I've, I've seen him, uh, even in the academy a lot.

No, see, because then, so growing up, all these names are big names, right? And you, you kind of felt like, "Hey, these, these guys are guys you aspire to be like." And he had a fantastic first-class record.

But I think with the onset of the churn of cricketers that we've seen through the IPL, a lot of these names have gotten lost.

Okay.

Oh, no, was it Mark Ramprakash? Yeah, Mark Ramp- I, I, like, I think it was his comeback game in, and, and England were in tatters, and he was playing, he's playing an Ashes game.

And, um- Uh, he'd not performed the first couple of tests, and the third test was, uh, the third test was, uh, going on, and I think he scored 150, 160 or something.

And I remember his visor being right here and his hel- like the huge gap in his, his visor and his, like his helmet.

Um, that for some reason comes to mind, 'cause it's just like he scored 150 I think in that, in that, in that inning.

Yeah.

Just, like, lazy.

Um, and a, a really, a really cool thing happened when I, when I was in school.

I was I think in the 9th or 10th standard, and there was this, uh, Ricky Ponting was coming down to Bangalore, and he was gonna look at some of the young talent that was there.

It was Ricky Ponting and Javagal Srinath.

They were both still playing.

I must have been 14 or something.

Mm.

Would you like to see somebody like Virat Kohli playing test cricket then?

You will.

I'm not saying everyone will, will miss out.

There will be some who will play three formats, some will play two formats.

It, that, that will still continue to be the case.

Some people who, who have the aspiration to play all three formats will make themselves available.

They will really, will relieve themselves from playing a few IPL games and go and play test matches as well.

But how, how does that coexist with other franchise leagues at the same time if it's six months?

That, that sort of stuff is fully gold.

See, that kind of information, that kind of a- analytics is fine.

Um, analytics from point of view of giving more information and helping, um, helping people make or find solutions is absolutely fine.

I think it's incredible.

But I think when it looks...

When, when you look at large data model sets, right?

Mm-hmm.

And when you're making judgments on, on players, um, I-- We try really hard with our team to try and look at different situations, different parameters, but not a lot of people do that.

I hope so.

Look, uh, I think one thing which has changed because of the throwdowns, I personally feel that, uh- [laughs] You said tail-enders and you're like, "In batting?" [laughs] No, no, no.

[laughs]

No, no, in terms of, like, overall skill, fielding, what exactly you are kind of talking about.

Tail-enders mean batting.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Because I was somewhere else, I would say.

So, like, I think with a lot of throwdowns, uh, that has now become possible to kind of work on your second skill also.

Mm

... can he stay pristine for the game over a period of five years, right? Now he's 15 now.

Can he stay pristine with the game at least 20? And if he's able to, if, if there are e- enough people to take care of him, and he's focused on cricket himself.

And, 'cause when you listen to everything that he, the kid says, there's so much innocence to, to, to who he is, right? Uh, you, you want that to be protected.

And I love the fact that he's saying no to every, um, uh, advertisement or every, uh, you know, gig that's coming his way, and he's focusing primarily-

Right

... uh, until he wa- un- until he's ready to explore the outside world and understand what comes with it.

Like, I don't think he should be denied the outsi- outside world, but I think when he's ready, he should be led into it in silos so that he can...

Mm.

So for me, I think it's how you deal with, um, you know, the narratives that have been set and you're trying to live up to, and then you have your own personal inclinations of, you know what, like this is, this is the con- conversations going on around me.

I wanna peg myself up there.

And you have personal ambitions as well.

You throw that into the mix with everything that you just mentioned.

And not every athlete does that

...

I'm telling you, very few cricketers from that part of the world are willing to do that.

Interesting.

Right.

Um, and say for example, um, and today, look at, for example, Rohit Sharma.

So even when he was bigger, he scored, still scored a lot of sixes because the center of gravity held him in good stead.

Uh, and that works.

And I'm telling you as someone who's been girthier and been stocky while, while I was playing cricket-

Mm.

Right? If you want, if you want substitute players to be involved, then it needs to be across the board.

Mm-hmm.

And I feel like the, the biomechanical parts stay the same.

Um, how you set yourself up to play a ball.

Um, and I think with fielding as well, it's, it's pretty much the same with bowling as well.

Um, I know that the, the- there's this stuff about the women as far as their extensions of arms are concerned that it, it kind of helps them kind of...

There's a little bit of lil- overextension that happens, which is very normal-

Yeah.

I think women's cricket also become a lot more mainstream right now, so it's beginning to happen a lot more now.

Mm.

To what extent will the aggression kind of exist in...

A- and the, and the, and the domination from batters will exist in, in test cricket? How will the bowlers respond to it? What kind of pitches will they play on? And on those different pitches...

Like today, it feels like if the wicket has a little bit in it, a lot of the cricketers have not much of a clue.

It could go anywhere, yeah.

Yeah, so we just gonna have, have to sit back and kind of watch where this goes and...

Because no one thought after everything that we experienced in cricket over the last eight years, or six years, or seven years, no one thought we'd be here so soon.

