cricket. These are six pretty strong
teams. There's no clear favorite thereto me at all. Probably the only
thing that is a slight drawback fromprogress is it still only playing at the
two venues. But you know,like you're just looking at the rosters.

(32:22):
You know, people like this likePat Cummins and Steve Smith and things like
that. They can go anywhere inthe world where they want to play cricket,
but they choose to go and playin America because they believe in what's
going on there, and just fromwhat's happened in the last couple of years,
you can see why. So amI New York, which I still

(32:43):
think is possibly the worst team historyof professional sport. That's probably the only
minus that we're going to that wekind of throw it at the major league
teams is obviously am I New York. They've got they've got a you know,
pay image to the team, thehand that's feeding them sort of thing.
And they're obviously backed by Mumbai Indians. And I still maintain though that

(33:07):
that would be better off having thesame colors and everything. Maybe a low
but you know that am I inthe Mumbai Indians logo somewhere on there.
But give New York, especially ofall the all of the cities that you're
going to have, give New Yorkit's identity rather than it being an offshoot
of someone else's, because we justknow what New Yorkers do. Like the

(33:30):
New York Knicks. I use thisexample all the time. The New York
Knicks have been objectively terrible since theseventies, with brief periods of relevance,
very brief, and relevance is aboutit never really success, but relevance.
It is stupid how well supported theNew York Knicks are. New York fans

(33:51):
will turn up every year knowing thattheir team is likely to be rubbish,
and they will fight people over theirteam. And you just you get New
York to latch on to anything.And you look at the Yankees, like
the Mets. The Mets have gotthe mariiculously and they've been terrible, and
they're more passionate than the Yankees fans. And that's saying something. You give

(34:13):
the New York fan base something tolatch onto, like an identity to call
their own, and you're your own, you're writing your own ticket. But
having a look at that, Sothis team that was powered by a phenomenal
season not only from Nicholas Puran butalso from Trent Bolt. They're coming back
with some pretty big names. SoTim David for your local Australian fans out

(34:35):
there, he's there. De WaleBrevis is there. Some West Indians like
Pollard, ro Mario Shephard, NicholasPuran or all their Trent Bolts come back.
Cageeza rabadas their rushing cahns. They'reHenrick nor Kia has come over from
the Washington Freedom to am I NewYork. And then you've got guys like
Stephen Taylor, who is a representativeof the the West. Sorry, the

(34:59):
us A team is there, MonarkMattel who's the captain of the USA team.
So they've got some big players there. So I said, it's dripping
with talent. If we go tomy favorite team, which has been the
Washington Freedom, they're like, you'dbe smiling. Oh, I'm I'm very
happy with the current squads. Somy man, my dude follow him to

(35:22):
battle whenever he Steve Smith now hedoesn't have any Ashes commitments. He is
joined on with the Washington Freedom.Travis Head and Jack Edwards also join in
that Australian flavor. Glenn Maxwell's comeover. But on top of that,
Andrew Tye or yours, he's outthere, Lockey Ferguson from New Zealand has

(35:43):
come over. Mark o' janson.Mark o Janson absolutely phenomenal around he Then
you've got guys like who else hasbeen Andre Gals from the United States ratching
Ravendro who's sort of really hitting theinternational scene pretty hard, probably just on
the has another just on Raturom Revengery. He probably learned a lesson over the

(36:06):
last few months. He'll be abetter player for it. He's a wonderful
talent. Yeah. Yeah, Andas soon as we've been talking about favorite
teams, we'll have a quick lookat my favorite teams because I'm basically dragged
my allegiances over from the IPL becauseI have been a big fan of Doni
in the and the Super Kings forfor a few years now. Very very

(36:27):
good team. Again, So yourimportant players. You've got Noor Ahmad from
Afghanistan, You've got Conway, You'vegot Dupless from South Africa, Ada,
Markron from South Africa, Darryl Mitchell. You know it's a Naveen l hark
Pafarana. Yeah, Aaron Hardy aswell. The Stayin's gone over there as

(36:49):
well, so and look, Godlove him, just cannot I cannot physically
bring myself to hate him. DwayneBravo's playing for you ever to stop playing
cricket. This man I was probablyrunning around playing beach cricket in Trinidad or

