India-Pakistan to go ahead and England scrape past Nepal

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The TMS podcast on BBC sounds welcome to 5 live cricket. Phil Tufnell, Tamal Mills and Stefan Shemuelt are with us. We'll talk about the India, Pakistan, Bangladesh news in just a moment. But first, tough as a fourth men's T20 World cup since 2021.

Yes, good evening, everyone. Yeah, it started off rather well, wasn't it? Lots of close games. Thankfully England managed just to get across the line against Nepal. But I've been watching it through bits and pieces and I've been very impressed with the Associated nations and it was a really good game against Nepal. But England will be breathing a sigh of relief, that is for sure.

They will and we'll come on to that a little bit later on. Are there any rules, Stefan, about how, how often this tournament is actually meant to take place? Or is it just when they feel like doing well?

There's never a lack of cricket, is there? We always know there's plenty of that going on. I'd say actually the frequency of the T20 World cup is perhaps one of its only weaknesses because for all of the, the criticisms of it and the problems of this particular edition, I know we're going to get into that. It does feel like a proper tournament in the context of other major sports. When they hold their World Cups, you know, there are new teams, there are fresh matchups, there is jeopardy. And it, this format, it makes the 50 overworld cup look a bit tired, doesn't it, when we know it's the same teams playing each other over and over again. A pretty, a tired format when you've got nine group games. Is it, I think in the last edition of that and it's been a really good start to this tournament. So yeah, you're right, it does feel like there's a T20 World Cup, I don't know, every other month, but it's been a good, a good start. And maybe if there was a bit more space between the additions, we could, I don't know, appreciate it a bit more for what it is.

And maybe the strength so far, Tamale, as tough as I said, is, is the associated nations, whatever we call them now, the, the, you know, not part of the. The big five or six have actually made encouraging starts, performance wise.

Yeah. And that's key, isn't it? I think aside from Amman today, they were quite convincingly beaten by. By Zimbabwe. Aside from that, they've. They've all given a really good account of themselves, haven't they? And that's what we want to see in World Cups, whether it be cricket or football or whatever it might be. You want to see the underdogs as such, upset some of the bigger nations that obviously almost hit a little bit closer to home than what we would have liked. But, yeah, it's an encouraging start and I'm sure. Well, I hope at least we. We do see an upset or two as we go through along.

Right, let's. We'll come on to the actual cricket in a little while, but let's start with the news that developed this afternoon that Pakistan and India are going to play their group match. Pakistan had lookset to boycott Sunday's game in support of Bangladesh. Bangladesh had withdrawn from the tournament after their request the ICC to play their matches in Sri Lanka was rejected. But after talks yesterday with the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the icc, the Pakistan government issued a statement tonight in. In view of the outcomes achieved in multilateral discussions as well as the request of friendly countries, the government of Pakistan hereby directs the Pakistan national cricket team to take the field on February 15, 2026 for its scheduled fixture in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup. The ICC this evening has said it is agreed that no financial, sporting or administrative penalty will be imposed on Bangladesh in relation to the current matter. And an agreement has been reached that Bangladesh will host an ICC event. Prior to the ICC. Prior to the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2031, subject to the usual ICC hosting processes, timelines and operational requirements. I mean, blimey, Stefan, there's so much. There's so much in that to get into. And Lawrence Booth, the wisdom editor, will join us in just a moment. But for people that aren't aware, what's the timeline of this? Why aren't Bangladesh there? Why did Pakistan decide to support Bangladesh? What's India's role in all of this? And if you could do it in less than 35 minutes, that'd be great.

Yeah. Show's only an hour, isn't It, I suppose the backdrop of all of this is the ongoing tension on lots of levels between India and Pakistan, both politically and in a sporting context as well. Second half of last year, political tensions between India and Bangladesh arose at the beginning of January, Mustaf Fizza, the Bangladesh seamer, now he was ordered to be released by the Indian Premier League team Kolkata Night Riders by the order of the bcci. Later that month, Bangladesh were removed from the from the World cup because they refused to play their games in India, replaced by Scotland. A week later, Pakistan said they would not boycott the tournament in solidarity with Bangladesh, but they would not play that game against India, which is due to take place this weekend on Sunday. Remember, there's the tension between Pakistan and India whereby India refused to travel to Pakistan to play in the Champions Trophy last year, resulting in this hybrid model of games if either country is hosting an ICC tournament. That's why we've got games in India and Sri Lanka in this World cup, resulting in everything that you have just describ leading to the game on Sunday. Now, probably, hopefully, we think, going ahead.

I mean, there are all sorts of other things here. So, for example, no Pakistan player has played in the IPL since 2009. That's right, isn't it, Stefan?

Yep, that's right.

