The legacy of coaches in cricket has become an increasingly significant topic of discussion, especially in light of the recent transformations within various national teams. In this discourse, we delve into the profound impact that coaches have on shaping not only the strategies employed by their teams but also the broader culture of cricket itself. Coaches such as Brendan McCullum have garnered attention for their innovative approaches, prompting reflections on how their legacies will be evaluated in the annals of the sport. We ponder the delicate balance between results and the style of play, and how the ideals espoused by coaches resonate with both players and fans. Ultimately, this conversation seeks to illuminate the multifaceted nature of legacy in cricket, transcending mere statistics to encompass the enduring influence of leadership and vision within the game.

Hello and welcome to the Last Wicket.

I'm your host, Benny.

Thank you for joining us.

Once again I'm joined by my co host Mike.

Hey Mike.

Hey Benny.

And our frequent returning guest.

Very much in demand for the last rigid listeners or so we'd like to thank because we haven't really checked, but it's Ben Bretel.

Hey Ben.

Hey Benny.

Thanks for inviting me again.

Maybe don't check.

I'm not planning to.

Before we get into the meat of this episode, I did want to check in with you, Ben, about how you're feeling about England, how they've been doing.

We reached Test 3, Day 1, Day 2 is going to begin soon, but I know by the time this episode comes out a lot might have changed.

But let's just talk about regardless of the outcome of this test and the series, eventually, how do you feel England have done?

I guess.

Okay, let me rephrase that because I think we all know how England have done.

But how do you feel as an England fan about just the way things have turned out for Stokes and Men?

I mean, aside from feeling really tired from having been up all night watching it, I, I feel somewhat disappointed that I don't think England have really shown their potential in the series so far.

They haven't.

Aside from maybe the first day in Perth with the, with the ball, they haven't really played to their potential, which is disappointing.

You know, they say it's the hope that kills you.

And I think, you know, for the past 15 years we've gone to Australia and no England fan has realistically hoped for anything other than the usual drubbing.

But this time round was, was different and there, and there was some hope and we thought with the, you know, a more positive mindset and the group of players that we were taking out there that, that it might be different this time.

But you know, and especially with, with Cummins out for the first couple of tests and Hazelwood not playing, you think, well, the is your chance.

So it's a bit disappointing that we haven't played to our full potential.

I've still got some hope.

The track in Adelaide looks decent and hopefully we'll wrap up the tail quickly and, and, and make some runs for a change.

But yeah, we'll, we'll find out shortly.

Is this the best they could have done though?

Because you know, you look at the squad, you look at 11 selected for the first two games, Bashir didn't feature in either of those.

And then a lot of questions have been raised about Pope and Crawley, but of Course, that's nothing new for this England setup.

I feel like questions have always been asked about them and they keep performing to some extent or the other.

What do you think about the selection for the first two games?

I can understand why they, why they've stuck with Pope and Crawley, particularly Crawley.

I think, you know, he's, he's that kind of impact player and they, they felt that he would do well in Australia and to be fair in the, in the second Test he, he did fairly well.

Pope, I mean I, I can also see why they stuck with him.

But the time to, to get rid of Pope and, and think about someone like Jacob Bethel was maybe the beginning of the English summer before the India series, not, not, you know, at the beginning of the Ashes series, particularly given Bethel didn't exactly kick the door down with his form in the white ball stuff in, in New Zealand.

So I think their, their hand was forced a little bit to stay with, with Pope.

The Bashir conundrum is an interesting one.

You know, having picked him, you know, he's the ultimate poster boy of vibes based selection, if you like is the phrase I think.

And you know, picked up, picked off a TikTok reel and nur two years with, with the view that he would be suitable for Australia and that high release point and all the rest of it and then to not pick him seems quite strange and you can kind of see with the Perth Wicket why you would not necessarily pick a frontline spinner.

And then again in the, in the, in the pink ball game even Australia didn't pick a frontline spinner.

But then Adelaide where it's definitely going to turn in the, in the third and fourth innings, you think if, if you're going to play him, this was the, this was the game.

So.

Right.

Fairly surprising that they, they just seem to have kind of abandoned that project.

But then if you look at his form for the Lions, he, I think he took none for 115 in his most recent outing.

So maybe he's just kind of unselectable and I, I, you know, Jax is a great cricketer and they obviously like the fact that he adds potential runs at 8.

So you, you can see the logic.

But it is also kind of weird as well.

Right.

Obviously this is a, a Stokes and McCollum led team where a lot of the choices, a lot of the decisions that they've made over the last few years have been like you said, based on vibes.

And it does, you know, their performance in, in the first two games to me has somewhat lacked it, it's shown sparks from time to time, but never really kind of stayed steady.

And I think that's a good segue into what we're talking about today.

You know, legacy of coaches because, you know, as much as the players, McCollum has been in the news a lot, which is funny to me because we never hear about the Australian coach.

You know, sometimes I have to check, wait, who is the Australian coach right now?

He's never in the news, but McCallum is like a lightning rod, you know, he is, he's been featured heavily when we talk about England cricket and obviously now he's taken over the limited oversight as well.

So, you know, and we'll go in depth on it and Mike will kind of lead the, the flow of the conversation.

But as it stands right now, what is your take on how we will remember McCollum now?

Again, I'm not saying that he's going to be done at the end of the series possibility as always, but given all the achievements by this England team over the last few years.

What's your early take, let's say on the legacy of McCollum or just your thoughts on his stint so far?

I think it's a, it's probably too early to say and until, until he's finished.

I mean, obviously we haven't really, we haven't really won anything of note yet, which is a concern.

Those big, the big marquee series against Australia and, and India have ended in somewhat disappointing drawers where you think England probably had good chances to, to win both of those series and, and didn't quite get over the line.

I think if he, if he's going to be remembered as a, you, as, as a great, as one of the great coaches, I think we really have to win one of those, one of those big series or a white ball trophy, but that seems further away than, than winning a big Test series.

So yeah, I think we'll only really be able to assess his legacy once his tenure's finished.

But I think I'm slightly worried that, you know, we talk about vibes.

I'm slightly worried that this England team have kind of lost the vibe and they've maybe started to lose belief in the, in the project and it's that, that kind of mindset based project where everyone needs to buy into it 100% to the exclusion of all else.

And I think as soon as the, the cracks start forming in that belief, then it could all unravel quite quickly.

And I hope it doesn't because I've enjoyed the way England have played cricket over the past two or three years and I'd like to see some more of it, but, you know, you would actually like to win something as well.

So, yeah, jury's out for me at the moment.

All right with that, gentlemen, we'll get into our topic for today.

So just reading about the Ashes and everything that's going on, there was so much going, so much, so many discussions around the world.

Legacy of, you know, the man you just talked about, Brennan McCallum, Ben Stokes as captain.

And it almost made me think, and this is not, of course, an Ashes only conversation, but it almost made me think about just legacy and how do cricketers themselves think about legacy?

And maybe that's where I want to start with and open to both Benny and Ben, both of you, what are your thoughts around how modern cricketers think about legacy?

What are the examples that come to mind from recent past where.

Because obviously, you know, we think about cricket as a game where you're really focused on the next series and so on and so forth, but obviously somebody like Joe Root or Steve Smith, who's been around the block quite a bit, who's won quite a lot, who scored runs all over the place, they are obviously thinking longer term and they're thinking about the mark they're leaving.

