Project 6.mp3

In this episode of the Victory Podcast, Adarsh and Adam discuss the recent Pakistan-England test match. Pakistan won by 152 runs on a pitch that started spinning on the seventh day. They analyze England's performance and question their approach to spin bowling. They also discuss Ben Stokes' declining form and question his place in the team. They suggest that he may be better suited as a specialist captain due to his leadership skills. Overall, they emphasize the need for England to address their weaknesses against spin in order to improve their performance in future matches. Hello and welcome to the Victory Podcast with Adarsh and Adam. I'm Adarsh and with me is Adam and we together in this podcast take you through all things cricket. In today's frame of discussion, we are going to discuss about the Pakistan-England test that has just happened and I'm going to just overview the test as it happened. Pakistan won by 152 runs and it was a pitch which as Mike Atherton summed up, it spinned on the seventh day. So what did you think about it? Yeah, that was really interesting. I mean the toss was really crucial. So it was a bad toss to lose obviously. Pakistan went in with three spinners. England went for two spinners plus Root so they had less spinners than Pakistan. But the pitch looked fine until the last hour of the second day. So when England were batting, they were fine when Docky was batting, Rawley, Pope, Root and then everything went wrong and it seemed to really kind of turn a lot more. One thing I would say that as crucial as the toss was, I think it did expose kind of England's frailties against spin because I think not all of those deliveries were because of the pitch and I think kind of some of those same questions need to be asked again about how they approach innings, the importance of the first inning runs and also kind of a nuance to their game. The witted of Brook at first looked like, oh, the pitch has exploded. Then you look at it again and you think, oh, that was just a poor shot really. I think Root was a bit unlucky but the ball did turn and the pitch was difficult but they were always going to struggle after conceding like a 70-odd run deficit. Then in the second innings, they topped a few chances which were crucial really. I don't know if they would have chased that 2-10, 2-20 anyway but it would have been much closer and I think it would have put Pakistan under pressure. What about you? Yeah, I think there was this thing of like they're playing on a spinning wicket so we're not going to, we accept a loss. I sense something like that where at least in the second innings, you felt as if it was going one way and they didn't have anything to come out of it which you would expect from what they claim to be revolution. So you would expect some sort of fourth innings effort to do something whereas nothing happened in right innings. If I go through England's batting lineup, Ducat played well and I saw a few people say that Ducat played really good innings and yeah, it was but we have to give context to that innings because right after his innings, the ball started spinning. So yeah, it was not as good as it might look at the end of the day but it was really good still. Ben Stokes, I think he's one we need to chat on today because he averages 10 in Asia over the last few years and I just think that if he's going to retain his position like, we have not got to a stage where his position is in question but you've got to ask the question like how does this fit into the England squad? Is he just a specialist captain? Because as you said to me earlier, I think he is not fielding in slip anymore. He does not bowl regularly and he is quite frankly batting worse than what Jack Leach at this moment. So is he worth his place like completely objectively? Yeah, that's a great question. I think you always think with him, you made a strong case there in terms of not fielding at slip anyway. He used to be a great slip fielder. He was a good outfielder too but again, he's hampered by this finger injury he had and also by his various hamstring injuries and knee injuries. He's fit in terms of that he does a lot of work. He hasn't got any fat on him but these are just injuries that are kind of long-term injuries that plague him and he just doesn't bowl. He doesn't bowl the overs that an all-rounder would bowl. He bowls a bit more like a part-time, not the way he bowls but the number of overs he bowls is like a part-timer. He did bowl a tiny bit more in the West Indies Series in the summer but that must have been, if you take the last two years, it's only really that West Indies Series where he bowled a significant amount of overs. He hardly bowled any on the Pakistan Tour at the end of 2022, hardly bowled any in New Zealand at the start of 2023, hardly bowled any in the Ashes in 2023. He bowled in the first two tests I think but not so that much and then he didn't bowl in any of the last three tests. He didn't bowl at all in the 2023 World Cup. He bowled I think two or three overs in India in that five-test series in the last test and then he bowled a bit against the West Indies and then he got injured again. So his time as a bowler really, I wonder if that's up and with the batting, he hasn't scored 100 now in I think maybe 14, 15 months and I wonder, initially some of it was because he wanted to set the tone with those balls and to kind of lead the way in an attacking style which is meant to be saying forget about your average and just attack, take the game by the scruff of the neck. So he kind of sacrificed himself a bit early on in the baseball era but I think more recently he just, like everyone, when you get to a certain age where you're hampered by injury, you do decline. I think he definitely is in a decline and has exposed even more in spinning conditions. I think he's still got some shots against fast bowlers. I heard the West Indies side wasn't a particularly great one that toured but the attack was decent, the two Josephs, Holder, Seals, Roach didn't play but that's a decent seam attack and he played a few decent innings there but he didn't get 100 or anything but he got I think a couple of 50s so I think maybe three 50s in the end but he looked OK but he did get out to spin against the West Indies as well so I think it's a real weakness for him. It didn't seem to be as much of a weakness previously and as you say in Asia in the last few years it's really bad. He couldn't play Crawley at all could he? I think he played OK in the first test in India, I think he got a 70 and after that hardly anything and here he really struggled and even in the second innings he made 37 or something and there was a lot of, it's too strong a word to call it snogging but he was just playing loads of shots and in the end got stumped with his bat somewhere else. I think his bat was on the pitch somewhere and he got stumped, he didn't have it in his hand and so he was just playing a really attacking kind of reckless way and by that time the game was lost but still. I wonder with Stokes if he's almost knowing I have to be a bit cuter with him and maybe just utilise him I see him like a phone with a low battery and you can't be looking at kind of stories about a cat going up a tree or something or a monkey going on his keyboard or something when you've got to use it for like an emergency call or to text someone and I think with Stokes maybe it's like they've just got to make sure he's in tip top shape for India and Australia and maybe kind of, I don't know if you can kind of rest him but say for instance if they were to team up with a series of one less don't play him in that last test. I don't know how much say they have over him playing in certain franchise leagues but he's under contract now for another couple of years so they've really got to restrict that and maybe they can eke out a few great performances from him on that basis and I'd say on a similar level Mark Wood is like that as well and Joffa Archer you've got to kind of accept that these people are going to be injured a lot and you just have to make sure the games they do play are the most important ones. I know that's easier said than done but that would be my thinking. What about you? Yeah does that mean he does not get to sit on millions while drinking CSK? If he just drinks Red Bull he'll be safe. Yeah so my view on this is I don't know if you remember that ball he bowled to Rohit Sharma right? Like the first ball he bowled after how many so many months he bowled? Oh yeah yeah. Yeah and I was just watching and that just summarises the cricketer that he is and I think and if I had to just say that suppose he continues on with this form would I pick him in the English team or not? And the answer would be yes obviously because even though his numbers don't stack up I think as you've just pointed out I'll get onto the workload later but I think that just the ability he has to pull England out of bad situations, a man for a crisis basically and he's done that a number of times and I think you cannot trade that for anything and I think even in Indian conditions like you said that 70 odd he played I think Bumrah bowled an absolute jaffa to which he eventually got bowled there before that he was looking really good and I think yeah he does have some problems in Asia and he