So. And that was after Pakistan's Foreign Ministry deemed it was unsafe for their cricketers to travel to India in the wake of the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. And Lawrence, welcome to the show. And it's not, you know, to try and unpick the political situation between Pakistan and India is not what we're here to do, but what I suppose, and I'm sure not what any of us would really want to do either. But what has happened over the last few years, and Michael Atherton wrote about this over the course of the last week, is cricket has somehow become more and more politicized in a way that it seemingly has been allowed to be, and nobody's really standing up to it. Is that how it feels?

I mean, Indian cricket is now one of the most politicized sports in the world. The former head who recently became head of the ICC is Jay Shah, who is the son of India's second most powerful politician. Amit Shah. And the BJP have got their claws into the bcci, the Indian Board, the bjp, of course, being the ruling government in India. So everything, every decision that is made now at BCCI level is effectively run through the BJP because they understand the power of cricket. Cricket is. People say it's a religion in India. It's become sort of a political entity as well. It's more than a pawn on a chessboard, it's a rook, if you like. It's an incredibly powerful bargaining chip for Indian politicians. So you have to understand everything with that context. And of course, the terrorist attack in Kashmir last year further inflamed the sort of tensions between India and Pakistan. And that led to the Indian players refusing to shake the hands of the Pakistanis during the Champions Trophy game in Dubai. And that was just another staging post on the, on the tensions between the two countries. So this isn't the end of the story. It's a good development if indeed they do play each other in Colombia on Sunday. But it's going to run and run, I suspect, because politics is now an integral part of cricket.

Do you think that with only 12 Test playing nations that cricket will become unsustainable if three of them are constantly unable to play against each other without the machinations that we've seen over the last month?

Well, it's shown how fragile the cricketing ecosystem is. I mean, monopolies don't always end well and that's what we've got with cricket at the moment. India generate roughly 80 to 85% of global broadcast revenue. So that's why they argue that they should withdraw the most from the central ICC pot. And of course this leaves the rest of the countries scrabbling for money. So while all the decisions are made by India because they're the most powerful nation and all the other countries have to fall into line with them, and while they refuse to be a bit more equitable with the revenue model, if you like, we're not going to make any progress. The cricket will keep going. It's just to what degree it will be continue to be politicized and whether other countries have the backbone to stand up to India. It's been interesting actually that Pakistan and Bangladesh have taken this stance over the last couple of weeks and they've had some success with it. Let's be honest, Bangladesh, you just read out the statement earlier. Bangladesh seemed to be given an extra tournament before co hosting the 2031 World cup with India. And Pakistan are now making noises about saying that they're protecting the spirit of cricket. They're trying to come out of this as the, as the saviors of cricket. I mean, they were the ones who threatened to withdraw in the first place. But you know, it'll still be political because both sides will still try to weaponize what's happened this week. And what will happen the result On Sunday will be huge as well. We'll keep going. It'll be unsatisfactory until cricket is governed properly. And I don't see that changing.

Even Phil, from your traveling. They are all powerful, aren't they?

Well, it seems to be, doesn't it? It seems to be that they hold all the aces, doesn't it? I'm just going to ask Lawrence there, actually. When you say if people have a backbone, what does that look like? How does that sort of happen?

Well, it's saying that one country can't make all the decisions while accepting the basic fact that India do hold all the aces and generate most of the money. It's appealing to their better nature and saying, look, the game can't be run properly if every decision is made for the benefit of India. As we saw with the Champions Trophy last year, for example, when Stefan alluded to, you know, they decided they didn't want to play in Pakistan for understandable political reasons. But all the other countries had to then fly between Pakistan and the uae. India got to stay in the same place. They won the tournament, probably the best team anyway. When Bangladesh raised a similar issue ahead of this World cup, they're simply kicked out. So there's a sort of sense of double standards, which is what Pakistan have alluded to. It's England and Australia essentially, who are the only two countries who are capable of challenging India on any political decision and saying, look, let's try and we accept you are the power brokers, but let's try and be a bit more equitable. Let's spread the money. Everyone will benefit if we do that.

Do they challenge them? Lawrence, are you aware of it?

No, they don't. They've taken a very pragmatic path of least resistance. That's their central position. Don't upset India. The ECB are hell bent on getting Indian players in the hundred. That's their great dream because the TV money that would unlock. So India and Australia are the same. An Indian visit pays the piper. Basically it keeps cricket, Australia, their heads above water as well as the Ashes. Those are the two big series. So you don't upset India for those reasons. So that's why I'm interested in the fact that Pakistan and Bangladesh appear to have wrung some concessions out of the Indian dominated icc.

Timal, you're obviously aware of the power that Indian cricket has when you travel around the world, globally in these franchise tournaments.