So, yeah, wanted to just open the floor for that before we jump into how coaches or captains shape teams.

You know, it is funny that you came up with this idea for this episode because recently I've been thinking a lot about John Wright, you know, because for Indian Cricket, obviously kind of like McCollum for England, Gautam Gambir has been in the news a lot for Indian cricket, you know, a lot of dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, given that India have lost two home series in the last year.

And obviously that is a proud record for India.

I remember for most of the last 20 years, that's a matter of pride because when teams did eventually win that felt like they had to give it their all exertions, everything that they had to overcome India in India and the way that India capitulated, first against New Zealand last year and then recently against South Africa, it raised.

It raised a lot of questions about the team selected, the strategy.

And a lot of questions are being asked of Gautam Gabir because, you know, he was coach during both occasions.

And he's also the kind of personality that attracts.

And even putting my personal thoughts aside, I was just looking at.

Is that a fair criticism to target the coach when the players are not doing very well?

And so I started thinking about John Wright because when I started following cricket, at first I didn't really think about who the coach was for each team.

And it was only after John Wright was appointed with much fanfare, you know, when Ganguly was the captain, I kind of learned what kind of a difference a coach can make, you know, in terms of changing attitudes of players, changing the way people change, the way players and fans think about fitness.

Indian players were never the fittest and that started to change.

Of course, it changed dramatically after Virat Kohli came along.

But it.

Even back then under John, right, there was so many, you know, efforts put in to change the way India traditionally played.

And so.

And he was the kind of personality, you know, who, who, sure, maybe behind closed doors he was a lot more assertive.

But, you know, in public, you know, he does.

He did seem to be the ice to Saurav Ganguly's fire, right.

And to me, that felt like for John Wright to be remembered as a good coach, probably even a great coach, he needed the right captain around him because later he went on to coach other teams too, including New Zealand, I believe, where he didn't really have the same kind of success that he had with India.

So that really got me thinking after you mentioned this idea.

I was thinking how the legacy of a coach really is probably tied to the players and particularly the captains of the teams.

Because we've talked about this before, there's only so much a coach can do to influence the way that a team plays on the field because you can do all the preparation, everything that you can do before the game starts, but after the game begins, it's the players, including the captain, who can make any kind of impact.

So to me, I don't think the legacy of a coach can ever be discussed without kind of players or the captain that he's had.

I'd agree with that, Benny.

I think I've been doing quite a lot of thinking on this.

It's a really interesting topic with plenty of rabbit holes you can go down, I think, to answer the question from my anchor around whether modern cricketers think about their legacy, I think there are two ways of looking at legacy from a cricket perspective.

For me, there's kind of players thinking about their numbers or their averages or, you know, how, how they'll be remembered as a player and where they fit into history, how they influence the, the, the results of their team.

And I think, yeah, that we can probably all think of players who focused on this, you know, maybe gone on too long to reach a milestone.

I think Steve Waugh was a good example of someone who was accused of going on too long to try and get an elusive final hundred.

But I think the, the more important way of thinking about legacy for me really means how a player or coach or a captain's career influences future generations or maybe even the, the health or the popularity of the sport as a whole.

And I think that is a much rarer commodity because even really successful regimes of, you know, great captain, coach axis tend to collapse when they eventually fail, by which point someone else comes in with a new broom and totally changes the approach.

So it makes the potential for legacy limited.

I think the best example that I could think of where a team's created this kind of continuing, lasting legacy is the Australian women's team because they've just been.

Just had this sustained brilliance and culture behind it from, from kind of Meg Lanning era onwards.

And I think that success has been really influential in terms of growing the women's game and the girls game in Australia.

And then that in turn has given them this kind of pipeline of players to continue dominating.

And I think that's.

That was the best one I could think of as, as a kind of captain coach kind of ethos and culture that's kind of lasted and endured.

And I think, you know, then there's some, you can think of players who genuinely change the game as well, kind of on their own.

It's harder than thinking of kind of merely great players.

But in the modern era you've got someone like say, Wag, you know, when openers were expected to be cautious, he was a stroke maker, paved the way for the aggressive openers that we see today, like Jaiswal AB de Villiers and his kind of 360 batting.

From an England perspective, I'd say Kevin Peterson with his, you know, inventing the switch hit and all this stuff.

Adam Gilchrist was another one.

Shane Warne and Murray for the spin bowling department.

So, yeah, there's a few players who've genuinely kind of changed their game and kind of redefined their craft, if you like, but they're few and far between.

Yeah, I think that's a great point.

And you know, we, we talk about players, especially when they retire or they're coming close to their end of their careers.

We talk about numbers and wickets and runs they've scored.

But that example that you gave at the end was, is probably telling because you said Merle and Warn as wrist spinners.

You know, spinners who just had.

Were another class and they just redefined the game.

And there was another one in that era who was, who had 600 plus wickets, which is Anil Kumle.

But he's not remembered in the same way.

And again, this is nothing against Anil Kumle.

Great cricketer, no doubt, but it was just something about Shane Warne and his aura, the way he conducted himself on the field, the fact that he succeeded despite playing most of his cricket in Australia, you know, all of that just putting together really did redefine spin bowling.

And I think Jared Kimmer talks about this all the time where he says in the late 90s, once Shane Warren started becoming big, there were every club in Australia had like five wrist spinners because everybody wanted to be the next Warren.

And so that is a sort of legacy that is unmatched.

You know, no number can, you know, can really translate into that sort of legacy.

And I think modern cricketers do talk about it.

They, you know, obviously in press conferences after a game or after a World cup, they may not think about it too much.

But in longer form interviews, I feel more and more cricketers these days talk about this even as, as late as last year, Raven to Jadeja after the New Zealand Test series loss was asked about it and, and he said, you know, that is the one thing he did not want to do in his, in his career he had never lost a home Test series and he was really disappointed about it and he wished that was not on his legacy.

So obviously these cricketers do think about it, especially after they've been around the team for they've performed consistently or they won consistently.

But yes, I do think like we often judge teams and this is where the Ashes conversation comes in a little bit.

And Ben, curious on your thoughts here, but it felt to me, especially after the first, first Test and the way it ended quickly in two days, that a lot of people were saying the second Test really makes or breaks basball and their legacy.

And to me, you know, just the way you described it, it's more than runs.

It's.

It's getting people back into Test cricket.

Whatever other ways people remember your legacy, for the national team, that has to be more than just one game or one series.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I suppose it's a bit like reputations.

It takes takes a long time to earn one and not very long to destroy one.

I always say England cricket's obsession with the Ashes is slightly annoying because there's more to cricket than the Ashes.

But like it or not, I think for English cricketers and captains and coaches, you are ultimately judged and defined in history by how you performed against Australia.

And so this series does take on a huge importance in terms of, you know, how Stokes and McCullum will be remembered as captain and coach.

So, yeah, I think they'll be very keen to win this test, put it that way.

Absolutely.

I think the one thing is, as we deep dive into deep, you know, we do a deep dive into this topic, we want to just look at what are the factors that help, you know, really evaluate a legacy of coach, captain.

And I don't want to restrict it to coach or captain.

The director of cricket in England's case, in India's case, we should bring all of them in because obviously they all work together to create that impact over, you know, two years, three years, whatever tenure they have.

So as we get into it, we obviously want to talk about all the factors that go into creating this legacy.