should not get complacent there should be criticism that should be directed his way but if I were there I think he deserves a place but solely as a captain if he were to like completely blank out on all performances is he good enough as a captain to make a side as a specialist captain like Mike Bailey said is that for you? I'm talking in a scenario where he does not bat or like can't bat and can't bowl or feel I think actually his strength is his on-field captaincy I think sometimes he goes over the top with the kind of mentality you know like strange declarations as you know the tempo that's set sometimes is a bit too attacking but on the field I think he's actually quite good with the bowlers and you can see that the bowlers and fielders respond to him so maybe he is I think it's made the decisions made easier by the fact that there are some people in England's side that aren't that great anyway so if you were saying it's a patting line-up of Ian Bell, Kevin Peterson, Strauss, Cook, Trott then you're going we just can't have him in here as a specialist captain I can't drop one of these guys but with Pope but if I had to pick Stokes or Pope and if Stokes only plays a batsman and a captain I'd have to pick Stokes so it's not there are still a few people there that would be okay to drop I couldn't drop Bruce or Cook for Stokes or maybe not even Jamie Smith now but I could drop Pope yeah I think Pope needs to be dropped anyways because what are those performances right yeah so coming on to Pakistan Kamran Gulam like what can we speak about him I think that with the pressure of replacing Babar Azam and and we just covered you know getting on to the Pakistan big I we remember you know the conversation we had last week just thinking about how bad of a mess Pakistan was in and they could be just from cornered from cage they could be cage tigers yeah cage tigers again and they did exactly that and I looked at Kamran Gulam something he looks like a stressed spring chicken and he's got a lot of energy he plays with a smile on his face and I think he's a good prospect but there were some issues according to me like which didn't get exposed in these conditions at the start because it didn't do it didn't do much I think I think he has a bit of a weakness against the moving ball which is going to get exposed but yeah he did really well here Saeem Ayub I think was a bit unlucky at 77 should have got should have kicked on further and yeah England allowing Ahmed Jamal and Noman Ali to get past their lead was was bad for them after that I think in the second innings yeah the same thing again you see Sajid Khan scored 22 and Salman Agha 63 there's a lot of runs which are lost by England the bowling to the tail not being able to get the tail out cheaply and whereas you see England's tail no one apart from Jack Leach contributed not even in the second but that's a very good point because I mentioned earlier that exposed some of the the frailties of baseball and I'm speaking of the batting but it's equally true of finishing off the tail enders they I haven't seen them under McCollum finish off the tail enders at all and they're using revert less so mismatch to this idea of bouncing the tail all the time but it's bouncing the tail with people who aren't even that quick so these are just bouncers that go over the tail's head and they just leave him and and that's it and they keep doing it like they're the great west indian attack of the 80s or something it doesn't really work these bouncers have to be aimed at the kind of throat or the the glove or the chest not bouncers sailing over someone's head they're not going to do anything especially on like a classic pitch so I think unless you've got someone really expressed there's no point in in keeping on doing that but I think it's funny that England hasn't really developed a way of getting the tail out it's interesting yeah they haven't I think I think they should have just bowled normally because at the end of the day the pitch was just spinning like it was raising by the end so yeah they've yeah you you're pretty correct I think whenever they couldn't do anything even in India I was just surprised go back get Mark Wood bowling in the 40 in the 35 degree heat and let make him bowl make him bowl halfway down the pitch that didn't work at all like I don't remember apart from I think there was one Rohit Sharma wicket which came around from this tactic but apart from that that it bore no fruition over five tests so because there's an interesting one in in India till I think it was the fourth test and England should have had a bigger lead than they had in the end and was it Kuldeep who made runs yeah Kuldeep and Zubdub yeah and and I think that the deficit in the end was only like was it 15 and it should have been like a 100 or something yeah yeah and and that was exposed it was exposed um in the ashes last year when Australia needed like oh I think it was 60 runs with two wickets left and they got them um with Cummings Cummings and Lyon and it just there's a way that England just can't can't get the tail in the past lots of people would bowl you know quick Yorkers to tail end them but we tend to go down the bouncer route I think I don't I'm hoping this isn't the reason but in the past where people didn't have helmets and tailenders were afraid of the short ball but this was short ball directed at their throats and their heads and their chest it wasn't you know miles over their head by an 80 mile per hour bowler you're not going to be scared by by pots bowling two miles up over your head you're not going to you're not going to flinch or anything you're not going to play stupid shots and if you it's not I think maybe their thinking is a bit a bit out of date really yeah if you look at the best tail end bowler who's star Mitchell Stack currently how does he bowl yeah he bowls at the patch and he and he bowls like how he bowls to top order batters and with the odd bouncer here and there and you see no no tail ender in the world would like facing up to Mitchell Stack but no one and even Remy Anderson he used to bowl normal bowling to every single tail ender even though he was not very expressive the end of his career in India he got so many wickets and I think that's the point where I think it gets to complacency where they expect to get rewarded for whatever they have done whereas cricket does not reward you inherently for what you do you should you always need to be on it and I think by the end and this is a common theme of basketball which centers around a bit of complacency and I think it stems from that um what what did you make of the Pakistani yeah what did you make of the Pakistani trio who I who we had downplayed a lot Noman Ali Sajid Khan and Rahid Mahmood who basically had the same role as me and you on the game yeah I would like to tell me he hardly bowled yeah um but the other two bowled really well I mean they they were in one way they're fortunate to bowl second on it but they did their job and they bowled much better than the England spinners this is the thing people keep saying oh it's a turning pitch well England spinners didn't bowl that well in the second innings really um not compared to them um and they looked like people who knew what they were doing uh and um an interesting celebration as well they seem like they knew they knew what they were doing more than the England spinners did um and I think I wonder if they worked out I wonder if they did it they had to work out the England bad spin in the second innings or it was just England just played so kind of recklessly that they just had to hold their nerve really yeah I think um at the end at the end it was just holding the nerve because the ball was doing a lot and I think why Sajid Khan was especially he was successful in the first innings because he put threads on the ball if you see his action he he's very pressed on and he he bowls with a lot of energy and that puts revolutions on the ball and and he had energy going behind it whereas someone like Jack Leach and this is why I think England was so keen to have Shoaib Basheer in their team because they expect him to drive the ball into the pitch where so that the ball can zip through of the surface but I think he's been very substandard and even though he got four wickets in the last innings he was not really up to where he should have been um so yeah I think if England want to have success with like how nominally was more often like he got wickets because of the pitch not so much because of his own ability not not trying to disrespect him but at the end we all know that if he bowled on the previous surface he would not have gotten as many wickets which I think would not have been true of Sajid Khan but I think um I think Joe Root would have been a really good option I suggested I suggested this to you as well I I think if Joe Root would have been brought on with a new ball like Ashwin is in India he would have been very successful yeah so I think that that is something where England lacks still they thought that they had someone who could bowl on the subcontinental wickets and get quick turn which was Basheer but they don't apparently by now Liam Dawson still I don't think they'll bring him in no chance no no um yeah Hartley was actually a good one he also seemed to have been dry driving