(37:10):
somewhere and during the winter time maybe. Yeah, one of the greats of
T T twenty crickets. So it'sa it's a pretty pretty fair team.
So I'm pretty happy with that.And as you said, there's been some
huge names to going over. FrasierMcGirk back in coming off a really strong

(37:31):
domestic summer over here, gone overand killed it in the IPL. Should
have played the World Cup but didn'tgo. He's now got a spot with
the Unicorns. Matthew Short has comeover from the Freedom of the Unicorns,
Pat Cummins and Josh Inglish have signedand that's going on what was already a
strong team where you've got Cory Andersonthere, Finn Allen's there, Sheaffeane Rutherford's

(37:51):
there from the West Indies, youknow, Harris Raufs there, a Liam
Plunkett, who played with them lastnight, that there's just there's so much
talent in that tournament. You lookat the Los Angeles Night Riders, who
are basically, you know, ina similar sense of the Super Kings.
They're backed on with Cold Cutter.So they've got they just recently signed Shaquieblasan,

(38:15):
They've got David Miller, Jason Roy, Andre Russell, Adam Zampa's joined
over their Spencer Johnson Josh Little wastied at the last minute. So this
is a tournament with plenty of overseastalent, plenty of elite overseas talent that
also won't look astray in the IPL. And I suppose that's the one positive
thing you can say about being soclosely affiliated with the IPL is that they're

(38:39):
bringing those players over. So it'sno longer the case of IPL players having
to choose between commitments. It's justall right. You you've you're affiliated with
the Cold Cutter Night Riders, AndreRussell, we want you to go over
and play for our Los Angeles franchise, and so they facilitate that happening.
So you are getting elite cricket goingover there, and obviously the IPL has

(39:04):
seen the riding on the wall.If they can get any sort of significant
buying from the United States market,they will have an untapped reserve of cash
going through. So it's in theirbest interest to absolutely allow some of these
players that are affiliated with them togo and play for their sister teams,
because you want the best of thebest going over there to be playing.

(39:27):
And the big thing I think froman American cricket point of view as well,
is that I've just been looking throughall of these teams as we're talking
about the tournament coming up. Theamount of American players who seem to be
very prominent and guys who have actuallynow heard of after their success in the
World Cup. They have a reallygood chance here. One of the big

(39:50):
measurements for success, I think forthe American game, particularly when they're so
closely affiliated with the IPL, issending American players to play in the IP.
Well, the moment they've got AliKahan, that's the only one I
think. I think netra Volka hasbeing talked about possibly getting an IPL gig
in the next one, he'd beprobably in there, and I have to
imagine someone like Andre Gauss and AaronJones will probably make the auction as well.

(40:17):
Yeah, they start getting some IPLrepresentatives and it just like they've done
a really good job of organizing thatand they're not affiliated with the IPL.
Cricket Victoria and Cricket New South Waleshas got involved two of the oldest cricket
well for lack of a better word, franchises in the history of the sport,

(40:37):
New South Wales Cricket Victoria and Cricketlike you're talking counties is the only
other thing that you can really gowith other than other than that, there
is so much experience there which isthen only led to some really good Australian
players but really strong coaching and ShureLaw has come over to be affiliated with
Cricket USA, I think largely basedon the fact that there is that strong

(40:59):
connect between domestic American cricket and domesticAustralian cricket sort of open those doors.
It just allows for such a greattransfer of ideas and American cricket needs to
capitalize on that moving forward. Butyou quite rightly put the you know,
talk about the elephant in the room. Some serious work needs to be made

(41:21):
in the infrastructure, in the infrastructureand that means getting teams playing in their
home cities. Yes, now,I mean that is the next that's really
got to be the big next stepforward for this franch for this franchise competition
to succeed. Because they're playing inNorth Carolina and they're playing in Texas.