And many obviously hit on one already.

Which is just the strength of the team.

I think that was an obvious one.

We, you know, if Bryn McCollum or whoever, your favorite coaches comes and tries to coach my club team here in Chicago, we're probably not going to be MLC minor league level or, or IPL level just because we're not good enough.

So obviously many of these coaches who get, you know, a lot of accolades, and any of them rightly get those accolades, also have a very strong team to, to back that up with.

And I think that's sometimes easy to forget.

You know, it's, it's, it's great to write stories about how this coach turned it around.

But, you know, New Zealand, for example, suddenly produced a battery of fast bowlers, and suddenly there were a lot of competitive than they've ever been before.

So without those fast bowlers, Mike Hessen couldn't do, wouldn't be able to.

And I think that's obviously important to keep track of.

But let's talk about the other thing, which is winning.

So obviously nothing builds the legacy of a team or management like winning consistently.

Benny, I'll bring you in.

I think you touched on it already a little bit, but thoughts on that and how do you see, you know, just winning makes people forget all the other things.

And I certainly have a couple of examples from, you know, India from the past decade.

But I'll bring you in first to get your thoughts on that.

You know, I also realized I never truly answered your first question.

But, you know, that does tie into what you asked about, though, because, you know, Ashwin, recently there was a report I Think this is soon after that Test series loss, India's Test series loss to South Africa.

So he said he never wanted to feel, have that, get that feeling again.

And he had made a decision that if he was to be part of another team that lost another home series, he would be done.

Like he would just retire.

And so soon after they lost to New Zealand, of course he did go to Australia, but, you know, he had pretty much made up his mind.

At least it sounded like he had made up his mind that he was going to be done at that point.

So players do take all of this into account because imagine if he had not lost a Test series at home throughout his whole playing career.

You know, that would be like a trivia question, you know, which cricketers have played their entire career without losing, you know, like 10 or more years without losing a home series.

So players do think about their legacy, especially as winners, especially as champions.

And I think this goes to especially the Australian men, you know, winning multiple World Cups over the years.

Yes, women's team too, but especially, you know, the legacy that they created that even now, you know, the gold standard.

So when these team, when these players are done playing, you know, when, you know, and eventually most of them move to the commentator pool, you know, they love to talk about their times, you know, their days as a player and talk about stories.

It does.

It means so much to them to, to have been part of a winning side.

So, yes, winning is definitely a big part of your legacy because who is going to remember.

I don't want to take any examples of the worst teams around, but how many, like, let's say someone who's played, you know, for about 10, 12 years, but has not accomplished anything, you know, post his playing days, beyond saying, yeah, I used to play for, you know, my country, he doesn't have much else to share or say, but a team like even I know we talked about England not really having much to show for, but I would say basketball does have a legacy, regardless of, you know, their results.

They did.

They may not have won some big series yet, but they have changed their percentages at least when it comes to winning, you know, compared to how they were doing Under Joe Roode, just before Stokes and McCollum took over, they did change their winning ways.

They did change their approach to things.

They were no longer timid.

They may have gone a little too extreme the other way, but still, you know, they were producing different results.

Now, compare that with a team that's just kind of muddling through, players who are just muddling through in their career, and finish with a respectable one.

But who are you going to remember more?

You're going to remember the teams who changed the results, who, who, who started to win or if not outright win.

So, I mean, you think about it, you know, when you started following cricket, who are the players that you started hearing about or who are the teams which are the teams that you heard about?

They never talk about the teams that were terrible.

So it's just an unavoidable part of legacy.

Yeah, I think.

And to build on that, I would say winning, like you say, nobody remembers the poor teams and the losing team.

So winning is important and I think it's necessary for legacy, but it doesn't automatically create it, if that makes sense.

If I go back to those, that.

What I said earlier about the two ways of thinking about legacy, I'm thinking thinking of England's team under Andy Flower here.

Yeah, he took them from absolute no hopers to world number one.

They won in India, they won the Ashes away, and they won the first ICC trophy, the T20 World Cup.

But I think, you know, and obviously that's in the history books, everyone remembers those wins.

But how much legacy did that create?

And then Peter Moore took over and the team were still hopeless.

And then he didn't last very long before he got replaced by Trevor Bayless.

So it wasn't this kind of continuing excellence that you see in, in the example of the Australian women's team I gave.

You can actually see, I think, that the whole basball project, even if they don't win as much as that team under Andy Flower, they might create more legacy, if that makes sense, because they've, they've changed perceptions about how you can play Test cricket.

So, for example, I think teams now are no longer as scared of chasing in the fourth innings as they.

As they used to be.

You know, it used to be about 200 in the fourth innings.

That's, that's too many.

We'll block for a draw.

Whereas England have shown over the past three years that you can go and chase three or four hundred and.

And win in the fourth innings.

So I think, yeah, winning it is important, but it doesn't automatically create legacy.

I think it can be more than that in terms of the influence on how people think about the game and how people ultimately play the game in future.

I think the aspect about winning, I, I completely agree.

I do think it's an important step, but not, you know, not something that guarantees legacy.

And, But.

But the reason I think it's an important first step is it silences a lot of many.

So there are a lot of people.

For example, with basketball who said, oh, the Test game is not supposed to be played this way when they, when they got started.

And, you know, those critics had to just shut up because they were able to produce the results.

You know.

Now, of course, we can argue that the results weren't as great away from home, all of that, but they were substantially better than the ERA right before.

So with nearly the same set of players, much better results is a substantial improvement.

And at the end of the day.

Winning is very objective thing.

Like, you know, you can debate how somebody is managing the team, how the morale inside the team is, because we are all watching from far.

These things get very subjective.

You have to read between the lines.

Win, loss ratio, anybody can go to QuickInfo and pull that up and look at that.

And that's often an easy way to, you know, silence the doubters.

So I do think that is one aspect of it.

And I think the other aspect is the other coach that I remember, which a lot of Indian fans won't remember fondly, is Greg Chappell, who was a very different character.

And under him, India used to struggle chasing ODI targets.

And he told that to captain Raul Dravid and, you know, decided, we're going to first every single time we talk.

And they ended up getting so much better at it.

Of course, we had, you know, the likes of Yuvraj and the hitting their peaks during that, during that period, but that meant we won 161 days back to back cheating.

And that was a world record.

I still believe that holds true.

And so that is sort of the legacy that it created because, of course, later, when things went south, we heard all the issues that were going on with Greg Chappell, with the way he managed the team.

He was, you know, not a great Land manager shouldn't say just you know, terrible for the morale but all of that gets sidelined once if you keep winning.

And I think that's really why winning is obviously a key element.

And whenever we talk about the great teams as Benny was alluding to them, they all won, you know, it did not matter if they had things not, you know, weren't the smoothest in between.

And I read Steve Wall's book, his autobiography many years ago and that's.

He talked about it even then that when they won the 99 World cup there was still a lot going on in the background.

It wasn't getting along super well.

Shane Warren, his star performer there were things constantly being said about Marco.

Even in the War family there was health issues and things going on which you know, concerned the War brothers.

So it just, just brought a lot of small things together and obviously it wasn't like just being determined.

A lot of things just fell into their place whether it's that Alan Donald run out or you know, a drop catch by Herschel Gibbs that you could count a number of things that went.

Obviously the sport is very complex and small areas of luck come into the picture but it really ensured that Steve Ball was remembered for a whole coupling team.