it up do you do you think that like Hartley will act Basheer in the next series or or does he play too much golf no I think I think they just made a decision that they think in the future he's going to be really good and they're just going to continually play him um to help him to hope that by the ashes in November he would have developed I think they identified him as the spinners of the ashes and they're just going to keep playing and they'll it's risky because when you're playing sides that can play spin he got away with him against the West Indies but Sri Lanka played him really well uh Pakistan have played him well I'm sure India will play him well and then I don't know if he'll go into the ashes with any confidence but they brought um Ray and Ahmed into this game and for the for tomorrow's test as well so I don't know if that's going to provide more support um but yeah I think yeah I think they just they I think chief the word he used is the word ceiling he said that Basheer's a very high yeah yeah and so I think they're just going with that because he's only 21 I think he's hardly played any county games I think he played about five or six before they picked him for the for the Indian tour yeah you're correct I think he does look we both recognize why he's been picked it's not something which has been done without any reason but as far as what I have seen till now and what I'd seen in India like he's very young in his career I know but he didn't really look very like polished obviously and even even from what I've seen right now I don't personally I don't think he's he's going to turn out to be what England think he is going to be but good luck to him because I who knows maybe he could people have yeah the spin bowling coach I think Jeetan Patel um the old New Zealand player he was saying that Basheer could be the best the best spinner of this generation and so we'll see that that's just a gimmick isn't it you know I think he said he's going to be like Ashwin I think it was in the news today no no Ashwin was really good right off the front he used to pick up the bits for fun so like no disrespect to Basheer even though I don't really like him as a person also which because he gets too animated in his celebrations yeah um I think we were going to discuss on the important importance of toss in cricket do you think that tosses should be as important as they are right now I think that I think as a purely from a cricket fan perspective I think it's unfair that a toss a purely luck thing can have such a big impact on your game but if I were supporting a team and I've seen so many people trying to justify that in and lost oh because toss was so are you just going to accept your team losing because they lost the toss then what's the point of even playing the game then yeah yeah that's what I'm saying that just because I know the conditions are unfavorable for you but you expect your team to do well regardless but yeah I do understand that as a cricket fan there should be something which will prevent that big of an advantage going to one side how do you think it should be solved or can you you have any ideas for that I'm putting you on the spot there yeah I remember Barry Richards said the away side should um should get to get the choice of what to do at the toss yeah but it was a suggestion to just stop just stop them some teams producing pitches that were too ambitious and contagious to them um so that was that was one original idea um but sometimes you know sometimes people get the toss wrong and that can that can be you know you know equally as bad um so sometimes it's not always obvious what the best thing to do with the toss is yeah that's what I'm saying like I guarantee like in India 90% of the time if you're going to bat for two days it's going to spin from day three and you're you're going to like unless you're going to have some sort of big comeback or you're India you're not going to win that test 90% of the time so it's heavily dependent on toss and like like it happened India chose to bat against New Zealand that day which we're going to come on later because of that very reason that they thought that the ball session will be a bit nippy and after that you'll get lapped like it did and they're going to score plenty of runs but as it turned out the pitch had way too much venom in it so we can't really judge the pitch even the best of curators can't judge what what the pitch is going to do so I don't really think they have a solution there and we're just going to have to roll with it and try to make host boards produce more cricket friendly pitches rather than WTC friendly pitches. What was interesting was the amount of people on Twitter who were talking about whether they'd always call heads or tails that was quite interesting and apparently Stokes always does tails because because of this rhyme tails never fails but we've lost on our seven tosses so you toss tails sometimes. Yeah I don't think there's any merit to calling tails or heads and it does not matter MS Dhoni I think has a 80% success record in all tosses you go and ask him what he does he just goes and says whatever he feels like so it's not something which is magic you just there's nothing to a toss basically it's just an added event. I think in football also they have a toss but it does not matter all that much. Yeah it doesn't matter it's just the end so it doesn't really matter which end you start at. I think Pakistan did this interesting trick I don't know if Imran Khan was captain but he sent out his luckiest player at the toss. Yeah yeah Kohli also did that. Yeah so looking up to the decider I think it's in Rawalpindi and they've already started the industrial sized fans on it but it looks like concrete to me how is it ever going to turn I think you could have it have the fans running for 51 years and training all of Pakistan's industrial output but it would not do a single thing to that pitch according to me it's just so flat I feel having another 800 there's a possibility of another 800 900. You don't think the toss will be as crucial in this game? I think it will be but I think it will only start spinning at best after day four. Okay so really I mean if you had to really if the team bet in second that not surpassed the team who betted first then they could still actually win that match it's not going to be you know Chairman said that we should toss one at one time. No no no I don't think so I think the pitch is I don't think I think this could be a no result this could be a draw even though Baz hates them and then I could be and then I could be a genius and say that I I said one one yeah I think I think that is a very real possibility if you saw the how the dryers were going on I don't know what they expect out of just trying the pitch like that it it boils down in India at 40 degrees but unless you just you actively do not water it for four five months it does not do anything so yeah I think they're just preparing it for their spinners and I expect this honestly to be a draw what about you? I've got a feeling whoever whoever wins a toss and bets first will win I just got that feeling but I have to wake up at 5 30 see who wins a toss and give you my prediction but I think as I predicted England 2-1 I'll have to speak to that yeah I think that that's a fair assessment you and I like come on England so you say um what are the things we have to look forward to in that test uh come let's say you've got Rehan Ahmed playing he's coming yeah Rehan Ahmed yeah we could discuss Rehan Ahmed I think I looked at him in India and he and he looked like he's very passionate about everything he does whenever he got out he was like really angry and he was he used to bowl and and he doesn't he's not really uh shame one but he he wants to he thinks he's shame one and that can be beneficial sometimes and yeah I think I have I think I have somewhere the ECB uploaded that maybe yeah I think he does not turn the ball a lot I think he bowls really quickly and and a bit like a bit like Noman and a bit like Noman Ali so he might be successful but is he really the best option England have again I think it's the idea of the feeling isn't it um but probably his brother's really good I think Bashir has a higher feeling than Rehan Ahmed and I don't really like Bashir so you know probably Rehan Ahmed's brother's really good he's only 16 he's already he's already played oh I didn't know that yeah so he might be the best one of our three young spinners so let him in like he's young if he plays golf then he should be in I think the funny thing is that about Rehan Ahmed he he had sometimes a lot of people thought he was more of a batter than a bowler he's an all-rounder at Leicester I think he bats at six so I wonder I wonder if he's more of a batsman that bowls did England play more of as a bowler who bats yeah I see what we have to see yeah I see him as a bowler who bats because there's definitely he's not a batter who bowls and if you looked at the series earlier it does not look that way either England has picked three spinners and two pacers and I think that's the wrong combination because if Pakistan go in win the DOS and choose to bat then you're going to have a hard three four two days because Pakistan's going to bat two days on it and you can't and then Stokes will have to put