Test Match Special - Behind the scenes at a World Cup

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Henry Moeran is joined by former England bowler Steven Finn and BBC journalist Matt Henry to find out what really happens behind the scenes at an ICC World Cup. Finn is the only England bowler to take a hat-trick at a men’s 50 Over World Cup and was also England’s leading wicket taker at the ICC World T20 in Sri Lanka in 2012. Finn shares stories of life as a player when you may be sharing a breakfast buffet with the opposition before taking them on in a crucial encounter whilst Matt Henry explains what it’s like to cover a World Cup as a journalist.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Well, hello, welcome to the Test Match special podcast from the ICC men's T20 World Cup in India. This is Henry Moran. For this special edition of the TMS podcast, we're going to learn a little bit more about what life is like as a cricketer playing in a tournament. We hear various tour stories of bilateral series overseas, but what about the experience of the drama, the speed, the variety of a major World Cup? We'll learn more about it in just a moment. This is the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Well, with me to discuss it all, not only the BBC's Matt Henry, who's here covering the tournament,

has covered a number of ICC events for BBC Sport, but also a man that has played in 50 over and T20 World Cups for England. Stephen Finn, the only England bowler to take a hat trick in a men's 50 over World Cup for England. The MCG, no less in 2015. Also, England's leading wicket-taker in the 2012 T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka. Finney, Matt, lovely to see you both. Tournament cricket is different. isn't it? It's not the same thing remotely.

Yeah, you kind of, it does feel very different. The thing that's most different is that you spend so much more time with the opposition in and around hotels. There's more of a build-up to the tournament than there would be a bilateral series. But yeah, the thing I remember most about the tournaments

was not necessarily the games, like the games were special and great to be out there representing England, but what was so different to a bilateral series? was going down to breakfast and seeing the opposition tucking into the scrambled eggs on the morning of a game. It was, yeah, this bizarre mix of playing so competitively in the middle but then also seeing them in and around the hotel

and trying to avoid them. Why would that be different in an ICC event compared to a bilateral suit? Do you just not stay in the same hotels? Yeah, simply you don't. You travel to the ground at different times, you travel between games at different times. And yeah, you just see far less of them outside. of the cricket ground than you would do in a

ICC tournament yeah so if you're a bit more of an introvert you spend a lot of time in your room Matt what do you think about sort of the differences initially on the surface or dig a little deeper in a moment yeah it's interesting isn't it it's the good thing about from a

journalistic point of view is you see so many you get the chance to see so many different teams obviously when you're at a bilateral series you're obviously only seeing those two teams you can go on an Ashes tour that lasts seven eight weeks and only see two teams. It's a bit different at this one

the way the fixtures have fallen that we're not seeing loads of different teams, but you see every team England play against when we follow England here, Scotland as well. But you get to see a few neutral games, things like that, which is always exciting because it's very rare.

We, as journalists, would get to go and watch and commentate on an India against USA match like we did in this tournament. So that's always exciting. And yeah, it's just fun you move around probably a bit more. I mean, it's different. The rhythm of it is a bit,

different to say a test series. You move around in a white ball bilateral series quite quickly, don't you go from ground to ground, which is probably quicker than you do in these World Cups. But you get to see different places, get around, tick off various grounds in various places in the world, which is obviously one of the big things that we are very lucky to do in this job. I'm going to be really geeky here now, Philly, because I love all of the things that you see, like the kit that you get. And, you know, the photos that you have to go through, and the various bits and pieces that I suppose you guys are having to get stuck into in a completely different way, all of these little addition. Yeah, and that's kind of what makes it a bit more exciting as well, because in the UK or wherever you are playing a bilateral series,

you do your headshots the day before the game and then that's it, you're done, whereas in the World Cup, you've got opening ceremonies, you've got content creation that's massive now for social media. and there's just loads more build-up to that starting match and you just try your best to you embrace it obviously because it's one of the things that's exciting and different about a World Cup you try not to let it distract you from what you're actually trying to do which is go out there and play cricket so yeah it just feels completely different I've still got my World Cup shirts at home the ones that I played in

at the end of a series or at the end of a tournament you get the whole team to sign it no matter how you did. You get the whole team to sign it as a momentum. I've still got those ones that I played in and that I was involved in very much at home. So talk us through. You land the country that you're playing in, be it Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, whatever it might be. What happens? Well, the first one that I played in was 2012 in Sri Lanka.

And we were all based in Colombo. And there's warm-up games typically to start less so now because people organise bilateral series, don't in the build-up to a World Cup like England did playing in Sri Lanka. banker for six games, but in 2012, we played the official warm-up games in Colombo against Australia, and we played two other teams in the build-up to that tournament. But the difference is that you all stay in the same hotel. So you know people vaguely from coming up against them in international cricket or playing with them in domestic cricket, but I walked into the hotel in Sri Lanka with my bags,

with the rest of the team and Mornay Morker was there, David Warner was there, a couple of other players and we all sat there chatting together and it was the first time in full international cricket that I've kind of been sat there with loads of different people from different teams

just chatting about cricket and it's something that you don't get in bilateral series and something that's just a great experience to have. You learn a lot from chatting to people like that and it creates those rivals that you go out there and play on the pitch. How does it differ, do you sense? these days to previous years of how much you're able to get out and see bits of cities.

