Are we doing enough to ensure that the talented young girls out there are seeing cricket as a genuine career opportunity?

Yeah, well, our Australian women's players now, you've got millionaires playing the game across WPL, the 100, Caribbean Premier League here in Australia, and then, of course, World Cups and prize money.

for T20 and 50 over World Cups now could mean that you're leaving with another 150k in your back pocket if you win it sort of thing so financially I think yeah most definitely but it's a super competitive market particularly in Australia I look at basketball and the opportunities of getting picked up and playing in the WNBA and the hype of that soccer slash football getting picked up over in England and the like but that's exactly where we want our sports to be we want them to be super super competitive and offer young girls this wonderful suite and options of playing.

And so I would just say to them, don't specialise too early.

Fill your boots with as many sports as you can.

You look at Stevie Litchfield switch hitting and hitting right-handed the other day.

Well, she played hockey.

What are your views on that? Are you for or against that for both our women and our men?

Are we doing enough to ensure that the talented young girls out there are seeing cricket as a genuine career opportunity?

Yeah, well, you know, our Australian women's players now, you've got millionaires playing the game across WPL, the 100, Caribbean Premier League here in Australia, and then, of course, World Cups and prize money.

for T20 and 50 over World Cups now could mean that you're leaving with another 150k in your back pocket if you win it sort of thing so financially I think yeah most definitely but it's a super competitive market particularly in Australia I look at basketball and the opportunities of getting picked up and playing in the WNBA and the hype of that soccer slash football getting picked up over in England and the like but that's exactly where we want our sports to be we want them to be super super competitive and offer young girls this wonderful suite and options of playing.

And so I would just say to them, don't specialise too early.

Fill your boots with as many sports as you can.

You look at Phoebe Litchfield switch hitting and hitting right-handed the other day.

Well, she played hockey.

What are your views on that? Are you for or against that for both our women and our men?

Since the walkouts yesterday.

Except for, yeah.

[laughs] Back in 2011 when I was coaching at my cricket club, EMP, and for those that don't sort of know Australian domestic cricket, um, it's sort of like the Gunnersbury of English cricket.

So they're the oldest women's cricket, continuous w- women's cricket club in the world.

All the oldies are still there, like your Raelee Thompsons, former Australian captains and all like that.

And we've just got a great crew.

And I always said, "I don't know why you have to play for your country to tour." And the- they, "Well, what do you mean?" I said, "Well, touring's one of the best things in the world.

It's like nothing you will ever experience before.

So Melanie, my first question for you is, what are you most proud of from your tenure?

So I think the most im- most important thing was how my campaign on Be The Reason People Trust 911 really took off.

Um, we had apparel, we had stickers, and the 911 community really embraced that.

So, and last quick question I have for you is, what do you hope the next chapter of NENA leadership carries forward?

I think the continuing wellness initiatives that, that we are pushing for all of our communicators, supervisors, managers.

Wellness is not just a tagline.

Mm.

And so there was still a little of a bit of a lag where it sort of felt like we've taken it over, but it's, it's still, like you said, the second cousin a little bit.

And I think a couple of the states in India sort of took it on and went, "No, we're, we're gonna develop a few more players." So it sort of came from within in a little bit.

And then I suppose the elevation of, uh, World Cups and the fact that, you know, there's, there's more prize money and there's more notoriety.

You whack in the WPL as well.

And so there's think there's probably a number of factors coming along there-

Mm-hmm.

And so when I look at that for England, I think how do you get yourselves as a squad to the perfect situation where you're happy with everything across the board just before those tournaments? And you've got time.

[laughs]

Because she said, "Uh-uh, I'm writing my own script here.

I'm on the honors board now, I'm gonna keep picking up, uh, impressive holes." Look, for both of them, their careers have reasonably been about the same length of time, um, as you mentioned, from, from amateur to semi-professional to professional, and they've been real fighters on and off the, the pitch as well.

There've been so many innings for both of them in which you, you sit there and you go, "That is what, you know, inspires the next generation of player to be coming out there." But they're also then inspiring from the way...

I mean, particularly Heather Knight with the way in which she works for the PCA and the likes, and all the work she's done there to make the game.

We so often we say this, isn't it? You wanna leave the game in a better state than when you first came in.

I think for both of those players, they've both been so proactive in the development of players in their teams.

We weren't exactly sure what that might look like, but now we, now we have a better idea.

I don't know about you.

Yeah, 100%.

And I mean, we chatted about it on air.

Spin is probably bowling wrong ends too.

It wasn't being, you know, advantageous to their skill set to take the ball down the slope or up the slope if you're left arm or right arm orthodox.

You sort of looked at it and there was no slips in play.

When you had moments, Izzi Wong came on only probably half an hour ago, uh, looking to bowl that outside off stump line, but there was no slip in play.

In the area

Mm

... a bit of a fairy tale story, wasn't it? And everyone got behind that and just thought it was the most magnificent, um, piece of cricket sort of coming together because, you know, Pakistan and India helped them originally with allowing the, the men to play in club systems and then setting up, um, uh, training ce- centers for them and the like.

And this is the next fairy tale story to come out of, you know, Afghanistan as a, as a cricket piece, I think, is that once these players get into the high performance program, they are so astute.

They...

I mean, the passion for the game is, that, that's no question whatsoever.

That is, you know, getting knocked out of the park daily.

There's a, um, a want and desire that we've almost sometimes got to hold them back from training.

Mm.

How has this tournament started in your eyes?

Yeah, look, I think probably the most important thing is that we've probably had the best uniforms as commentators for a World Cup [laughs] for a very long time.

Um, so happy commentators, happy calls.

[laughs] Um, I, I, I think there's, there's a few things that certainly stood out straight away.

Crowds have been ridiculously good, and not just for the England games.

Um, it was good enough to be at, um, Manchester and see, uh, Scotland and Ireland the other day, then leading into Australia and South Africa.

Super crowd there and a pretty cold, blustery day.

Is that sort of a conscious effort with Australia cricket speaking to the domestic game and trying to get these young captains some, some experience?

So do you understand or know why this turnaround from the ICC? Because, I mean, we had Jeff Allardyce on stumped when he was chief executive and there just seemed no chance of support for the players officially.

Yeah, I've used the phrase, and I don't know if it's right, but the perfect storm.

It's almost as if there have been so many different pieces to sort of...

You know, not sort of raising sort of a louder voice.

I think they've always been there, but just a variety of different things.

I think the fact that the Olympics and the IAC came out recently about the six teams for the men's and women's and sort of the process for qualifications and all that sort of came out.

I think just the power of work that Pitch Our Future has done, the MCC Foundation have been absolutely brilliant.

Can you talk us through that experience?

Can you talk us through how you and a couple of other extraordinary women got those players out of Afghanistan?

How long have you got, Ali? I can give you the long version, which you might need to pull the couch up and brew a good large pot of tea, or I can give you sort of the 30-second version.

Look, it's amazing.

I think over the last couple of weeks, we've been asked this numerous times, and I think because we were so much in the muck and the mire of it when it first happened, you forget so many details.

But it was – I think it was – A chance for me, well, I certainly had a chance.

I was in quarantine.

I was in hard quarantine coming back from England, having worked with Sky Cricket for the summer and sort of pondering to myself how I was going to, you know, to see the two weeks out and entertain myself.

Which also couldn't have been, well, I don't know, is there also a cost involved in that? I mean, there's red tape, there's administration, there's, you know, how do you even put these players up? Some of them were in Pakistan in hotels, weren't they, for a long time?