in a shift which I think will be detrimental to the team and I just think that they should have picked one more seamer in there what do you think yeah I was see because three spinners were really reliable yeah say there's an argument for those three spinners but they're not really so they could have gone for someone like um Kass because I think they rested Kass down they brought Atkinson back and so yeah that's all I just I suppose it depends so much on the task and if if England pull up a big score batting first and it kind of um it goes the way that Pakistan having to to to block to block out the last day or to chase I don't know 350 on the last day they could crack under pressure um but it just depends on the task there yeah I think there's going to be a lot of those work calls over that's going to be needed to be bold and I don't think that there's people in there who are going to bowl that and as I said according to me it won't spin if someone can bat like for four days it won't spin so so if they don't have an like three paces then it's going to be a hard job for them yeah no definitely the thing is I wonder if if the management or scopes are kind of almost kidding themselves about how many overs he can bowl because he's got strapping on his knee he had a head strapping on his hamstring as well in the other game and in in the end he he didn't bowl that many overs so it's funny to think that he's all of a sudden going to start bowling loads of overs in this test isn't it really maybe he'll open he'll open the bowl in a few hours and then dole a bit is it reverse swing either is it so he's not going to get any reverse swing there either yeah so Crawley and Stokes opening the bowling how does that yeah yeah I think I think that um well if if they're going to if they're going to bat first then they'll have to bat for three and a half days that's just it for me bat three and a half days and after that you'll start spinning because you you cannot and I'm being honest it sounds like a joke but if you're going to bat for two days then you would expect that from the third day to spin a bit but I can promise you that once Pakistan see that two days have been gone and they have an opportunity to draw a game they are going to draw the game because Shahan Masood does not want another loss series in his cabinet so he's just going to block out two three days and they are going to play for a mid draw so if England wants to win the test if they were batting first I'd back for three and a half days expect the pitch to crumble and just go through Pakistan in the two innings quickly after that score around what whatever they want to go past 1000 they could very well go past that well um do you think it'll be more exciting in the first test then no no I think it'll be worse it'll be worse oh okay that's a game yeah I just they could have just played on the same strip in Multan the third the third test right yeah two days that's a viable possibility I think they didn't have any other grounds available but still you you could have this you could have prepared for it earlier right why is everything so last minute with Pakistan cricket if you're seeing that the game is going well they just waited who's going to win this game if it was by one run England then they would not have done anything they would have made another set of sweeping changes and made a okay and made a green meadow I am sorry for that I went into an incident so yeah they're going to make a green meadow and try to cloud seed and create clouds above so that the bowlers can get into the innings but yeah that's just ridiculous I think everything is so last minute and yet they have done so well Pakistan and that's nothing to do with the selectors and I put out a tweet before the game that the selectors deserve absolutely zero credit for whatever Pakistan did in the last game it was all of the players and if Pakistan do go on to win the next game which which I think would be a great thing for cricket but or even a draw would be a really good thing for cricket because again England winning would be just we all expect England to win basically so I think yeah Pakistan have a really good chance to win in there if I had to pick out the people who I think will do the best for Pakistan in the next test with the bat I think Mohammed Rizwan has a few century and with the ball I think I had do they have the same lineup I think I heard it was the same thing so I didn't yeah so I think yeah so I think with the ball they are going to Sajid Khan is going to have another say on the game and I think Joe Root is going to have another Lotus match because come on he deserves the Lotus match and and with the ball I think he's going to catch Sachin yeah no I don't really care about him catching up to Sachin I care about that he's going so high in the pecking order in the fab course so that's the problem yeah in the bowling I think England who's going to do best yeah exactly he's the only prediction which both of us have got right like yeah I'm thankful for that yeah do you think we should move on to the India versus New Zealand yeah yeah so I think first off I didn't see the first session right I woke up I woke up at India by 28 42 and Virat Kohli had gotten out so I went to sleep again because what am I going to see I woke up and I'm seeing 36 for 36 for 9 and I'm like is this 2021 again so yeah and I'm just like and I was talking to my uncle the other day and and if Rohit Sharma is going to like he had he came out in the press conference and his first words were that uh it's okay to have a bad day in the field and I think that that they copy a lot of things from basketball and they say a lot of things similar to basketball and I just hate it because no I do not want India to be like that way I want India to be ruthless and have a winning mentality like I remember like you should at least be saying that this is not acceptable he was asked a question that your feeling was not up to the mark India dropped around five catches in the first day Rohit said that yeah well we can you can have a bad day in the field it goes he's like okay but I don't think that's the attitude you want to carry and if you're going to Australia Australia is a tough place and if you're going to be complacent there you're not going to win anything so I think if I were to narrow down it to the first day I think it was a lot of okay it's New Zealand we can have a bad day here and there and then we're going to play catch-up cricket it's because I read I read your um subset article yeah it's very good but you you were very critical of Sharma yeah yeah it's kind of bucked but the trend because before this series there's lots of lots of good things written about uh lots of cricket sites and they were even saying that he could be he could be one of India's best captains um but you kind of disagreed in your in your article yeah and I think that there's nothing to be said about that because if you're going to look at if you just look at India at how they approach the game say pre Rohit Sharma and post Rohit Sharma it's just it's a massive difference right like before like when Virat Kohli used to be captain if you used to see how they played that there was a sense of activeness on the field even even in situations where you'd expect them where you'd expect India like before like how they were under Dhoni they'd go back in the defensive they'd not have slips but I remember a very very good game and I and India didn't win this game this was again South Africa in 2021 so uh then South Africa needed around 50 to win there was Semba Babu Ma and Keegan Peterson on strike this was in Cape Town so they had lost four wickets and the fifth wicket just fell and people thought that India was going to lose very easily and Virat got charged up as soon as that wicket went he put in four slips one short leg one silly point and just got all of his fielders in started chirping and for about a half an hour not a single run was scored and Semba Babu Ma and Keegan Peterson looked like they couldn't bat at all but yeah they had the share of luck go their way and after that they won the game but that's not my point my point is that if you're going to captain in Test Matches that you cannot just rely on being a tactical genius which so it is and he does benefit a lot from that in White Wall Street which he has done over the years and has won so many IPA titles but yeah I think there's a lot of flaws to him and yeah Gautam Gambhir is someone who I need to who I want to address as well because he's been picked I don't think many people know why he's been picked for the India squad as a coach so he he has a very high reputation of going around and saying things which don't really make sense so he used to say that MS Dhoni won the 2011 World Cup like MS Dhoni gets a lot of credit for winning the 2011 World Cup but he shouldn't so he says a lot of those kinds of things and yeah I think he was picked because KKR won the IPL this year and people thought that KKR's win was attributed solely to Gambhir whereas there was a guy called Chandrakant Pandit who was working with the KKR players for five months prior to the IPL and he along with a few other people had made KKR into such a good setup if you look at their team they were the best balance and they cannot replicate that again