Yeah, absolutely. They're pretty much entrenched in, well, it's growing kind of year by year, isn't it I'm obviously somebody that plays franchise cricket for a living and more and more of those franchises are opening up to foreign investment and by foreign investment that is often Indian investment, isn't it? So yeah, you start to see the same people operating around the leagues and when you start, when you buy a team in the new league, you have to incorporate a new company in a new country. So you know, to pay players out of and you know, it reaches farther, farther than just cricket and those teams then established further connections in, you know, the different countries. And yeah, I've been caught trying to get, you know, trying to get visas and flying to South Africa. I, I was delayed going to SA20 because we couldn't get my visa through in time. And then you're having to get your team to, you know, call on favors, you know, from within their own infrastructure to get your visa done quickly. So yeah, look, politics and sport is always intertwined but it's certainly no different in cricket and it's only getting more and more that way.

Steffen, are there any concerns domestically that the change in ownership of various hundred teams and also stakes in counties could lead to greater political issues within the domestic game?

It's certainly been raised and the ECB have been asked actually what is going to happen with the. Well, there's 400 teams that are now affiliated to teams from the IPL and Hampshire have been taken over as well by the, the owners of the, of the Delhi Capitals and this point was put to them. If, if Pakistan players are not allowed to, to play in the IPL then is that by extension mean that Pakistani players are not going to be chosen by those teams in Indian ownership? In England the ECB have said no, we're going to keep an eye on that because we do have anti discrimination rules that will be applied if we think that is not happening. Last year from memory, I don't think there are any Pakistan players in the squad to the men's hundred, but a couple were picked up later on as replacements. It's slightly different in the women's hundred because the, the Pakistan women's players just aren't of that standard just yet. But it's certainly one that we'll keep an eye on. I, I think to, to Lawrence's point about standing up to India. I think one point that Pakistan have probably realized over the past few weeks and, and days is that India still needs someone to play against if they're going to make all this money from, from TV deals and particularly the Indian TV deal, which is what I mean, the Indian domestic TV deal, which is the most lucrative in the world, while the most. The biggest part of that is a game between India and Pakistan in an ICC event. And maybe Pakistan have realized after being marginalized for so long that they've got quite a big chip to play. And if they refuse to play India, then the money from that broadcast deal diminishes pretty quickly. And maybe the rest of the world might take a little bit of a lesson from that in that India needs them just as much as they need India.

It's a valid theory, Lawrence, isn't it?

Absolutely. I mean, look, as soon as Pakistan said, we're not going to play this game, people started calculating what that meant to. What loss that would mean to the global cricket economy. And the figure that was doing the rounds was 250 million US. You know, you take that game away, the TV revenue suffers all sorts of aspects of cricket economy.

Sorry, that one, that one men's T20 game at this World cup would. Would take out $250 million.

That was the figure that people were saying.

And that is, you could understand why we've had four of these blooming things in five years.

That's exactly right.

Look, I mean, it's money, money, money.

It's all about monetizing that game. And that is why the ICC have routinely drawn India and Pakistan in the same group at global events. You know, it's fixed every single time. And cricket just nods along because they know that they need that money. And don't forget that the ICC need this money. The ICC then have a sort of central pool, and every year they redistribute that money to their members. And at the moment, India get nearly two fifths of the entire pot. So that's about 230 million US a year. Now Pakistan get 5.75%. That's 34.5 million. That is about a seventh of what India get. It's the fourth most behind India, Australia and England. Clearly, as Stefan says, Pakistan dawned on them that they're actually more important than a lot of people have said. People say, oh, it's a failing state. They're shoved to one side by India. They're being bullied, they're being humiliated, and yet they have their one half of the most crucial fixture in world cricket. If they pull out, they'd hurt themselves and they'd hurt the rest of the game. But I think they've taken that. They took that gamble when they took this stance.

I mean, that is the game as well, isn't it we know, Stefan, that is the game that you know, if it's a T20 World cup in England, if it's a T20 World Cup In Australia or one day a 50 over. Chief execs of grounds want that game more than they want their own team.

And it's why it's such a shame as well that India and Pakistan do not play each other outside of global events. And I suppose conversely, why there is so much value on these games in global events because of the scarcity. They only play each other in the tournaments rather than outside of them. But you're right and I was looking actually earlier on today when we still thought that this game wasn't going to go ahead the next time that India and Pakistan were due to play each other in an ICC tournament, the Women's T20 World Cup, 14 June at Edgbaston. And that is going to be a plum fixture in that tournament as well. And you've alluded to it yourself, Mark, this is why we have as many ICC tournaments that we do and that is why India and Pakistan are always drawn to play against each other because it is basically outside of the ipl. This is what is bankroll in the game.