The, the other aspects that we should absolutely jump to is some of this more subjective topic.

So with, with that we've talked about the win loss ratio of course but Ben, I'll let you go first on what else do you think you know, really helps shape that?

I, I think and you touched on, you touched on this already when you were talking about Steve War and, and Shane Warne not getting on but it's very, it's almost impossible to overstate the importance of man management skills here.

You know captaincy and leadership styles are obviously unique and it, it's your job as a leader whether, whether that's in business or in, in sport to get the best out of a diverse set of people and get them all pulling in the same direction.

And the, the best captains and the best business leaders all have that in common that they're able to do that.

And I think one kind of stain on Andy Flowers record as England coach was that he I don't think got the best out of Kevin Peterson.

I know KP was a spiky character and by all accounts quite difficult to get on with in the, in the dressing room, but it, it's your job to get the best out of that guy.

And he was obviously phenomenally talented.

So I think that that's a kind of failure of man management.

I think going, going back a bit from an England perspective, the best example I can think of is, is Mike Brierley, who's, you know, renowned as our greatest ever captain.

And he was really kind of known for his exceptional tactical acumen, but also his man management skills.

And you know, he was in the team almost as a specialist captain because his record with the bat was, I think he averaged somewhere around 20, but he was in there as almost a specialist captain.

And I think, you know, that is his, that is his legacy, that he changed the way people think about man management and captaincy.

And then afterwards he became a psychoanalyst and an author.

There's a famous quote from Rodney Hogg that Bradley had a degree in people and, you know, that compensated for his average of 20 and made him have this legacy as our greatest ever captain.

So, yeah, I think that man management is super important.

And you mentioned kind of dynasties as well.

And I think that's really interesting where you have an outgoing leader and then you have a kind of disciple situation where, you know, for example, is Harry Brooke going to try when, when Stokes goes, is Harry Brooke going to try and carry on in the same vein as Stokes and kind of continue this ethos or will he try something different?

It's really interesting.

Yeah.

And before I let Benny chime in, the one, one other piece of man management that's, that's critical is, you know, obviously like just having the right people pulling in the right direction, managing their egos, their, you know, whatever their goals are, having them all aligned is obviously critical.

And something that obviously person to person, it really varies because you see, and I can speak a lot more about the Indian dressing room in the last decade, but you saw that Ravi Shastri was somebody who, you know, as coach would publicly speak his mind and sometimes it would rub people the wrong way.

But at the same time, that same coach, when working with Rishabh Pant and you know, trying to push him the right direction, was able to use a similar approach and get him to get perform at his peak.

So that's the other reason why man management is so Challenging because it is so subjective.

Everybody looks at it in a very different manner and receives the same, you know, same treatment in very different manner.

Benny, I'll let you go next.

You know, the examples you guys just, just mentioned, you know, Ben, in your case, you mentioned kp, the way KP was handled.

And then my, like your example of Shastri with like someone like Punt for, for example, I mean, these are just great examples to really talk about the importance of fan management because that can make or break a team, you know, regardless of the performances themselves, winning or losing.

Keeping that aside, keeping a team together, making sure everyone is on the same page instead of pulling in different directions or like some other teams forming factions within the team and then it's just miserable and then we hear all these stories later.

So I think it's just unavoidable.

In fact, that should be probably the number one criteria that coaches or potential coaches would have to be interviewed on.

I would assume.

You know, it's kind of like outside of sports too, just in corporate culture, you know, if you interview for a manager position, they want to know your people's skills.

How are you going to manage people?

How do you.

Do you tailor your approach to each individual?

Or are you going to be like, my way is the way that we're going to do?

Which to me does seem from at least from the outset, it seems like that's what McCollum, you know, espoused all these years.

And it worked or works to some extent.

But when it goes bad, you know, you're, you know, all you, all the recent news reports coming out of Australia, like, suggest that, you know, when it goes well, it goes great, but when it goes bad, then, you know, you get all these criticisms.

But yeah, I just feel that it's just an intricate integral part of how a coach would be remembered for.

Because, you know, all the names that all the great coaches that I can think of right from like, let's say Bob Simpson, Bob Boomer, Gary Kirsten, Dave Watmore, you know, these are, in my mind, these are the legend, legendary coaches.

And to me, all of them have that same trait in which they knew how they were coach of a team, but they also knew how to manage the individual player.

They were able to bring out the best in a player.

And I, that's why I give a lot of credit to someone like Ravi Shastri because he was coaching a team that had stars, you know, veterans, but also the, the newer, the younger players who are still making their mark.

And I think coaches for The Indian team generally struggle with that.

But he just seemed to get like it, perfect, like that metric perfect on how to, how to get the best out of someone.

Like, what do I need to do to get this player to perform to the best of his capability?

So, no, that, that is just integral to what makes a good coach.

Again, regardless of performance, how a coach is going to be remembered is just very vital.

One of the other things I want to talk about is sort of the culture that is set by management.

He, I remember he brought along Andrew Lupus, who was, you know, the first time India had a physiotherapist with them, traveling all the time.

You know, they were starting to be actual professional sportsmen, which was obviously a big change.

Then obviously in the Virat Kohli era, the things like yo, yo test became mandatory, so you had to pass them.

I believe now that's changed to a different test, but nonetheless those standards are still maintained and which is why they've set a benchmark of, you know, if you're not this fit, doesn't matter how skillful you are, you're not going to be in the team.

And that is almost one of the conversations that I think Bharatarun was has revealed in recent times where he brought the idea of introducing Bumrah as a test bowler at a point where he had only played a couple of years of one day in T20 cricket.

And the first question question Ravi Shastri asked is, can he bowl 25 hours in a day?

If he's ready to do that, he definitely has the skills.

So that was sort of the standard that that team set.

And obviously that's paid really good dividends because not just is the Indian team, the 11 or the 15 that, you know, play for the India, whether in Tests or T20s, really fit now.

But if you look at domestic cricket, cricketers these days are extremely fit and, you know, they're spending their own resources and making sure that they are taking fitness to another level, not just with the men's team.

Smriti Mandana, there's a really wonderful article after the World cup win where she spent lacks of rupees to create a, you know, full, full training facility in her hometown.

Oh, she did that all by herself.

She hired the same trainer that, that trains India's badminton stars and she had him fly back and forth between Maharashtra and Hyderabad all the time to make sure that she was training for the best.

And her, the improvement in her game has obviously been immense.

So just that standard, again, like Smriti Mandana did not push that down into the Indian women's team.

But the fact that the leader is, you know, or the vice captain is setting that as the standard, that, as the acceptable standard does have an impact.

And some of the interviews that we've seen after the World Cup, a lot of the youngsters, whether it's Aman Jod Kaur, whether it's Jamima Rodriquez, they've, they've said all these things that, you know, watching the way Herman PR and Smriti were working after a T20 World cup loss really inspired them and, and pushed them.

So that definitely is a big part of legacy.

And I think that would have been for the Indian women's team, even if they had lost that final against South Africa or that semi final against Australia, would have gone a long way in terms of how they've changed, you know, the, the quality of cricket that they play and, and the quality of fielding in particular that they show.

I'll just very quickly comment on that because, you know, a lot of what a coach does, we don't really know right from the outside.

We can't really judge a coach effectively because we have to discuss this before.