so Gambhir's role was that in was very minimal and yeah so his impact was just minimal in the in the KKR franchise and he didn't really do anything and after that what happened was that he he speaks very regularly of players being over glorified and in India having individual obsession and he was really vocal about stopping that but somehow he made himself and tried to make himself a hero again so it was very hypocritical in that way that in that sense that we have this ad we have these ads and then that it's Gambhir's first showdown which means that first showdown of Gambhir so it's just like how are you you're being counter-intuitive to what you originally said and he he yeah I don't think that he he is going to be sad and I don't think it should be because there's a lot of time ahead and there's a lot of things which he should do and I do not want Indian cricket to be like Pakistan to just make changes every day but yes if I were to pick someone else I'd probably ask Stravid to carry on which I don't think he was really keen on and if he wasn't I would look somewhere like Ponting or someone like that because Ponting was available Ponting and who was that uh Tom Moody yeah Tom Moody was available but they didn't really want to pick Tom Moody yeah yes what I think when I was reading your article I was thinking that I suppose the counterpoint would be it's just one game in the series and if India come back and win it 2-1 um it hasn't been it hasn't done too much damage and these things happen on the other occasion but that they're still they're still doing really well what would you say to someone who said that yeah so to someone who said that I just say that if you looked at the record like I have said an amount of times that India didn't lose a test for seven years under Virat Kohli so the Indian home test record it's something that is now going up to a legendary status it's going into the annals of cricket history and it is something that I personally take pride in as an Indian cricket fan so if if we are going to lose test matches to New Zealand who should not be winning test matches in India then it is a shameful thing and I and everyone here is not really happy with that because earlier before Kohli you had the earlier one or one or two tests which you could lose and I know that it's a bit of a knee-jerk reaction that okay but it's not because I've seen how Rohit Kaptan and even in the England series I thought he was not really up to the mark and that in that Ollie Pope innings I think he just went back on his he went back on the difference too often and he didn't really have a plan B what to go to I remember like he was like okay I'll just go Ashwin and Bumrah, Ashwin and Bumrah but how much can Ashwin and Bumrah give you at the end of the day you need a plan B and you didn't have that and the same has carried on to now and if you saw the World Test Championship final in 2023 Travis Edmonds and Steve Smith they were just smashing India and it seemed like Rohit didn't know what to do after that and he's a very good captain when everything is going well but who is inside then yeah um would he be under pressure if they lost to Australia or England yeah I think he would be I think in in the most fair scenario he'd be sad that he lost to Australia because we have a World Test Championship final coming up if we get there because we need still need to win three games which I think we should but if if we lose the tour to Australia I think he'll be sad than someone like Rishabh Pant or Shubman Gill or Bumrah but I don't want to give Bumrah captaincy because I don't think he should play all tests in India he's just going to fall apart so yeah that's one Rohit Sharma's captaincy now coming on to the actual players I think now we have to give credit where it's due to New Zealand because they've already yeah Will O'Rourke and who predicted that Virat Kohli is going to go to Will O'Rourke yeah just be right there and and they just matched Henry it was just like all over 2020 2019 New Zealand running through India in that World Cup final so it just seemed the same way and Tim Fowley I think he he was also really good in the first names Henry Will O'Rourke just add Kyle Jameson to that and Ben Sears and it looks like a devastating attack yeah and and I suppose the guy we mentioned I think it was last week Ravindra could be having videos again as well yeah he scored a 134 and I and I didn't catch up a lot with it with his innings because I was not there but from whatever I heard he played really well even though the pitch flattened out a bit he he counterattacked a lot and Tim Fowley did too yeah that that's where the point was coming from right you cannot have Tim Fowley scoring 65 right in in any scenario you cannot have Tim Fowley scoring 65 but yeah it was a successful serving yeah Umesh Yadav did too but other teams could get him out yeah so that's in Ravindra I think he played really well and who bowled who bowled nicely for India in the first names was it Kuldeep yeah I think he came on and he picked up Tom Latham he picked up and after that he bowled a really good spell apart from Kuldeep and at the end it was Jaleza who was spinning it from the roof but apart from that no one really bowled well and yeah do you think um India should have I mean it's a bit harsh to say it because all the damage is done in the first innings but you think they might have collapsed a bit in the second innings as well yeah they did I think they collapsed for 40 54 for 7 and when they were 408 for 3 like first of all like I have to say that that innings from let's just go back a little and then I'll come back to this uh I think Rohit Sharma was really unlucky to get out the way he did Yashashwili as well it was just a brain feed moment and I swear to god when I when I saw him step out of the pitch with 300 behind I thought what are you doing like you're 300 behind you you're playing to save a game and you step out and try to hit the bowler from the rough of 6 and 9 just like what uh yeah and and after that I think who came in Kohli, Virat came in at number 3 and they shedded the ship a little and going getting out at the last ball of the day that's something right that is really I think if Virat hadn't gotten out of the last ball of the day he could have he he's got seven double hundred so he'd have probably converted or something like that and yeah I think in the second day Sarfaraz and Rishabh Pant I think the rain breaks helped them a lot because there was a bit of a nippy period there and if I don't know if you saw the run out chance with New Zealand missed and Sarfaraz was jumping around like Javed Mian in 1980s yes and did they change the ball or something yeah yeah so they were yeah so they were going really well and I think Sarfaraz had gotten out the second new ball wasn't doing much and Rishabh got down on one knee and hit a brilliant 107 meters six six that went down off the ground and the ball had to be changed and what happens after that the ball starts stopping like we have never seen before and and he gets Villarroque gets him and I think KL Rahul like after that you you'd expect KL to like this is the situation for which he's in the team and this is why he's independent yeah he's preferred over Sarfaraz because of this very reason and I prefer him for that reason too that he will do well in seeming conditions like we did in Australia but that wasn't really a very like brutal ball which no one could play but yeah maybe we could say that KL had the bad KL had bad luck but surely man you cannot expect that he averages 30 in test cricket and he cannot go on for much longer if he plays like this after that I think Jadeja had a very silly dismissal and India just collapsed after that and 107 for one what no sorry New Zealand needed 107 to chase and yeah I think they there was a bad decision from the umpires because at the tag end of India's batting the clouds have had gotten really dark as well but India got on and the bowlers also got on and India got bowled out cheaply so when New Zealand came out too bad they should have at least allowed till the rain came in at least what I think of that I mean I might sound biased in that but we said this before that the light isn't for perfect conditions the bad light will came in to stop danger to the batsman so if it's a bit dark and and it's swinging that that isn't the reason to come off is it it's frightening yeah exactly like if the ball's hard to play does not mean that you're going to go off right it's for I think that's what the umpires think now I think they think if it's if it's difficult to bat in go off but really it was meant meant for just purely for safety yeah you can get the umpires taking people off in a spinner balls you think oh this is not badness yeah and and Rohit Sharma and Virat were really angry and it was like I think the last time they were really angry was in 2021 do you remember that game where Ravindra Tareja and Punt scored centuries each that Johnny Blair scored that famous century so they were both really angry at the umpires because they were carrying on it with no light whatsoever it was it was a carbon copy of that but in the opposite situation so they were really angry and justifiably so because the ball was doing a lot the first over after that I think Bumrah bowled