So just a final one then. Lawrence, in the main, do you think because Pakistan have realized, as Stefan said, they have a chip to play, that this might change the dynamics? Or do you, do you think that basically the majority of the countries will just continue to maybe not allow India to do whatever they want, but let them run it how they want to run it?

I mean, the Pakistan, India relationship is special and unique and I'm not sure any other country would, would have threatened to pull out in the same way. I mean, Pakistan have got their, they've got their constituency to play to as well. Right. And the Pakistani game is heavily politicized. We talk about the bcci, but the, the head of the, the chair of the PCB is also Pakistan's interior minister. It is, we've got government, the Pakistani government putting out these statements. So it's politicized in a way that other cricket in other countries aren't. I still think England, Australia, to take the two main examples, will take the pragmatic view and say we need India on side for various reasons, let's just rub along with them. We might occasionally say the right thing, but by the by, I think we'll probably go back to where we were before with Pakistan and Bangladesh having run a few concessions out of India.

Lawrence, thank you for joining us. Lawrence Beath Editor of Wisdom with us on five Live.

Quicken.

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Let's talk England then. I have to say, Timal, I did wonder when watching it yesterday afternoon whether this could be a really, really depressing show.

Well, we certainly would have had a lot to talk about. Not that we don't anyway, but it was one of those, I had it on, you know, around the house yesterday. And, you know, Nepal did well until Will Jax came in and obviously kind of accelerated and took England into the 180s. And my missus kind of said, oh, Nepal have done well there. And I foolishly said, oh, no, they won't get close to this. I thought it would be, you know, any, I'm sure at halfway and I'm sure everybody here fought the same. You'd think 100, what does 185. I think that should, that should be enough against a side like Nepal with the bowling resources that England have. But that's, you know, that's, that's the great thing about World cup and, and fixtures like this, where anything can happen. You know, one off game, you never know. And it takes a couple of players to have a special day and that's, that's probably what does. Well, sorry, it definitely is. What sets aside cricket from other sports is you only need, you know, two players in your team to, to really do something special to, to genuinely give your team a chance to win. And that culminated with Adil Rashid having an off day for England, which doesn't happen very often at all in white ball cricket. And we almost saw one of the, one of the great upsets in, in T20 cricket. But, you know, from an England point of view, they'll obviously be very relieved they got through it and, yeah, it might just give them a little bit of A shake and you know, as they move forward now for the rest.

Of the competition, in some ways, sorry, tough, as I was just going to say, in some ways is actually the, the nature of how they won it in the end more useful to Harry Brook and his captaincy than if they'd won it by 60 runs.

I don't know. No, you're never gonna say yes, I'd rather have won by, you know, five runs than, than 50. But yeah, like, you can certainly take positives out of it. I think as a team you can. I'm sure they will. That will have shaken them a little bit and they would be sat in the dressing room after the game. They wouldn't be, you know, high fives and pats on the back and say, great, we've just won the game. You, you finish that game probably annoyed and you think we shouldn't be, you know, that game should never be that close. That's the standards that you set as an England cricketer with, as I said, the resources that we have available to us as players and the expectations upon us as well. So I'm sure that, that, that will be the case and they'll move on and they'll move forward and I'm sure there'll be whoever they're playing next or if that, that escapes me, they'll be looking to, I guess, have a bigger reaction in that game and get back to, you know, the ways that they want to play cricket against the teams that they should be beating.

Phil?

Yeah, no, I, I was just really pleased with the game, you know what I mean? I was surprised. It was two good teams having a bit of a tear up, you know, in a T20 game. And as Timol says, you know, that's that, that's the beauty of T20. You can have an off day. As you say. Aman didn't look like they could quite handle the pace, but I was very impressed with the way that Nepal went about it. You know, they, they took down Adel Rashid who's, who's one of the best leg spin bowlers in, in the world. They got older, Joffre Archer as well, who's one of the best sort of like opening bowlers and fastest bowlers in the world. And yeah, it was an enthralling game and, and Harry Brook needs to go up to Sam Curren and pat him on the back because that last over could have gone, you know, anything could have happened. And he delivered it beautifully. So yeah, I think that will shake up England. But as you say, sometimes Games like that just, they. They just wake you up a little bit. Not that I think England needed waking up necessarily, but sometimes they just say, well, hold on a minute, you know, I mean, we have got to be 100% on everything here. And that goes for, you know, Adil and Joffre and all these great players. Don't think that we're just going to come in here and bully people around because they. Things have slightly changed.

How do you view the backdrop, Steffen, that this has been played up against, with the futures of various members of the England hierarchy up for discussion?