Only the players themselves are the best, you know, witnesses, so to speak, of how a coach is in the dressing room and how he handles, you know, each player and like, tough phases for a team.

But one of the few things that we as fans can see from the outside and really understand how the state of the dressing room or the state of the team is.

Yeah, how, how have they improved in terms of their, their, you know, just the, the culture, the team culture, that is because that is something you can't really hide within a dressing room, is the way they carry themselves on the field, is the way you see them bonding with each other and during practice sessions.

How are, that's one of the few things that we can judge from the outside.

And to me, again, going back to just the Indian team and how they've evolved over the years, you know, I, I, I started following Indian cricket at a time where, you know, I'm used to people who, you know, players who would escort the ball to the boundary rather than trying to stop it, you know, nobody would dive into, be it when they're running or fielding and then fast forward, you know, when we got this influx of these new trainers and coaches, you could see a change in the way people were eating, you know, players were eating, players were training and how they were also, you know, how this carried over on the field.

And I can't all lay it on the captain because guess who, guess who our captain was.

It was Saurav Ganguly.

He was one of the prime culprits because he hated to run.

And so when you see that as a change happening, and of course, Virat Kohli came in at the right time to really drive that and emphasize its importance.

The way that fitness has evolved in Indian cricket, it's a great example how that culture, that mindset has changed.

And for all of that, it had to be the coaches, not just the main coach, the head coach, but all these fielding coaches who come in and then they get the buy in from the players who are ready to make those changes, you know, make those slight changes to the way they eat when they're playing and when they're not playing, the way they train during the off season, you know, things like that.

And so, yeah, that, that is a.

Again, you know, band management is critical.

Standards and culture that is set by the management is important.

And again, not necessarily this, that would, it's not necessary, that would guarantee results, you know, that suddenly the team starts winning, but it starts with something small like that.

Even take India's approach to T20 cricket in recent years.

For the longest time they were very conservative in the way they played and that changed very recently, you know, where.

And again, the skills were always there, but someone had to step in and say, okay, this is the way we're going to have to play, so let's train towards changing our approach to it.

So it has to come from the top and it has to come from management.

And that's the only way we can see that they are making a difference.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

And I think you can see what you need is preferably the captain, but somebody to lead by example.

I think you can see that with the England team and Ben Stokes, he trains famously, trains harder than anyone and, and really kind of inspires the team to, to do the same.

And you talk about the things.

Yeah, Ganguly.

And escorting the ball to the boundary.

One of England's core values under Stokes and McCollum is, is Chase every lost cause.

And so, yeah, that's, yeah, they, I think I was reading, I can't remember them all now, but they have five or six core values and one of them is as simple as just chase every ball to the boundary.

Whether you think you're going to get it or not.

Yeah.

And one of the other aspects which is in my mind very much tied to the culture is vision.

And I think this is something that is, at least in my mind, a little bit easier to evaluate.

And I say that because we've seen coaches will take decisions, or even selectors for that matter, will take decisions which might seem left field, you know, and, and.

But there's.

There's a certain vision behind it.

They are trying to do something different for.

For whatever reason.

And I think that is one other aspect that ties pretty close to the culture.

You know, making sure you're setting the right standards, you're managing your men so that they're not insecure if they get dropped for a specific game.

All of that is, of course important, but.

And of course hoping that some of that leads to more consistent results.

But the vision aspect is something that I often feel gets talked about quite less.

So I'll talk about the Indian setup right now.

Obviously, Gautam Gambir has been getting a lot of hate and anger and all of that considering the results.

But one of the people in the current Indian setup that I particularly like is Indian selector Ajit, the former pacer who's now the chief, the chairman of selectors, Rahul Dravid, when the former coach, when he was going out, was asked about some of the changes he made as coach.

And the changes included, you know, making sure that we moved on from Riddhiman Saha as wicketkeeper and pushed for Rishabant.

And even when Rishabh Pan got injured, they did not go back to Sahad.

They wanted to try somebody new, somebody younger.

Same thing with our pace attack.

We moved on from Umesh Yadav who had, even though he had been very successful with the SG ball at home, had not shown the same results abroad.

So there were a lot of these players that we moved on in Rahul Dravid's era.

And he was very honest in giving credit to Ajit Agarkar, saying that Ajit Agarkar and company were very, very pushy on trying to move forward and think longer term.

And I think this is something that is easier to look at in hindsight, but it is certainly something that is very important because like another example for Ajit Agarkar's tenure is Dhruv Jarrell, the wicketkeeper batter that India have picked.

Another sort of left, you know, sort of pick that you would not expect.

There's a lot of wicketkeepers in Indian domestic cricket who scored a lot of runs.

But when Rishab Pant got injured.

They picked Dhruv Jel who had played season and a half of Runjik Trophy.

So, and clearly that pick was well thought out.

They had, you know, they had the scouts to sort of validate, validate that.

So Ben.

Yeah, maybe I'll, I'll pass it on to you for any thoughts on, on vision or any other factors that, that you think are important.

I think having that long term vision is really, is really crucial.

And that was, that was a meticulously well thought out plan based on teams of analysts and you know, looking at the data and working out exactly what factors were key to winning ODIs in that modern era.

And they, I think they, they did genuinely change the game and they changed scoring rates and they changed approaches to, to bowling and wicket taking.

And I think that was such a good example of forward planning and vision and obviously it came off just.

Yeah, I think vision is super important.

And.

Maybe the current England team have got a vision but it doesn't quite seem to be working so far, but we'll see.

Absolutely.

I think the one other aspect that comes to mind, and I'm glad Benny touched on Bob Woolmer because it's the tactical in game, you know, things that some coaches do much better than others.

There were back in the day that Bob Boomer used to have a TV series where he would talk about all these tricks and trades of cricket and it would be very simple things.

It would be like, you know, a wicket keeper when he, he or she there is collecting a throw from a should, should have their hands in front of the stumps rather than behind because then the ball travels less distance and then you break the stumps, you know, moving your hands in the direction of the ball.

So it was something small like that which could make millimeter, you know, millisecond of a difference.

But it was small tricks like that which just showed that Bob Wilmore was a step ahead.

Forget coaches, even commentators were not saying that is the right way to do things.

And it did not really become a popular adapted method until maybe 2,012, 2,015.

So certain coaches are just a little bit ahead in terms of tactical things that they do in the game.

And I think that also is something that is a little bit harder to judge because they might try something which might seem left field, and then suddenly the results don't go their way.

So that is probably a harder thing to judge in my mind.

But are there certain coaches or captains that you think were, Were better in.

In that aspect than others?

Are you talking about tactics?

Yeah, just in.

In field tactics, you know, because obviously you can do so much planning, but the game plays out a certain way and then you have to kind of adapt on the go.

Yeah, the biggest example I can think of, just, you know, recency bias, of course.

But Ashish Nera in the ipl, you know, he's.

I was not expecting that answer.

I will be honest.

He's just so involved, you know, because I.

It fascinates me because, like, in, in soccer, you know, you have coaches, you know, on the sidelines, like, waving at players and like, speaking to their players and the captain about, like, what they can do and all that stuff.

And Nera is the closest I can think of.

You know, he's always just like, walking by the boundary rows, passing instruction to the captain and stuff like that.

But again, how do you judge the effectiveness of these?

You know, his team did win the IPL in, in his first stint, I guess, and, and made to the.

Made it to the final the following year.