a really good ball to Tom Latham and I thought okay here we go we we may have something in there but Siraj I think and he's a he's something we someone we need to discuss upon as well because Siraj blows hot and cold too often he's going to give you a Stewart Broad spell like 6 for 20 something like that every 10 test matches but it is not like Stewart Broad where he's six foot eight six foot seven where he could just bang it on a length and just not get it whereas Siraj gets it a lot when he's not not completely on song and yeah and we just had two seamers and after that the spinners couldn't really do much and Rohit didn't introduce Sushman until the until 8th and 28th another flaw which I think was a very wrong decision and it's been heavily criticized back here what do you what do you think about this yeah I did I did read you we wrote about that I just think that that score was always going to be um too low really it's very rare that someone doesn't chase a hundred uh what's a hundred and eight hundred and seven it's it's you just need like two people to get 30 you're basically there and then the other people can get 10 or something I think I think it's so difficult 150 150 plus can be tricky but I think 107 108 is it's very hard to build someone out for that unless the pitch has exploded or something yeah it is definitely very no my point was that I think India lacked the third femur first of all I think that okay yeah I think either of Kuldeep or Ashwin should have been left out before the test match and uh yeah I think that Ashwin was very introduced very late into the innings and if I don't if you saw Ashwin seen Ashwin bowl in India and he comes in with the new ball and he picks up wickets of left-handers and there were three left-handers in the New Zealand top order and I know that he was not particularly high on confidence but he's Ashwin he has 600 wickets and he should have been brought in earlier and yeah my point was that Siraj I think I don't really know how he's going to fare in Australia because that it's basically a dress rehearsal for Australia even though the home record matters a lot but I think is Siraj going to blow hot and cold like this and he's not going to do well and do you think Akash Deep is going above him in the pecking order I think right now yeah but unless there's still time for Siraj to um to redeem himself isn't there I suppose if he if he's picking a side for Australia now then he would do I think yeah I think he was the leader of the attack net last time but I think he's quickly falling down in the pecking order in the eyes of everyone because even in the I think this yeah the world cup final 2023 he didn't really do much I think yeah so he's going to be back soon I will see yeah Shami says that he'll be back but you know there was this really funny thing that Shami like there were a lot of times of India it's a famous news clip earlier so they reported that Shami has got an injury again and he won't be available for the border the auspicious trophy and and he won't be available for the New Zealand series and Shami came in he posted on his Instagram that these are baseless and these have no truth to them and after that Rohit Sharma comes into his press conference and says that Shami is injured so we thought we all thought that now Shami is going to debunk Rohit Sharma but he didn't so yeah so no one is really sure what's going on with Shami and I think and I think he will be available hopefully for the Australia test but if he is not then I think we have a weakness to deal with the third senior because even if we are able to fit one of Akash Vipar, Siraj or both of them even then we do not have who are we going to play after that I think it's a very thin line we do have a lot of pacers who we can play like Prasit Krishna, Mukesh Kumar, Umesh Yadav is a good prospect if they want him, Ishan Sharma is still hanging around, Mayank Yadav obviously as we have said but you cannot really replace Mohammad Shami there. Will they play both Ashwin and Jadeja in Australia? No I don't think in any pitch Ashwin is with them, it can be either of Jadeja and Kuldeep or just Ashwin but I don't really see all three of them or all two of them Jadeja and Ashwin playing together because Ashwin doesn't contribute enough at the back regularly so he's not going to be in there yeah what else was there was there in the game I think in the second innings who played well for New Zealand in the battle. I think that was just that was just a case of he's really the golden arm in cricket isn't it and he's another person who has a better golden arm than him I think Kedar Jadhav might be one if you remember his bowling you don't remember he used to bowl from he used to bowl from underground people used to say he was really tied on yeah so he used to be a golden arm like Phillips also he used to be a wicket keeper also so yeah a lot of things match but for New Zealand yeah it was Bill Young and Ratan Javindra again and Ratan looks like a player but yeah looking forward to the next test that's in Pune and we are already getting reports that it's going to be a spinning pitch a low and spinning pitch and people are reacting very abruptly to that a lot of people especially from a couple of countries that bounce on anything in the other so yeah so I'm like is there a risk in that though because if it's really really spinning it might equalize the game well isn't it just a flat pitch that turns a bit in the end we'll win yeah I think they're preparing a backfile pitch so it's not going to be a ragging pitch like 2021 so it's just it's going to be like say two days it's good two to one and a half days it's going to be really flat very good to bat on and after that it's going to take turn and I think by day four day five it's going to be nine on it unplayable yeah so that's the kind of pitch they're going for and I think that's good but they need to develop their pace attack and which is why these five tests had green pitches like people were wondering why why didn't we create rank turners like we used to earlier but I think that was the reason why India prepared green pitches preparing for Australia and looking forward I think in Pune so yeah you're going to have that wicket if I have to expect a change I think Gill is going to come back so they're going to who would you drop Saffras or KL I think I think I'd keep Saffras but are you really going to like lose faith in KL over one test like that's a very highly debated issue right now here but could you could you not drop KL Role I think I think they should especially for given the conditions they should be the best team in that that's there but I think if I were there I would probably give KL an extended run and just say to Saffras that just sit out if if KL doesn't do well in the first test in Australia drop him I that's the end of his run he's been given way too many chances and after that he can pack his bags and Saffras has a position for for five years there's a lot of success to be kept up to that day isn't it yeah but I think that KL Rahul I think we have hand we have earmarked him as a number five or number six for the Australia series so if you're not going to give game time to KL Rahul he's not really going to do really well there so considering this is basically a dress rehearsal I think he should he should be in the side and Saffras should take the rest take rest for two games basically are you a bit worried now from an Indian perspective you thought that they'll make the world test championship final but maybe slightly worried that they won't because I think South Africa are winning again today aren't they they just think Bangladesh have got a lead in 80 and there's only three wickets left so you think probably South Africa would win yeah they've got to play Sri Lanka he's also shot South Africa but oh Pakistan so you think South Africa would probably win most of those games really yeah and that's why I said that South Africa had the second best chance after India on making the world test championship finals I think no unless things go really really south for India I don't really I'm not making the world test championship final because they have to win three games or win two and draw one so are they going to get clean swept in Australia or clean swept against New Zealand I don't think that's going to happen so yes so I don't think that India is not going to make the world championship finals but I am worried because I for me the border gavaskar trophy and our home record is something and not only for me I think for every Indian like I mentioned in my article that we do not want anyone to outdo the predecessors we just want them to maintain the legacy that has been carried on us and after that obviously the world test championship final is a goal which we all want to win but it's a one-off test and it can go either way but the border gavaskar trophy and the New Zealand series in hand are most important right now I think that Virat Kohli needs a century under his bed and so does Rohit Sharma because both of them are going to be key to India's chances in Australia and I think Kane Williamson still not coming back for New Zealand who else is going I see Daryl Mitchell scoring well in the next two tests for New Zealand and yeah and I think Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli will come into the party for India in the next test so the ball I think for India I think Akash Deep will be picked so I think he will do really well and for New Zealand I think Bill O'Rourke will continue his good form yeah well I'll be watching the next pitch today how are you yeah no I think he'll do well regardless of the pitch because Kyle Jameson came in last time around and he did and he did relatively well because the pitchers were doing a lot and the ball was going underground so he did well even there do you I don't know um because we were talking I think maybe in our first podcast about the relevance of test matches just just being on twitter you get like a a um like a it's a good way of how people is it what sorry a depressing vibe yeah it's fine even though officially uh the test series in New Zealand is as important as Australia and for England the test series in Pakistan is as important as Australia next year it doesn't seem like people seem to think it in a way that I don't know if it's the same within me because I look at your tweets and you you keep tweeting about the the BDT trophy um quite you know reminding people when it's on and counting down the days and that you weren't doing that about the New Zealand test and then with with the England fans I see on there it's they they were very kind of um relaxed about losing to Pakistan it's like yeah only to Pakistan okay fine and but it wasn't it didn't seem like it was important if you know what I mean it seemed like everything's a warm-up so unless India, England and Australia are playing each other these games people just kind of shrug oh they lost to Pakistan yeah so what they lost the test what do you what do you expect it was it was no there was no like um kind of analysis of it or um even people just being um worried or looking looking for answers or anything it just it just seemed like it just wasn't really an issue and uh is that the same with I can't I can't be exactly the same in India with New Zealand but it has the Australian one got more attention even though it's still a few weeks away okay just to give just to give context before England came into India we had like from December 2023 the Borda Gavaskar trophy uh the advertisements have been going on since December 2023 and right one day before the England series they were still talking about the Borda Gavaskar trophy the England series was India we basically expected and I'm telling you that to win 5-0 against England that was the so we were disappointed the first test went England way yeah so uh that was how that is how well it's built up the Borda Gavaskar trophy and I think it's India's biggest test series in Australia the tour is biggest even though we have not yet won in South Africa I think I'd say I think I'd say every tour against Senna in Senna countries is still relevant for India but I don't really think it's the same for England and Australia I think Australia treats going to New Zealand as just going to the park to play with a bunch of kids because they win a lot in New Zealand and and with Pakistan like you see I think they have a lot of the Pakistani fans really like cricket and you can see that in Twitter but the Pakistani board doesn't really like it all they like is money because you had you know they have the best tour I think England is the best team it's the multi-series that Pakistan is going to get they won't get it for India yeah so they can't play India but they're not paying enough importance even Pakistan is not paying as much importance changing the venues of the test matches in the last few days and prioritizing the ICC trophy as well as champions trophy but this is the thing this is your marketer series you cannot look forward to the champions trophies which like I said will may not even happen in Pakistan and it's a very real possibility that none of it happens like Richard Gould I think he said that the ECB is prepared for contingency options so they should just look at the current series that's happening and yeah I think you made a very very correct point that there's a lack of relevance to things in cricket right now I think over the years it has just been that if you tour a country for a series it does not need any additional meaning or something in the broader context that should define why it's being played but right now it's more like you have to give it context oh this is like that's dress rehearsal for this tour yes dress rehearsal for this tour and I think that's disruptive for the game because you're naturally going to sideline a few series and I don't see how that's going to change unless we are going to have a structured model like you can go back to our second episode in our podcast yes where you can find out what we suggested there I think we also need to come on this topic there was an umpire's call decision and I think that we both agree that umpire's call should be removed from the game um just to clear it up upfront a lot of people are going to say that it's not completely accurate I know that it's 98 percent accurate you have a two percent margin of error so I'm going to ask your question would you rather all balls like the stumps be two percent bigger and all batsmen have to contend with that or would you rather have it two percent bigger only selectively when the umpire thinks that it's two percent bigger because the umpire cannot think better than the technology let's be honest they can't that little margin they are not able to distinguish between so I think that they should for a subjective decision for a objective decision there should not be a subjective outcome and that is my opinion on it I know there are a lot of people who think that the umpiring bit is integral to the game of cricket but it is not it just adds an unnecessary factor what do you think about that I'm in complete agreement with you that the point of cricket is not to kind of reinforce the umpire's status if I don't know that it's so weird like if if the the replays if the the technology suggests it's out marginally then it's out and um if they use the technology it's not like they're saying there's a margin for error so we won't give any decisions we still give decisions don't they so if the decision um the umpire gives if the umpire gives a decision and he's only slightly wrong they still give it to the umpire if he's so you've just got to go with what you see and if the technology says they're out then they're out and there's no I don't think cricket was created I'm going back to when it was created would the creators of cricket have said you if they were given the technology the technology is there to just back up the umpire for the umpire's sake it doesn't make any sense at all that they would have just wanted the right decision made and and that technology is as close as you're ever going to get to the perfect decision and just use it I just don't see the point in just it's almost you can you don't have to mark the umpires down if it's if it's close you can still say you know they umpired well but just give the correct decisions you've got that technology just use it yeah exactly and you know I have another point which I think has not really been explored all that much I think that reviewing should not be a skill thing in sport in my opinion every single ball as soon as it's scored should be immediately checked by the third umpire in the hawk eye and everything should be done in around five seconds like when the bowler goes back to his runner they can just do that in five seconds and I think and I think in that way you can have every single ball reviewed I think yeah it sounds a bit tedious to have every single ball reviewed but with modern day technology it's not really a big thing you have the no ball checked after every ball by the third umpire so you could do this thing as well and I think that would remove one element where the review is also made something of skill which I don't really think it should what do you think about this yeah that's a good point because at the moment some captains are better better using it than others but I think pope by chance has failed with every single review he's had whereas other captains that are more kind of astute but in today you just want the correct decisions made don't you yeah so I'd be happy for your suggestion um I think someone else said maybe it was David Lloyd or someone like that that the if you if you went against umpire's call you'd have lots you might have games where teams are bowled out quite quickly or they get less runs but so what is it if that's what would have happened that's what would have happened yeah yeah it was Nasser Hussain I think that video is shared around a lot where he says that or the margin of error gets increased and then you're going to have shorter test matches but my thing is would you rather have consistency and give a fair margin like you're telling the batter okay you have a two percent bigger margin to deal with deal with it but we are not going to view inconsistency that your mate will not get out because the umpire is in the umpire had ice team that day but he didn't today so he feels like he should not he should raise his finger so I think that should not exist and even if you would like if you have 20 runs less made overall that does not matter you want to have