I don't think there'd have been much discussion about their futures if they'd lost, to be honest. Chappers, I think they'd have been on their way. What I thought about watching it yesterday is a lot of what we've heard from the hierarchy about some of the things that have happened on and off the field throughout the winter is this idea of taking pressure away. Often we hear from Brendan McCollum that playing international cricket, there's enough pressure, so we try and take the pressure away from them. And a criticism that comes with that approach, and we heard it a lot from Glenn McGraw during the Ashes, was, if you take the pressure away from the environment, how do players then react when the pressure is at its highest on the field? And that's what I was thinking about yesterday in those last few overs when it looked like Nepal were going to get close in the chase. How are England going to react under pressure? And certainly in that, I think it was 18th overboard by Joffre Archer. They weren't reacting well, but they pulled it back. And Harry Brook played his part. Joss Butler as the former captain, you saw him getting the players together at certain points and in the huddle and having a word with them. And you're Brendan, Brendan McCollum on his walkie talkie. We haven't seen that before, but they were dug out of it by a player who hadn't been in the setup. Actually, he was discarded, Sam Curren, for quite a long time, and he is used to dealing with pressure in franchise leagues around the world. And I thought it was really interesting how he was able to deliver his skills under the most extreme amount of pressure. And there are quite a lot of experienced players in that team that Timal will know all about, like Joss Butler, Liam Dawson, Sam Curran is another one, Luke Wood, who's got experience of playing all around the world.

But.

And I just wonder if maybe that the T20 format is England's Best because I can't think of a better way of describing it. They've just got more grown ups in that team than any of their other formats.

Tamal.

Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, T20 is a format that all players now play 12 months of the year. If you're not playing for England, you're playing a franchise cricket, you know, at the detriment of other formats. A lot of these players in this England team, well, sorry, England probably the one of the few teams now that do actually, you know this. A lot of them are in the test team but they're not. A lot of them aren't playing county cricket anymore. They're. They're playing T20 franchise cricket around the world or they're playing Test match cricket for England. So yeah, you find yourself in one way or another for most of the year playing in. Not all franchise cricket is high pressure. Some certainly is, is higher than others. But you'll find yourselves bowling those death overs at the end of games two times a week, three times a week, or batting at the end of a game to win a game two or three times a week playing in these VAR tournament. So you have that muscle memory, you have those hopefully positive experiences to, to call upon. And yeah, you're right, this is the, the format of the game that players play the most. That's not breaking any news. And England certainly do have a lot of players that you know, have been successful in, in various different franchise tournaments, whatever you think about the standards. So they'll be certainly going to be calling upon that now and trying to gel as a team and dovetail and, and click at the right time and all the things that, you know, you hear as cliches but you know they are true and you know, from England point of view, more than, more than just the players, the coaching staff, the hierarchy will be, will be hoping that England make a deep run at this competition because a lot of people will need it.

Do you have any idea yet what kind of captain Harry Brook will be? Tamal? And in, and in T20, what kind of captain do you require?

Tricky because. No, because. Because the games are so different and the groups of players you're working with are so different. It requires different skills at, at different times. I haven't played under Harry Brooke, I've played a few games with him, not, not many or played a lot again a lot of games against him. I think in my personal opinion, when you're playing for England you should be able to captain yourself. Really a lot of it as a Bowler, for example, you should be able to set your own fields. You should be able, you should want to take charge of those moments. I, I personally don't like a captain telling me what I should be bowling and what fields I should have. You should have done your preparation going into the game. You should have hope. Like this group of England players does have the experience, you know, it's called upon. Nobody's making their debut here. And then I guess it's, it's the environment, how you work with McCollum and obviously we've seen that play out over the last few months, haven't we? They, they, they clearly do work together well and they do, you know, I think create an environment that they're both happy with. So it's just a case of tactically. Yeah. How do you do you get the right bowler on at the right time? And those are, those are little things that obviously they play out one way or another but in a different world. You never know. Do you know what I mean? You, you do what you think is right in the time. I've got a bit of experience just captain at county level and you, you can bring on one bowler and he can bowl brilliantly. You can bring on the same bowler again in another game and it could all go horribly wrong. So it's, you've got to just put as many balls in your court as you can. I think he was actually praised quite a lot, wasn't he? Those few games he did at the start of his career when he filled in for Josh Butler, I believe when he was injured, people were, were praising Harry Brook for, you know, the, the fields he set, the, the, the way he went about his bowling changes. I think his captaincy has obviously only been questioned more so now due to, you know, off the field incidents and whatever's happened over the last few months. So I think, think. I think he's clearly England's best player and best player with a view for the next few years to build around when they were looking at giving the handing the new captaincies too. They wouldn't have given it in the captaincy if they didn't think he was of a certain level of, you know, of how he thinks about the game. That's, that is for certain. So I don't think there's any real, there's nothing that we can read into it so far. And as long as the players enjoy him and respond to him, that's, that's also a big part of it.