(41:43):
When you've got teams from New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles,
you know, these are massive centersof things. They really do need
to have a ground of their own. It will not it will not take
off in America. You might itmight hold its own because there's so many

(42:06):
international players and there's obviously a massiveIndian television market, but it will not
take off in the United States perioduntil until people from San Francisco can go
down in the Bay Area and watchthe Unicorns. It will not take off
until people in Washington can wander downand watch the Freedom take on am I
New York in Washington. That's thelike all sports, it's not just America,

(42:32):
but like there's there is a thefan base needs proximity for it to
work. They need to be buildingthat home loyalty amongst the fans. What
you really want to see is peoplein New York and people in San Francisco
wandering around with a Unicorn shirt on, and am I New York shirt on?

(42:52):
Knowing that you know, tomorrow andI'm going to take the family going
to go and watch the boys overit. Blah blah blah. You know,
it's just across like you're going toget fans like us. I just
love to watch cricket. By thesame thing, you might get some fans
that're just going to go, oh, it's a sport, my hometown's playing
in it. I can only watchit really on TV because I'm not driving

(43:12):
eleven hours to Texas to go andwatch them play. But you know,
I'll watch them on TV, butit won't kick into that gear where you
are actually going to get significant marketshare of any kind until you can get
bums on seats in the town's aplaying. So that's got to be the
next thing. It's already proven itselfenough that it's got the staying power.

(43:34):
You've got some big You've like you'vegot outside of Indian players, you've got
some of the biggest names in worldcricket coming to the scene. I think
there's probably some even Pakistan players arecoming over as well, even though there
are a lot of IPL controlled teams. But you've you've got Commings, You've
got Maxwell, You've got Andre Russell. That these are some of the big
headline acts in the IPL. Youdon't get much bigger than what you've already

(43:59):
got. It's obviously the players tobe your IPO named and Andre Russell.
Seriously, Andre Russell is like sosynonymous with the IPL and with his teams.
It's like having him there. You'retalking guys like Kohli and DONI yes,
and like who are coming because it'sin there? Or don't he make

(44:21):
I mutpose of you retires because youcan then come over. But Indian players
can't play overseas, which is whywe don't have any of them. So
it's already got enough of a marketshare that you're going to attract the best
talent available. Now, what youneed to do is put that that money
down into the infrastructure and actually growthe infrastructure of the game to then be
able to allow a proper home andaway series where you can then have teams

(44:45):
I mean, I mean that thenis going to open up a whole different
kettle of fish with terms of logisticsand travel and teams paying to get their
players across the country. But that'swhat a sport is sport exactly. And
I mean in a place like America, we you have all of these major
sports who do this all the time. You know, the logistics of it

(45:06):
shouldn't be really an issue, okay, because you know, like what's an
average NBA road trip these days?Five games in five different cities in seven
days something like that. That's aboutwhen would it wouldn't be an average one,
but it's certainly you could certainly getsomething like three, three to five

(45:28):
games. You probably have to playa bunch of home games to get five
five games in seven or eight days, Like you might play a back to
back at home, have a dayoff, travel somewhere, play a third
game. So for example, there'sthree three teams in Texas, so Dallas
might play two games at home,travel to Houston the day after, so
they've played you know, three gamesin four days, and then they might

(45:50):
travel to Louisiana and play New Orleansyou know, the next day sort of
thing. All the day after you'vethen had four games in a week.
That's not that's not not typical.You would see that sort of thing in
basketball as well, and cricket.Cricket. We've seen quite regularly international teams
will play every other day when they'replaying, like a bilateral series. In

(46:14):
a T twenty or a one dayfix you we'll have a game and then
maybe a day off and then agame or maybe even get two days off.
So it's not going to be adrama getting these teams to travel.
It just that's just they've got tobe aware they're going to have the infrastructure
in place to also do that.But that's that's where it's got a trend.
Now. I think it's a spectwell off the back of this World

(46:36):
Cup with the players in there.So long as this thing does an absolutely
tank, which I can't imagine howit's going to I don't think so.
You've had two cracks at it,plus you've hosted a World Cup. It
works. The concept works. Nowit's time to put some money down and
and get like there should be.Is just becoming a something where the ice
C really need you be looking atsome development money. You've been like some

(47:00):
development money being thrown at the majormore are we looking more that? When
you look at this very very lease, I would be remissive. The ICC
would get heavily involved in a domestictournament. I would think if, even
from the point of view that you'redeveloping possibly the most lucrative market in the
world, if Cricket USA reached outto ask for some assistance in developing so