So there's, I guess something is working overall, though, as far as international sides go.

And again, this goes to the captain, uh, that the coach has got, right, because someone like Bob Ulmer, he had what, Hansikroni with South Africa, and they found a good combination and they got things working.

They were winning.

Bob Boomer tried it with Pakistan.

I don't think they want too much.

So it really depends on the players and the captain that you got because again, on the field, the captain makes the calls.

And if the captain is not aligned with what the coach has in mind, it's just not going to work.

And I think that kind of ties in to, you know, something Ben mentioned about vision.

Because again, when basketball at its finest is everything kicking in gear, everything working together, the coach, the captain, the players, they're all in sync, then amazing things happen.

But when that vision gets muddled, when they get confused, then that's what you get in the first two tests of Ashes, because what they say to the press and their performance in the field, that don't align and the statements that McCollum makes and jokes makes, they don't align.

So it really is.

You talk about vision, you talk about tactics, everyone needs to Be on the same page.

Yeah.

And the coach cannot do everything by himself.

And that's why, you know, as much as I don't like Gambir personally, and this seems like the perfect time to kind of essentially, you know, join the bandwagon and trash him, the players cannot escape criticism either.

You know, the, they're, they may not be super experienced in test cricket, but they still play a lot of cricket.

They, they play a lot with international, alongside international players and against international players.

They play in high pressure environments a lot and they have domestic cricket experience.

So don't put the blame all on Beer's feet.

The players have to stand up and perform as well.

So all of that to say as far as tactics are concerned, I just think that the game is just so much more different to how it was 10, 15 years ago.

We have multiple formats.

You know, we have a one day series happening this week.

Next week will be T20 or two weeks later.

It's test cricket.

And unless the team has separate coaches for separate formats, it's really hard to form like a cohesive strategy.

You need to have the right personnel in place to get those implemented.

And honestly, sometimes I feel leave the tactics to the captain on the field.

The last thing you want is the cogent is here, you know, because I'm sure he has enough players on the field to share their thoughts.

You know, other senior players do all the prep you want off the field and on the field, leave it to the captain.

So I think tactics and just like strategic planning for specific games.

The coach should have an input obviously, like you know, Bob Boomer did.

But then he's Bob Boomer, he is one of the greats.

So not every coach can be that.

So best to leave it to the captain who is in the moment and who's on the field who can make a difference.

I think just to build on that as well.

I think in, in the shorter format certainly T20.

So much of it is now data driven.

Yeah.

As well that it almost, it almost seems formulaic.

It's like some of it, some of that decision making, you know, it used to be the captain and in Test cricket maybe still more so, but used to be the captain.

Does a lot of it on kind of gut feel.

Right.

It's time for this guy to bow or we'll put a short leg in or you know, we'll go to the short ball plan.

But nowadays there's so much data that's influencing the decisions on the field.

It's, you know, this guy's got A slightly lower strike rate against left arm spin.

So next over left arm spin from this end.

And it's, it's all about matchups.

And yeah, so I think, you know, does.

This is a question rather than a statement, but does, does that mean captaincy is becoming less important in the.

Certainly in the shorter formats because, because data is, is now driving a lot of the decisions.

I think that'd be a fascinating separate podcast episode.

But my short answer to that is yes.

I generally believe that captaincy is becoming more managing the team with the backroom staff rather than, you know, the more Imran khan style late 90s where it was, hey, I'm, I'm gonna run the team the way I want it and, and you know, back them the way I wanted.

So I do think that's true.

But no short of the format, short of the format, definitely.

I think less role for the captain to play.

But in, in Test, in a Test match, I don't know how much like Data can help you once you're on the field.

You know, once plan A goes to, you know, you still need a captain, someone that the players can turn to for guidance.

The T20s.

You can kind of like the game could be over in a matter of two over.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

But on that note, I want to spend, you know, we've talked about certain factors we all look at when evaluating the legacy of a captain or coach or even, you know, chairman of selectors.

I want to spend a little bit of time looking at certain combinations from the last couple of decades.

I'll probably give one to each of us.

So, Ben, I'll start with you and if you want to talk about Andrew Strauss as Director of cricket with Owen Morgan and their impact on England cricket.

Yeah.

I think, you know, as I said earlier, that's probably the biggest turnaround we've ever seen from being completely useless at something to being number one in the world.

You know, we'd been so bad at white ball cricket and especially ODIs, and we just always seemed behind the curve.

You know, by the time we'd caught up and worked out that you need to do X, the, you know, the good teams were all already doing something else.

In terms of, in terms of the lasting legacy, I'm just, I'm not quite convinced about that.

I mean, obviously everyone remembers the World Cup.

It was in the history books.

We will remember the commentary.

It was fantastic as a, as an English supporter.

So I don't, you know, you haven't got that lasting legacy.

We've gone back to being behind the curves.

The other, the old methods aren't working anymore.

You know, the other teams have, have caught up and then overtaken us.

And in, in an astonishing kind of almost anti legacy move.

At the same time, the ECB seemed to have deprioritized the entire format.

You know, from right after the, the World cup win, they've kind of deprioritized or almost got rid of the domestic 50 over tournament.

And yeah, it seems like it's, you know, ODI cricket is no longer a priority and you, you reap what you sow.

And so in terms of lasting legacy from that brilliant Strauss and Morgan era, it doesn't, it doesn't seem to have lasted, unfortunately.

I want to challenge that a little bit and I, I mean I completely agree that England's white ball struggles have been a little bit surprising considering, you know, especially the batting talent that they have.

There's, there's no doubt that it's gone down worse than I had thought.

But the reason I want to challenge that a little bit is you talk about data and Owen Morgan was probably one of the first people who had Nathan Lehman just sit on the sideline and show random boards or codes, which meant whatever strategy.

And at that point, whether he was doing it with England, whether he was doing it at KKR in the ipl, it seemed really foreign.

It seemed like, you know, no idea what is going on.

But today, when you look at literally every big franchise across the world, every major team across the world, they are working with the likes of, you know, Crick info, they're working with analytics, they're working with Crickwiz and all of those people who really understand the data behind the cricket.

So in that aspect, and I do think it has a lasting legacy, I do understand from an English standpoint, that may not mean too much if they continue to perform poorly.

That is a really good point.

As an aside, have you read Nathan Lehman's book?

I have, yes, sitting somewhere here.

Yes, that's what they remembered for.

But do you know what else they remembered for?

World number one test side?

Yes, that too.

Okay.

Do you remember what else, you know that's the team or that's the combination that really place an emphasis on inducting youngsters and facing out the seniors.

It didn't happen all in one go, obviously.

It didn't all happen necessarily when, when Gary Kirsten was there, but I remember when Sachin.

And was it Sewell?

I think they were during the tri series in Australia.

They were rested.

They were not, you know, don't even pick them for some games.

And there was all this, it was, it was, there was a huge uproar, you know, like, how could you do that?

These are senior players, these are respected legends, all that stuff.

And meanwhile, you know, the coach and captain are trying to pick a combination not just for that game, but also trying to give some players some chances.

And so it was a clash of this culture and the, the sporting part of it, the sports of it all.

And that's where, you know, like we talked earlier about culture.

They, they made a huge difference.

Sure.

You know, we talk, talk about talking about the number one becoming the number one Test side winning the World Cup.

The performances are the end result.

Right.