a good you want to have fair decisions and I think cricket does really well better than football because we are a joke in football and failure with other sports so if we had a if we have a working thing which actually does well why don't we utilize as well as it should because honestly we just do a very bad job even with catching angles those low catches why don't we have 3d frames yet for a 3d movement we have 2d frames and that does not make sense it's just at the end of the day what the umpires feel umpire feels like I think that we can understand for sure yeah I think we can get to a position where you have every single element of the game where the outcome I think the outcome should not be dependent on umpires so you can have an AI which gets really well and can do all of those things but the umpires still exist on the pitch to give the decisions and that can be of course double checked by the AI I think that should be the way forward for the game another thing is with NASA talking about changing the nature of the game well Hawkeye has already done that because lots of spinners now get wickets that they never would have done before exactly it's someone like Graham Swan I mean bloody I remember him in county cricket he wasn't that much better than Robert Croft Croft or Phil Tosnell didn't get many test wickets comparatively Swan got a lot more now he's maybe marginally better than them but he wasn't you know like 200 wickets better than them if you know what I mean because he was he was around when the DRS came in and so that's changed the nature of cricket like to be in a good way or bad way it doesn't matter but so that's changed it so the the nature of cricket has already changed so um that's not a good I don't think that's a good argument for for um for keeping umpires cool yeah exactly I think the end argument which I'll make is what do you think cricket is is it a sport between two teams where if one team does really well you you have that team winning or do you want that team to have an external caveat of luck involved where where the umpires biasness could get involved in that way which we want to remove if you want it to be a completely fair decision you should be on board with this but if you want to have that gimmick of human like human element of the game then just go on with it but I don't think that's fair and uh uh just looking uh looking up at the women's world cup I think New Zealand won the women's world cup and it was a really good victory and yeah Australia didn't win it and India and England didn't even qualify you said that was really good of us yeah I think I think I think I kept India and you didn't yeah yeah I I just we are the curse too I just for our audience we have been talking about this behind the scenes a lot we should change our name from the big three to the curse because apart from the jack leach prediction everything that we have predicted has gone completely opposite by till now so yeah India was just carted over by Australia and England England lost to West Indies which I think that was a bad game I don't know if you saw that game but England should have won that game yeah and Australia South Africa that was a really unexpected result that Australia beat beat South Africa sorry South Africa beat Australia and yeah and finally New Zealand just played really well I think it it was not as widely celebrated as it should have been I was talking to a Kiwi supporter from she she said that well there's a bit of bit of celebration like it's going to be on the front page of the newspapers but people are just going to be like yeah it's another day another day there's a the all blacks in New Zealand won the rugby world cup it'd be a huge celebration that's just wrong before cricket isn't it they they just had a huge day in cricket they beat India in a test match in India after 36 years and won the women's world cup against all odds it should be a big day don't you think yeah definitely it's just it must be hard for someone say from India or Pakistan when you look at England or New Zealand even South Africa in a way but they're big on rugby well these are countries where cricket's like the second second sports or even third sport sometimes especially for India doesn't get the coverage yeah especially for England like like you would expect at least till I I wasn't really exposed to the dynamics of the sport like how much viewership things get and I used to think that England England fans are just as passionate as Indian fans and I used to think of that way because I used to see packed crowds but it was only later that I realized that it's only the subcontinent where you have a lot of passion for great and outside of that it's very sparse and just in a specific community and I think we have a bit of time left so I'm just going to talk of a really good game that happened between not between Zimbabwe and Gambia if you're all wondering they scored 344 in 20 hours because we're not going to discuss that but yeah India and Bangladesh where India scored 297 in 20 overs and yeah so that that looks like where T20 cricket is headed to where there's going to be a lot of high scores and honestly if you're going to move to a bowler oriented sport in test and a batter oriented sports in sport in T20s and a middle ground in ODIs I'm not really against that no I mean do you know sometimes the boundaries are almost like devalued in a way when you get such high scores that they're not they're not as exciting as they normally are if someone gets in in this case it was 297 that was amazing but even when it's like 230-220 in a T20 game it's like the constant boundaries almost become like singles and that you lose a bit of excitement over them it's almost like a kind of hyperinflation of boundaries what would you think? Yeah so we had the IPL this year where the average score was 210 so 74 games and honestly watching the game and looking at the reaction from different people we didn't really like it was still exciting and watching SRH go out and start to smack the ball and I think that's what the new audience wants and and honestly I think there's a bar they should not go above 300 let the score stay below 300 and if someone has a really good day or unless it's Zimbabwe versus Gambia we should allow like 297 should be the highest it can go not beyond that so yeah I think do you think sometimes the bowlers have got something to answer for there because it's at least like 10 different types of slower balls um they're not tricking anyone anymore are they you know the type of balls that Tom Curran used to bowl um in Chris Jordan I don't think they're fooling anyone anymore when it's just either like a wide york or all these different slower balls or a slower ball bouncer and no one's really trying to hit the stumps yeah I think that with T20 cricket I think the main problem is that what used to be unpredictable has become really predictable so yeah so the slower balls and all of that the back of the hand slower balls knuckleballs they just don't bowl the stock ball anymore and if if you look at Jasprit Bumrah what does he bowl he's the best T20 bowler on the planet he bowls 140 kilometers per hour length balls day in day out in T20 cricket as well it's only the rare ball that is going to bowl a slower ball or an off-cutter or something like that and I think that's what like as you mentioned current T20 bowlers lack that they don't really want to put in the shift and they just want to bowl a lot of variations and expect to get away with it but that used to be the thing with uh say five years back with Wayne Bravo but I don't think that with modern day analysis you can just have you can just rely on variations you do need to be a solid have a solid bowling technique to succeed in any form of the game and that's why cricket is how good it as good as it is can you ever see a day where someone actually takes the approach they do in test cricket and have like three slips and a golly in T20 and just try to actually get the wicket no I don't think it's going to happen because because if you saw some of those pictures in India they're no it does not it does not seem around here so unless it's like it does happen for a few overs suppose if it's in Mumbai or something like that and it's really seeming around but just like say basketball tactic I don't think it's going to happen in a T20 cricket because you're just going to get smacked for 350s and yes so um just just as a pointer uh what do we expect out of the next test between just who wins for you the next test between India and New Zealand I think India wins yeah I also think that India is going to win and it's going to be a one-sided game and uh I think that we have covered enough cricket on today's episode and if you have got any questions you can just go on to our handles at adarshizit and at cricket ref and we'd be very happy to answer all of your questions I think the way we structure our podcast is based on your questions so we don't really need to I'm not mentioning anyone's name here but still we'll answer all of your questions and yeah it's been a great time and uh we uploaded a little late than usual because we had some problems but the next episode will be out on Saturday or Sunday sorry it will be out on Sunday so yeah and we had a good time and uh we'll see you next Sunday