(47:25):
they could have multiple international games played, like you know, so Ireland come
over for a tour, Australia comeover for a tour, or whatever that
might be. But I think Idon't think the leaders of Major I wouldn't
like I would feel bad if theICC we're handing out things to the big
bash. I just think that's alittle bit like that's what your home association's
for. There's a there's a processto follow. If Cricket USA, wait,

(47:47):
cool, we need to get somesome assistance in facilitating these sort of
big infrastructure buys, then absolutely,But I don't think the leaders of Major
lely Cricket should be getting anything directlyfrom the I see. It just seems
a bit weird. I'm just thinkingmore really from the point of view,
have been able to possibly fast tracksomething into America because ideally in the third

(48:12):
edition or both, no later thanthe fourth edition of Major Lead Cricket,
we need to be having home andaway, and the only way that's going
to happen is somebody kicks in somecoin. I don't know, we'll get
six in two years. I ideallywould like to see by by Major lead

(48:34):
cricket four there being three three cities, three franchises with a home stadium.
Well, if we say that Texasis the home of the Super Kings,
yeah, okay, Now where doesthat leave North Carolina, Well, I'd
say North Carolina would be the one. Well, it's obviously something you could

(48:54):
probably even use if you're going tohave an expansion team, but you'd use
those for the shoot ones where thereisn't a home one yet. But you
should really be targeting hard. Asmuch as I would love it to be
Washington, New York and Los Angeles, the two biggest markets, you should
be hitting them, should be gettingThe thing is too like both of those

(49:15):
both of those places have sporting infrastructurein spades. It's just adapting something to
make it work for major For MajorLeague. Grand Prayer is an old minor
league baseball stadium, So I'm surethere's minor league baseball stadiums in the state
of New York and the state ofCalifornia that you can use, but that

(49:37):
they should be. They should beoff the ground and running, hosting home
games for the Super Kink, forthe Night Riders, and for am I
New York by Major League four,ideally by Major League three to be honest,
but if we haven't got at leasthalf the tournament with its own home
stadium by Major League four, thenthere's got to be some serious questions ask

(49:59):
about what is the end goal ofMajor League Cricket. Is the end goal
just to put up something in theUnited States that you can sell TV rights
to, or you're actually looking atgrowing a viable product for the American market,
or is it just somewhere for Indiansto watch more cricket. Well,
I think with about that the ipO, the IPL business sense and everything

(50:22):
should be applied to this, andpossibly not the the IPL motives behind the
way that they go about things,because, as you said, if it's
not going to be if it's notgoing to be a fair income thing to
grow cricket in a place where it'snever really grown before, and it has
an awful lot, it's got amassive potential. I mean, the only

(50:43):
needed to see the crowds at someof these games last year where yeah,
a lot of Indians and a lotof a lot of South Asians and stuff
like that, there was a hellof a lot of Americans there too,
So there's just clearly, look,you're to look at Major League soccer.
Americans don't care about soccer at all. They don't. Anyone that says otherwise
he's a news car salesman. Theydon't care about soccer. Americans don't care

(51:07):
about sports that usually like to belike Major League National Hockey League overall,
I wouldn't think Americans in large quantitiescare too much about that, and it's
one of the more profitable sports inthe United States. Americans care about baseball,
football, collegiate football, and theNBA. So but you look at

(51:30):
Major League soccer, they've been prettydeaf with the way they've run things.
It's taken a little time. They'vegrown slowly, a bit steadily. I
mean, yes, soccer is amuch more global sport, whereas cricket is
followed almost as much as soccer,but a lot of its fan base is
obviously based in certain places, whereassoccer is a much more global thing,

(51:52):
which it certainly helps. But theyjust took chunks out of it at a
time, and then all of asudden you've got major League soccer teams in
the run to go and throw humongousdollars at people like Line or messy admittedly
message at the end of his careerand stuff. But if you do not
turning up for average wage man,he didn't turn up a sense on the

(52:12):
dollar. They threw him a heapermoney and so and cricket can get there
if it's just used a little bitof patients, a bit of you know,
starting money to get him off theground and work at that, and
there is a big enough market aroundthe world that you can then slowly which
really chip out, Like I don'teven think it's ever going to get as
popular as Major League soccer. Butif it gets somewhere in that vicinity,

(52:34):
it doesn't need to be it's goingto make a stack of money. It
doesn't need to be. It onlyneeds it needs to hold its own and
grow a loyal fan base within thefranchise areas like in New York, in
Los Angeles, in Dallas and whereverwhere people can take ownership of it.
And the Americans love that stuff.They love feeling like they're part of it.