Because that's the result of everything that goes on behind the scenes, all the preparation and finding the right players, getting the right combination.

But again, like I mentioned earlier, you need to have the right coach and captain in place so that they're all on the same page and you need a big change in culture.

Indian, the Indian team needed a big change in the way they were doing things and those are the right men for the job.

Those were not easy calls to make.

We knew.

You know, you mentioned Greg Chappell earlier.

He, you know, it's easy to, in hindsight, to look back and say he was like a terrible coach or he just didn't work well, but he had the right intentions, he had the right ideas, he probably didn't execute it well.

And so this combination, they were able to do it in a way that they didn't let the results drop off.

And they made it clear to an Indian fan base which still to this day struggles with placing certain players on a pedestal at the cost of the team.

They essentially showed the Indian cricket fan base that, listen, the team comes first.

Yes, so and so player has accomplished so many things, but how many cups or trophies or top rankings do we have to show for it?

And just that change in culture that they did, and again, you know, we just had the right people.

You know, Gary Kirsten was a perfect coach for Indian cricket because he knew when to step back and not be in the limelight.

He was like a complete antithesis of Gotham Computer.

He, he never wanted to, he never liked being in the spotlight and Ms. Dhoni too, he, he was, you know, being the calm person that he is.

He was, he was the best person who could handle all those criticisms and, you know, like, able to get through to the seniors on one hand and essentially communicate like, okay, this is how we're gonna go about it, but at the same time also take care of a young team.

So to me, that was a significant change in the way, not just the way we play, like, not just the way Indian cricket team plays, but putting the team always first rather than players first.

And I think, you know, even in, in the days of Rohit versus Kohli, I think it's really important for the Indian fans to remember that.

Do you see him as India's greatest ever coach?

Benny?

Gary Curson?

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's hard for me to look past Ravi Shastri just because I, I do love the combination of Ravi Shastri and Kohli and what they've accomplished.

I know I, I know they didn't win any ICC trophies, but.

Yeah, series.

In Australia, that's a big deal for me.

That's a huge deal for me because, you know, when Ravishasri took over, I was one of his biggest detractors.

I remember saying on one of our episodes that he's a glorified cheerleader because he was just always backing Virat Kohli.

And I got the sense that he was disappointed because he just wanted the gig and not for any merits and subsequently, not just the results, but based on what I've read and heard from players and other coaches, I can see the, the work that he put in.

So.

And like Mike, you know, referred to like the Australian series win, especially the one with Rohane, when he took over as captain, like that to me is probably my fondest cricket memory as a fan in the last 10, 12 years.

And maybe when I look back and, you know, and take stock of the last 25, 30 years, maybe I'll put Gary Kirsten slightly above.

But right now I would say Ravishasri is probably slightly just over Kirsten as my favorite coach, best coach.

I think that's up for debate, honestly.

Yeah, that's a tough one.

I, I, I'm gonna show my bias towards being a Dravid fanboy for 20 years and, and say Dravid has to be the top three.

But, but that's a debate for another day.

I think the third, I mean, I agree with some of the points you made, Benny.

Like, I, it's true.

I completely forgot about the fact that not only did they, you know, change the culture and how relaxed the dressing room was, but they started dropping the likes of Dravid and they moved on from Ganguly and, and Kumble and, well, Kumble was maybe slightly before Dhoni, but, but nonetheless, the others, and yes, it was started by Greg Chappell, didn't go down as well, it was handled as well, but he did that a lot more smoothly.

So definitely a defining moment and defining era of Indian cricket.

And I think Ajit Agarkar, going back to the point I was making about the chairman of selectors, has gone one further by pushing out the likes of Kohli and Rohit from the Test team.

That is something unprecedented in Indian cricket.

And so, yeah, we're definitely, I think, headed in the right direction.

Both teams had, you know, really good, well, maybe definitely India had really good Test credentials in that time period as well.

New Zealand under Mike hessen and Brendan McCollum.

But I still think there's reason to believe that Mike Hessen is a phenomenal coach.

And one reason is we talked about in game tactics and how you read the game and I genuinely think Mike Hessen is one of the smartest people in world cricket right now.

He had now not so active YouTube channel, which he was using I think last year during the psl, during the ipl and he was explaining various aspects of the game, he was doing previews of games and it was really just insightful.

You know, he, it was clear to me that similar to Andy Flower and Nathan, you know, Andrew Strauss and Owen Morgan, the people who use data really well, he was able to look at data and then form tactics around it.

So that is one reason for it.

The second reason is, of course, in until that era, New Zealand of course was a, I would say a middling side.

They were not terrible at any point, but they weren't outstanding either.

And that was when they started to do really well.

No ICC trophies in that era.

But I think that was a start of their Test dominance as well.

They got so much better with Test cricket after that.

And the reason it gets tricky with Mike Hessen is there was one, you know, senior player who was sort of snubbed off and removed from captaincy, and that was, of course, Ross Tate Taylor.

So the legacy gets really murky because the way that was handled, Brent McCollum happily stepped up and took the job and, you know, led really well.

But Ross Taylor has been candid in his post, his retirement and saying that was a period where he felt lost.

And, you know, as somebody who's scored I think the second highest runs for New Zealand, to alienate a guy like that is obviously a big deal.

So I would say not as, you know, a happy era, as India can say under Gary Kirsten, but nonetheless, tactically very smart coach.

They were willing to take, you know, willing to rub off one player incorrectly because they felt Brendan McCollum was the right captain to lead.

And I think that led to a lot of results going in their favor.

And since then, their test ascendancy also started.

So from that perspective, I do think that coach captain combination has a really good legacy on New Zealand cricket and.

Arguably provided the blueprint for what we're seeing now with England.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's.

That's very true.

Yeah.

After that, that's where Bren McCollum, you know, joined forces with Ben Stokes and they're doing what they're doing now.

And that's the thing too, right?

Like, you have to make those unpopular choices.

I mean, maybe hindsight, you.

You'll.

You can judge it and say, well, that was not the right decision, but you still have to admire the conviction and the guts to take that call because it.

It could have been easy to just coast along with like, you know, quote unquote, senior player, like a legend, and then nothing happens or the changes that you want to see does not happen.

And then you get criticized and then you just fade away.

And that's your legacy, you know, of someone who was no different from his predecessor.

So I admire anyone who is.

Who has a conviction to make a change and make the unpopular call.

Even like Brendan McCollum for, you know, yes, he's.

He's a target.

He's like this lightning rod for all criticisms when things go wrong.

But I admire the fact that when he became coach, he said, listen, the way that England have been playing obviously has not been working.

You know, you have one win in the last 14 tests.

Let's try this approach.

England has got natural.

A lot of the players, even in domestic cricket, a lot of natural stroke players, obviously playing well in limited overs at that time.

And let's bring that to the long format right now.

When it first started, it felt like everybody was just waiting for it to fail so they could just laugh at England's expense.

But, you know, things change.

You know, confidence came back.

Players, they were getting the results.

Players like Harry Brook came along and now he is a future captain in waiting, essentially.

And so even though things are not going as well right now, it's undeniable that they brought about a change in the way they approach the game in the long format.

And it's all because someone like Brendan McCallum came and said, we're going to try this, we may fail from time to time.

People are going to question our approach, they're going to question why we're not playing the traditional way.

But this is what I believe is best for this team.

It may not work with every other team, but for this team, this is what's going to work.