Yeah. You are sure about, I mean, obviously you're sure, but because in times gone by, there have been times where the captain has just gone to the best player, rather that. But that's true though, toughers, isn't it? Sometimes? Well, it is not saying here, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, you know, that cricket captaincy, sometimes we don't necessarily look for the, for the best captain, the best leader historically in the past, sometimes it's just gone to the best player.

Well, yes, and mainly because of the England setup perhaps that, you know, you want someone who's going to be turning up every day because, you know, with selection and what have you get the best player because he might be, he might be actually in the dressing room. He's still very young, isn't he? Harry Brook in his captaincy, I think he's going to be learning. It's whether he then realizes that himself. And I think from the, from the things that have been coming out in the press, you know, about his off field stuff, I'm pretty sure he would have taken that all on board. And I think in a funny sort of way, sometimes these occasions in your life and in your career just makes you reset a little bit. You know, he's a, is an absolutely outstanding player, you know, I mean an absolute world beater with the bat in his hand and when he comes off it is something to behold. He's, you know, right, right up there and so he just, you know, he needs to mature, he needs to find his feet as well. But I've seen some little bits and pieces in his captaincy which look alright and as Timhle said, he said it's about now working with the team, working with the hierarchy and Brendan and you know, formulating plans and what have you. But so long as he's got the respect which I think he has through his play, I think that the boys will be right behind him.

I think he leaned on Joss Butler quite a lot yesterday as well, didn't he, when he got close towards the end, which is sensible. When you spoke to him, Steffan, last week in Sri Lanka, is he drawing a line under everything that has happened or is he trying to draw a line under everything that's happened but some stuff is still hanging over him.

He'd love to draw a line under everything that has happened, but he's still subject to an investigation by the cricket regulator. Him, Jacob Bethlehem, Josh Tong about what happened on that night in Wellington, which was months ago now, but it's hungover English cricket, even when we didn't know about it. But all winter it's been there, around the squad and then.

What is the cricket. What is the cricket regulator?

The cricket reg. Why are you laughing, Tamal?

I got a call from the cricket regulator last summer.

It's a story.

Is it a robot? Is it a robot?

That's for another.

Another time. Well, we've still got 15 minutes. I might come back to that tonight. Sorry, Stefan, go on.

The cricket regulator is independent from the ECB and responsible for upholding the values, the rules, the laws, all those sorts of things of the game. And it is the regulator that's taking a look at what happened on that night in Wellington when Harry Brook got clocked by a bouncer, in his words, and when he first told us in Colombo that he was on his own, and then it transpired that he was with Jacob Bethel and Josh Tong and that investigation is ongoing and we could get the results of that anytime. Even though it seems probably more likely that it will come after the World Cup.

Sorry to go back to that. Right, so, right, who are they? Who are they? What exactly. What exactly are they trying to work out? And. And then, I mean, they make it. It's like is some kind of massive, you know, political investigation. What.

What.

What is the point of making this go on and on and on?

The problem is that it was dealt with internally at first by the ecb. So the England management, the coaches, the hierarchy, when most of these things should be dealt with by the regulator, that is the part of the ECB or it's not part of the ecb, it's independent of the ECB that's supposed to uphold these rules. So if someone is brought the game into disrepute from an England point of view, in theory, that should be dealt with by the regulator and not management. At the moment, the regulator will look at the punishment that Harry Brooke has been served with, which was a fine and a final warning. We're not sure of the punishments that have been dished out to Jacob Bethel and Josh Tong. They may say, look, that's enough, carry on. Or they might want to look at it a little bit further. I understand that this is slightly confusing.

It's not confusing, actually. I'll make chappers. Right, who are they?

Who are.

They're normally ex police officers that are kind of contracted, I guess, to like a little side job type of situation where they, when as and when needed, help uphold the. You know, any disputes, any. You know, is that. Would you say? That's about right, Steph.

Yeah. They're responsible for upholding the rules that the ECB puts in place in terms of conduct.

Why can't the ECB uphold their own rules? Sorry, Stefan, I keep interrupting you, but. First time I've actually had it. I've had a chance to talk to you about this and so. Sorry.

It covers county cricket. It covers, you know, anything. Any time there's any, you know, any law break, you know, any disciplinary issues within cricket in general, they step in and they essentially make sure that maybe the punishment wasn't too harsh or obviously on the. On the flip side, or if the. Or if sometimes there's things that are missed by the ECB that they have to make sure that, I guess everything is kept, you know, on the. On the straight.

A previous, a previous criticism of the ecb that it was responsible for both promot and regulating the game and that can create a conflict of interest. So it took the regulation side of it to an independent body and the regulator's there for monitoring and complying with the game's regulation. So that could be anything from anti doping, discrimination, corruption or misconduct or going.

Out for a drink.