(52:57):
And that's that's probably the big twistfor Major League Cricket is they really
need by developing infrastructure to be ableto bring the local fans to the game
to watch the local teams pit thenail on the head there, I think
once there's a definite buying from fromthe fan base. And it's not rocket
science, it's the true of allsports. Yet the fans come in and

(53:20):
watching them, they're going to bemore involved, They're going to be more
engaged, and it's just going tohelp your brand grow. So what are
your thoughts for MLC two. Ohlook, I'm yellow all the way,
Matey Texas going to get off themarket this year, is going to get
off the mark this year. WhatI'm really hoping, what I think would
be an absolute coup for the SuperKings if they could somehow persuade a certain

(53:45):
long haired Indian wicketkeeper to maybe comeover and make a little bit of an
appearance, because let's face it,don't need a rock star. He won't
be there until he retires from now. I understand that, look I would.
I'm just it's just spun. Everybodycan dream, mate, like w
w A you reckon just like youknow, one day he just walks out,

(54:05):
the music starts playing. That's it, just throw one off. Yeah,
and he's got he's got his gothis ponytail line, he's got his
yellow cap on backwards and DONI andas Domey. That's what I would really
like to say. And I thinkat some stage, I think it's probably
going to happen, like you saidwhen he was retired. Who knows what

(54:28):
the great Man is thinking at thisparticular point in time, but yeah,
I'm done with the Souper Kings.I would think that from the looks of
things on form M New York isgoing to be a tough team to will
you They are, yeah, Boltnor Ka to go along with Russian car
and they're hitting. I do thinkthe Freedom looking a lot stronger than what

(54:52):
they did last year. Yeah,they didn't have rape season last year,
but I thought they should have donebetter than what they did. But they've
guys like MAXI turns it on overthere. Yeah, you've got Smith,
You've got guys like that, You'vegot all sorts. So it's gonna be
it's gonna be told. I thinkthat, Yeah, am I New York
probably in prime position to repeats aschampions. But I do think that,

(55:19):
and I think San Francisco as well. I thought San Francisco and Washington teams
that sort of underperformed on just thestrength of their respective franchises, and I
think they're prime to have very strongyears. They've recruited very well. I'm
thinking it might be a Unicorns NewYork final just with some of the players
they've got around them at their disposal. But I would love to see Washington

(55:42):
get up there. So and bythe way, I've reached out a number
of times and no one can tellme how to buy a Washington Freedom jersey.
They won't ship to Australia. Socan somebody from the Washington Freedom please
help a brother out. I don'tI don't want to free one. We
pay for it. We will payfor Just tell me where I can buy
it from. I will even travelto Sydney to pick it up. You

(56:07):
don't even need to send it outto the Bush. Yeah, just let
us let us know where we canactually purchase one. I can purchase the
San Francisco Unicorn one for my girlfriend, my fiancee. I should say it
should be really mad if I heardit called a girlfriend again. But but
yeah, I can't get one fromthe freedom. So what's going on,
guys? All right? I hopewe're going to be off for a couple
of weeks. I'm going on holidays. Hope the Major League cricket is just

(56:30):
as amazing as it was in yearone. We'll be back in a couple
of weeks to have a look atall of the credit news that's gone on
between them. But until then,enjoy the time off, Aaron, I
know, I will. Ye.I've got some exciting new stuff coming up
for me in my personal life aswell, so new new challenges and back
into the university grind again. SoI'm going to enjoy these couple of weeks

(56:51):
off to maybe do some work thatI should be doing instead of waffling about
cricket. Until we're back listening,you know, talking to you again.
Enjoy your time off, enjoy thecricket, and until next on Biphonia Hi,
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