So let's do it.

And so I admire that.

And coaches who are willing to make.

Those calls and yeah, talk about tough decisions.

Probably the biggest one was Jimmy Anderson and who's probably retired against his will or earlier than he would have wanted.

And that was.

Yeah, that was.

And again, unpopular, right?

Unpopular at the time.

Unpopular with Jimmy, certainly.

But, yeah, yeah, a tough decision to, to get rid of a, a senior player for the good of the team.

Yeah, I don't think Jimmy Anderson would have made any difference, honestly.

I mean, I know he's still playing and getting wickets, all that stuff, but I don't think he would have made.

I think his effectiveness was kind of fading in his last few games and I think that was the right call at that time.

I agree with you.

I think it was the right call.

I still wouldn't have wanted to have the conversation with him, though.

With that.

I want to come to our.

The last question that I had thought of and which is this almost made me laugh because I was watching some, some YouTube videos on cricket and the Ashes and, and I can't remember where I watched it, but one of the questions as was, should teams even worry about the fans?

And my first reaction Was, well, isn't it all about the fans?

But I think the person who was, you know, asking that question alluded to the fact that fans are always going to complain, you know, they're going to always find a way to be unhappy with the team, which I think is true for majority of fans.

Like even when India wins at home, they, they take things for granted.

Until pretty much the last year when we've lost, you know, back to back or two out of three series, that was always like assumed and you know, that was not something that people cared about or if they won it would be like, oh well, why was it so close?

It should have been more one sided, we should have won more in a more dominating fashion.

Gambir as a player himself used to say under Ms. Dhoni that, you know, Ms. Dhoni's policy of take it to the last over, take it as close as possible and let the opposition make more mistakes.

Gambir didn't believe in that.

He always said that I want to finish it in the 47th, 48th over.

Don't want to leave it to too late.

So even amongst the team there was always like, you know, multiple approaches or the right way of doing things.

I wonder what your thoughts are on this.

Obviously, no, no right or wrong answer.

But how do you evaluate or how do, how should teams evaluate their fans and should they even think about are we keeping them happy?

Ben, I feel like this question is specifically targeted towards you.

Thanks.

So, you know, do, do we care as a cricket fan, do we care about the style of play, the approach versus the approach versus the results?

You know, I'm not gonna deny that the whole basball thing has been a wild ride and it's one that I've enjoyed.

But would I rather the team win or be exciting?

I, I would rather win even if it's ugly.

Personally, I'm not, not speaking further entire body of cricket fans here, but you know, I, I don't know what you guys think, but yeah, I, I would rather, I, I would rather win.

You know, I have bias as a fan.

I think the team should play for me.

I think so.

I mean in an ideal world, yes, the approach and the results go our way.

But you know, to echo what Ben said, listen, I'll take an ugly win any day.

I know.

You know, it's funny sometimes when I'm following the Reddit, you know, the Reddit threads for, you know, any ongoing gains, you know, there'll be like two or three overs where there's no run in, in test matches.

Right.

And then people start questioning, oh, they're not rotating the strike.

Why is this batter, you know, playing so slow?

There's no context.

You know, the bowler is on top.

The conditions are, you know, very friendly to the bowler.

There's no nuance about maybe the batter is just like playing him out and just like waiting to cash in when the bowler is tired or when conditions get better.

And I think it's just reflective of, you know, the current times we live in.

You know, all the tick tocks and you know, everything fast, fast, you know, we need everything fast kind of mentality.

And, and so I, I don't really subscribe to that.

I, you know, if you, if let's say India playing Australia, even, even the Gaba, the famous Gaba Test where you know, Rishabh scored the winning runs, I, I don't care that it came towards almost the end of the day's play.

I didn't want them to score at four or five runs and over.

They had enough time to bat out and they did.

You know, there was a phase where Pujaro was just taking blows after blows.

I was not complaining, like why isn't he hitting it for fours?

Like, you know, just, or get off the strike?

I wasn't complaining about that.

I, I admired the fact that he was taking his time and that was the right approach at the same time.

Same at that time.

Similarly in the previous game, you know, Ravichandra Ashwin and Anman Vihari, they batted for God knows how many overs.

It felt like 30 or 40 overs and they scored like 20 runs to save, you know, save the game.

You cannot tell me that was not thrilling.

You know, sure it didn't seem like the game was moving anywhere, but it was, it was thrilling in the way that you were seeing a team fight for survival against this other team who have been in top for so long.

And I think that's the beauty of cricket in general compared to every other sport.

So yes, I, I do want cricket to be entertaining, you know, mostly.

But when it comes to supporting my team, winning comes first.

Like if, you know, let's say India was doing basketball, right, and if they were putting up like the same results, like in the sense like losing more than they were winning, I wouldn't still be like saying, oh, at least they're entertaining us.

Listen, if I wanted entertainment all the time, I'll go watch a movie or watch like some stand up comic, do a set.

But no, I'm supporting my team because I want them to play well and win and there's only so much you can kind of tell yourself, like, hey, at least they've been entertaining us.

I would agree with both of you.

I think there is certainly a space of looking at the approach, though.

I think it's.

Obviously, it's not all the time, but if you have a team which is very dominant, you know, we've.

Those teams probably have a little more space of worrying about, hey, let's win it the right way.

But I think pretty much every, everywhere else, it's more about, let's just get over the line and, you know, put in the fight and just get it done with.

And I think that's where I have.

I personally have changed my opinion over the years because growing up, when Ms. Dhoni said a 81 field to Australia in, in a home test and it was called defensive and it was called slowing down the game and all of that, I was very critical of that.

Same thing with Nasser Hussein push, pushing Ashley Giles to bowl to the legs of Sachin Tendulkar, which frustrated the great man so much that he got stumped out for the first and only time.

And in his Test career, all of those tactics seemed very negative.

Seemed like not playing cricket, you know, the right way in courts, but they were effective.

You know, Dhoni got the draw he needed, Nasser Sen got the wicket of Tendulkar.

So at the end of the day, it's about improving your chances to win.

And, yeah, I think the win definitely is primary.

But what I find interesting about our sort of conclusion, at least the three of us coming to the conclusion that win is more important, is I think the casual fan, the ones who are not looking at the nuances that, you know, us, we look at, we look at the players in question, how the ball is doing, how the pitch is doing, all these things.

I think the casual fan also care about the win more than this.

So it's funny because I think we are all meeting in the same point from that perspective, because, yeah, to the casual fan, if you're winning, they're probably going to gloss over the details on who failed that test or who scored slowly as long as the result is in their favor.

But the casual fan is only looking at the end result.

They're not looking at what gets them to that result.

And I think that's where, you know, as seasoned fans, we're.

We're looking at, you know, the Ebb and flow of the game.

How is the team like fighting back and getting to that position and that's something to admire in that you can't just have a linear like dominating from ball one to end.

Sure the team wins but is that truly entertaining?

You know if there's no contest it's not entertaining and that's where the fun is when both teams are fighting really hard and then one team comes out on top.

Absolutely.

No, I guess my, my point was yep we look at the details, we look at the nuances and we still end up at the same answer as casual fans who only care about the result.

But on that note this was a fascinating deep dive into legacy.

I think we already like as you were talking we came up with at least a couple of other topics that we could talk about in another episode.

But yeah thanks Benny and Ben for your time.

It's been a great conversation.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you.