Or we'd even be here at all in the first place.

Do you think that's unlocked Virat then?

It has, but I also think there's another thing that's unlocked him.

I think the captaincy not being on him anymore, um, has unlocked this as well.

Because I think when he was captain, he was so driven, and one of the, this, one of the geniuses of, of Virat is that he was so driven to pick the team to victory by himself, that he played a certain way to be able to produce results that he wanted to produce for himself and for the team, right? Uh, today that doesn't exist, and it took a while.

Like, I felt like there was a period of, uh, time in wilderness for him-

Mm

... where he was trying to find where he fell in the whole scheme of things within the group once captaincy went away from him.

'Cause it f- it almost felt like he felt lost as to... and, and without purpose suddenly, without captaincy.

They're, they're so different as bowlers as well

...

in a cer- in a certain way, right? So Anderson went, "Well, these pitches are ridiculous.

They're so flat, it's not gonna swing, it's not gonna do anything.

And in a test I'm gonna have to bowl dry for 40 overs." And he worked out how to do that, and no one else could do that, could go one and a half an over, and just go.

It used to be back in the day you would chuck the ball to Murali over and over again, and he would go for nought all one every over.

Warne did it a bit, but not, not in the defensive way that Murali used to do it.

Yeah.

The thing is, right-

You start him there, and then when you need him, you can always use him as an opening batter.

The thing is, the thing about Test cricket is it's about confidence, right?

Mm

... or gives him the, gives, gives him the best chance to be successful as team management.

And I think if you can do that, um, and if he does settle in, oh boy, he's gonna be a, he's gonna be a blast to watch.

And m- when he opened, he was probably more suited to at least p- playing the spinners once he was set.

Yeah.

I, I don't really think he's really worked out his game against spin.

Um, and I think, um, obviously, and which is why his success in the IPL hasn't been that great.

Um, I think you're right.

If he actually worked himself out as a frontline batter growing up, he probably would've found a lot more solutions with his batting, um, and could've been a batter who bowled, rather than being a pure out and out all-rounder, where, who focused, uh, equally on batting and bowling.

Um, so I think that, on, on that front, I feel like, yeah, you're, you're, you're right.

... with the way he's developed, and that, and that happens to a lot of all-rounders.

So, okay.

And which is why I think the retirement was, was, was par for the course in that sense because, um, he wasn't...

Like, there were limitations, there were physical limitations that didn't allow him to, to open up that part of his game.

So you can have empathy for, for a Kane Williamson, but for me, for Mithali at that point, like she re- By the time 2020 came around, like two years, three years before she retired, she had...

Like, would you even blame Sachin Tendulkar to have played like a ma- maverick in the last three, four years of his, of his career and just go hell for leather from e- for every ball? Like, we wouldn't no, no, no fans of his would've felt like that, right? But if you're...

Like, I think one of the things that was always a point of contention with someone like a Mithali was that, um, the, the slowness in which she batted impacted the outcomes of the games.

But he also, I think he captained to that team well, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

So, uh, what, what did you say two years ago, and what has happened now?

Well, I think he's doubled down who he is as a player.

Um, I think as a captain, he, he's a, he's a really, really, really clever captain.

He's very astute.

Uh, he's got all the ingredients of what you need a captain to be.

Um, he takes the bull by its horns.

Uh, he's always positive.

How do you feel about it from that perspective?

And if you l- compare that to what you see in baseball, they seem to replicate the skills that you need within the game.

game.Yeah. And also, like if you look at the overall social angle of it, the players are now playing on all the different leagues.

So you're kind of switching in, switching out of a particular league, so you don't understand your teammates that well.

You don't understand their strengths that well.

For example, nobody knew that Salt would be such a good outfielder.

We've kind of discovered him during this IPL itself because he was always behind the stumps for all this while.

So that way is you don't even understand the strengths and the weaknesses of your team because earlier people would spend a lot of time just playing for a single unit, so you would understand what kind of particular fielder is good at or bad at.

Which I was once

[laughs]

It, it really flies, and so you wanna maximize the opportunity.

I remember speaking to one of, one, one cricketer, um, who was, who was incredible, right? Who deserves to pl- be a part of the, the Indian team and play.

And for a period of time, he wasn't playing, even though he deserved to play.

He was just carrying drinks for a good part of a whole year and a half.

And, um, a good friend of mine and me had a conversation, I think it was in New Zealand when we had this conversation.

And I said, and he said to me, "Rob, I'm just really tired of just traveling as a, you know, as a-

Mm.

Mm.

And also start cricket broadcasting, and I thought that's what I'm gonna do.

But God and life has, uh, their way and, uh-Um, it just so happened that in 2020 because of the, uh, co- because of COVID, we came and played the IPL here.

And then in 2021 we came back to the UAE and played the IPL here again.

And so suddenly I stopped, stopped visiting Dubai or U- the UAE, uh, as a tourist.

Mm.

And I started traveling into the UAE as a traveler, right? So then we had friends who moved here.

So what for you solidified that belief that there is a god?