Exactly. Bringing the game into disrepute, which could be the, the offense here. So that is what the regulator does. And, and yeah, tomorrow's right, it's normally ex police officers and those sorts of things that might investigate or, or bring a charge and, and decide what if someone's got a case to answer.

So.

So, Stefan, does that mean that then you can't note. Does that mean that then you can't. I'm just sort of thinking of sort of Sir Alex Ferguson. You know what I mean? A man united. You know what I mean, or something. Can't you then do it in house? Can't you just say, listen, it's been brought to my attention, you know, I'm. I'm McCullum, I'm so and so or you know, people involved with England. I've had a word with the chap and everything and it's all put to bed and it's fine.

I guess, I guess the problem is when, when you do things in house, it's easy to sweep it under the rug, isn't it? And if it's not good, you know, if it's not good optically, you can easily try and just, okay, we'll keep it hush, hush, slap on the wrist. But sometimes the punishment in theory may actually be warranted to be more than that and good of the game. Xyz.

And that's what they've tried to do in this instance when Harry Brook owned up in Wellington that he'd been out on that night before the final One Day International, and he had had that altercation with a bouncer. He was given a fine and a last warning about his conduct. And the cricket regulator might decide that is the end of the matter. They might decide that further action is needed to be taken.

Okay, now, I can understand why he can't. Why it's very difficult for him to draw a line under it.

Absolutely. And also questions will keep arising for Harry Brooke until or whilst all these details keep dripping out. So, to go back over what's happened, the incident in Wellington, which took place on October 31, was not brought into the public knowledge until the end of the fifth Test in Sydney in the second week of January. And then details have just dripped out ever since then. And let's not forget that since Brooks Misdemeanor was made public, we've only heard from Harry brooke and Brendan McCollum. We've not heard from Rob Key. We've not heard from Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive, We've not heard from Richard Thompson, the ECB chairman. And so when Harry Brooke in Colombo lied basically to the media when he said that I was the only person there, and a week later he had to go back on that to say, no, no, I was lying. Jacob Bethel and Josh Tong were there, well, he was put in a really difficult position because the full details have not been made public. Brendan McCollum's only spoken about this once last week. He said, I'm fed up of talking about it. Well, he hadn't actually spoken about it up to that point. There is a lot of silence at the moment coming from the top of the ecb, leaving Harry Brooke to talk about it himself.

Anyhow, Tim, Al, back to this call you had with. No, only joking. Let's move on to some of the other stories. At the Men's T20 World cup, obviously, Scotland replaced Bang Bangladesh. They lost their opening match to the West Indies, but they beat Italy today by 73 runs. Let's hear from one of their players, Mark Watt. He spoke to the no Balls podcast about how the squad reacted to the news that they will be playing at this World Cup.

I remember I called my dad and I was like, oh, we might be going to the World Cup, I think. And he was like, nah, these things always, like, sort themselves out. And then two days later, he was trying to book flights to Calcutta. So, yeah, it's been a really crazy week. But, yeah, here we are. I did a chat at a Local cricket club at Clydesdale, and they were saying, oh, what are you going to do when the World Cup's on? I was like, I'm not even going to watch any games because I'm just still so gutted that we're not playing in it. And now here we are. But, yeah, like you said, Jersey beat us. I think in that game we had to try and win by a certain margin. So we went out and played in a particular manner. But, no, we still lost the game and they finished above us. So, yeah, I can sense that the Jersey cricket team will be a bit frustrated, but, yeah, I'm not complaining at all.

You win some, you lose some.

Lucky Jersey.

Exactly.

When you obviously started seeing all the rumors about Bangladesh might not be going, you might be going, where are all the boys?

So what were you meant to be.

Doing over the next month? Because I can only imagine some of.

You would have been playing franchise cricket somewhere.

You've got one lad that's been at the under 19s World cup.

Has everyone been dotted around everywhere?

Yeah, I mean, Leesky lives in Aberdeen. He was shoveling snow. As we're getting all these, like, calls. We had a few sessions because we had nothing really planned in the schedule till Namibia next month. We were just doing kind of, like, fitness stuff twice a week. We were doing, oh, thank God you.

Got out of that.

I know.

We're doing. We're doing boxing. And then whilst we're boxing, like, in between sets, we're like. So do you reckon, like, we're actually gonna go? And then obviously, like, the. The cricket Scotland staff didn't want to get our hopes up at all or anything like that. And whatever they knew, they kind of had to keep confidential. So, yeah, it was just, like, not a lot of cricket was going on. It was other things. And Crosses trying to build his house at the moment. So he's, like, stressed over the past, like, three, four days, trying to get other people to go in and, like, sort out the stuff that he was going to do. Cricket was probably put to the back of our heads whilst the World cup would be going on anyway. And now here we are, you know.

We started, didn't we, Phil? Talking about India and their power and the wealth and $250 million for one game against Pakistan. That's what it's worth. And yet, at the other end of the scale, you've got Mark Watt there for Scotland and some of his teammates trying to sort out their shifts or whatever they're doing to then be able to get to a World Cup. I mean, that's the beauty of the sport in many ways.

Well, absolutely. Shoveling, slow, shoveling snow. And he's worried about getting an electrician in and a carpenter in. I mean, it just goes to show that the, the, the, the gulf between, as you say, the Indias of this world and the Scotlands. But they'll be delighted, Listen, and they're a good step. They'll, they'll, they'll put up a very good account of themselves. Scotland, as you say, they were disappointed, you know, not to be there and they've now got this chance, beaten Italy. That would be a nice tour to get on it, wouldn't it? The Italian tour might get my boots out for that one, but, yeah, so that they'll just go there and they could be a danger to someone. You know, the boys were saying earlier, someone's going to beat someone. You can go over there and you're just there to enjoy it. You're there to just embrace the whole tournament and have some fun and play some cricket with a smile in your face. I can see them turning someone over.

And on the, on the flip side, you have to feel for some of the Bangladeshi players because there'll be a whole group of them that they won't give a hoot about the politics, they won't have cared. They'll have been, you know, some of them, first World cup, dreaming about it, a chance to make the name, you know, franchise cricket opportunities off the back of it. And it's just been, you know, taken away from them for, you know, through no fault of their own. So whilst it's amazing for the Scottish players, I did think when I saw Bangladesh had been kicked out, I thought, oh, there'll be some players there that are absolutely gutter.

And we also began, didn't we, Stefan, with you, you know, you talking about actually where a lot of sports have actually struggled to grow their tournaments and their competitions and still find, you know, rugby league is a. Is a prime example. Another sport that I do is that really they try and do X, Y and Z, but you're still more than likely ending up with Australia, New Zealand, England and then maybe a Pacific island or two strengthening a little bit. Cricket has actually had some success in expanding.

Yeah. And that is all down to T20 cricket. And I know that a lot of purists don't like it really, as a format of the game and that they think that it should all be about test cricket. But if you think in the way that test cricket has tried to expand with the likes of Ireland and Afghanistan being given test status, but they simply don't play test cricket because it's expensive and they don't get the opportunities. But all of these countries that are outside of the test game, that are in the T20 World Cup, USA, Scotland, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Namibia, Nepal, Oman, the UAE, it's an opportunity for them to play at the highest level and they really enrich the T20 World Cup. And let's not forget in a couple of years time, cricket goes into the olympics and it's T20 that's the vehicle for that. And it's only six teams at the moment for men and women, but who knows where that might go in the future.

And the other thing it kind of does as well, Tamale is put the pressure on the established nations. I can remember Phil Jones telling me about playing football for England and playing against Gibraltar and after, you know, half an hour of it not going very well and then struggling to break them down, the sort of panic starting set in of oh God, this isn't going very well. We could be on a hiding to nothing here. It does give you guys a different type of pressure.

Yeah.

And that is the, the one area where cricket is set aside from other sports since it does only, and I mentioned it earlier, it does only take one or two players to do something special for your whole team to, you know, fall by the wayside. You think there isn't really a comparison in football? I think, you know, if, if England were playing what Gabon and Aubameyang's playing, Aubameyang can't influence the game in the same way that a cricket player can for, for a particular country. If, as we saw yesterday for Nepal, if two of those players could win the game from Nepal. So there is that jeopardy in cricket that you don't quite get in other sports and I think that's what makes it so exciting. Whilst, yes, it will often go the way of the, the bigger nation, the more established nation, there is still that chance. One player takes five wickets, one player gets an 80 or 100 that that country could win the game.

And, and some of them as well are, are big sporting nations. I mean the USA at times the other day, toughers, they, they worried India a little bit.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I think they had them 70 for 60.

Yeah.

Or something like that. I mean you're starting looking around there going, crikey, this is going to be a huge upset. T20. When did it start? 2003, 2004 for or something like that. It's it's here to stay. You know, and Steph was saying that there's some people that don't like it. It's, you know, there's been too many world cups. There have been too many heroes made IPLs and everything like that. It's now part and parcel of the cricket landscape. T20. So listen, I think it's a great thing. It gets people involved and as you say, there is always that jeopardy that someone can come off and create an upset. And that's where we started the show, that. But you know, that's what keeps you watching.

And there you go, Phil, with that answer. You brought us full circle and we have a perfect finish and it complements the start. Thank you. Thank you, Timal. Thank you, Stefan as well. Ball by ball. Commentary of every match of the T20 World cup on BBC Sounds. England's next game on Wednesday afternoon they're taking on the West Indies. Sports Extra from 1:15.

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