It's obviously different from country to country as well, isn't it? I know. When we were here in 2023, me, you and Adam, I were producer, we went to the Taj Mahal, didn't we? You tick off a site like that. How much opportunity do you get for something like that when you're at a World Cup? How does that compare to maybe a test tour? Yeah, I would say you don't get that much opportunity, which is one of the great things about that now I feel really grateful to be able to broadcast and travel around and watch

cricket, you have a lot more freedom to enjoy the country that you're in. Whereas when you're playing a World Cup, you have to do a lot more background research as well. So in a bilateral series, you're playing five matches against one team. You do your prep before the series about the players that you're going to come up against, and that's 15 players that might play. And then as you go through the series, you build a picture of how you're going to bowl at people. And you get better as the series goes on, I feel, as a bowler in particular, about working out how to get people out. In World Cups, you only get one opportunity and that jeopardy is something that you definitely feel. And when you're doing your prep, what England are playing against four teams

in this group stage here, so you have to prep 60 players. So in your mind, you have to formulate plans to play against 60 people as opposed to 15 across a two-week period. Does that mean loads of meetings? It depends who your coaches. I mean, when you have more analytical coaches, which we had Andy Flower and Peter Moors in the World Cups that I played in in Champions trophies. I played under Trevor Bayliss in a in a champions trophy a bit later who was less meeting focused and the onus was on the players but certainly in those early years in order to be prepared yeah you had bowling meetings about players that you're going to come up against so yeah you do sit there and you have to sift through a lot of

information you have to build a lot of pictures in your head about the people you're going to come up against. Yeah it's I suppose it's that absolute density of cricket that is not just those matches that you're playing and the travel which will get onto but it's also from a player's point of view you're having to deal with so many different scenarios compared to what you normally would

yeah and actually you find yourself watching way more than you would normally I quite liked in a 50 over series or a bilateral series where you're playing say five games against the opposition you'd like to escape to give your brain a break in between the match and there might be a bit of domestic cricket on or other international teams might be playing elsewhere in the world, but it doesn't really matter what's happening in those series,

fundamentally to what you're doing in your bilateral series. Whereas here, there are three games a day, like you can't switch your TV on in a World Cup without there being cricket on. So you find yourself a lot more immersed in what other teams are doing as well, and you're there thinking, well, we might come up against them in the Super 8s or the quarterfifes, or the quarterfinals. So I'll sit down and watch this game. So where a bilateral series might last two and a half, three weeks, and you get those mental breaks in between games in a World Cup, you're just on. It feels like you're mentally switched on a lot more of the time. It also feels quite all pervasive when you're at a World Cup because you go through airports and

cities and the flags are up everywhere you go. And there's a bit of a sense that you're following this carnival, this jamboree, that it feels very special to be a part of, but you can imagine from a player's point of view, quite intimidating. Intimidant and intense to me is how I'd feel it, but that's probably one of the many reasons why I'm not a professional sports.

Matt, you undersell yourself. But, yeah, I was thinking then when Finney was talking about prepping for different players, because we spoke to Harry Brooke before the Nepal game, didn't we, the start of this tournament, and he was saying, so we spoke to him, I think it was maybe midday the day before a game

and he was going to go that afternoon to go and speak to, he was going to go and then watch all the videos and speak to the analysts about what different bowlers do because he literally never faced them. Finney, how many times would you have come up against a baller at a World Cup that you would, there must have been a few occasions of teams

that you would literally have never have faced before, I'm imagining. Yeah, I'm trying to think. We played against Afghanistan in 2012, and we knew a little bit about Afghanistan, but they were very much in their infancy of playing in ICC tournaments. And the guy called Mohamed Shazad, if you remember him, he played like the helicopter shots. It was this massive, big, loud character, always sledging, always chirping. If he hit you for four, he'd let you know about it.

And yeah, you kind of watch the footage of him and you think, okay, you're going to have to be on your guard here. You're going to have to have plans formulated. So that was the first time I really experienced that coming up against players that I'd not seen before and didn't know that much about. but the away analysis works now there's no hide in place for a player I think it's a bit easier for a bowler in that scenario to prepare because as a bowler you've got six balls and you've got a spell less so in T20 cricket but more so in 50 over cricket where you can work out by feeling where a batter is trying to hit you so when you're bowling at someone it will take you an over maybe to work out if you've not bowled at them before you'll work out where they're weak

weaknesses are on the job, whereas as a batter I've always thought, especially with people with slightly quirky actions or spinners that have variations that you've not faced before, that's impossible to replicate ever. So I always felt for batters coming up against mystery spinners or those bowlers with quirky, slingy actions or bowling off the wrong foot and stuff like that, that you could see batters get outfoxed a lot easier than bowlers in that scenario. Did a Janthe Mendez playing that? He did, yeah, 2012. He was one particular, that sort of flicky action you were just doing out of your fingers. He was one that sort of came to a World Cup and everyone was like, what is this sort of thing I remember?

The psychology of World Cups is really interesting and you look at the stats and players do play with less freedom during World Cup tournaments. And I remember head of 2019, all the talk was which side's going to hit 550 overmatch? England have been smashing it to all parts and yet the surfaces can sometimes be a little bit different. but because of the legacy, the long-term consequence if you don't win in a World Cup, it must create a really different psychology to how players even subconsciously approach matches. And that's where the skill of leaders comes into it. And you need leaders who can take that pressure off the players. So you definitely feel it.

Like when you're out there and anthems get sung a lot more in bilateral series now at the beginning, But there's just a different feel. You walk out with mascots, the music's going, you sing the anthem, that just feels like there's more meaning on each game, which then heightens your anxieties, the pressure that you put on yourself to perform, to do yourself justice. You only get the opportunity once every four years, or it used to be once every four years,

that you get the opportunity to play in a World Cup. Now, it seems every three months there's a World Cup, but especially the 50 over one that remains four years, you want to make the most of your chance, and naturally that brings around pressure that you put on yourself and the best players managed to find ways to take that off. And it's interesting from a journalistic point of view, Matt, is watching and trying to work out which teams are coping with it better

because you do see some sides that come in with an absolute freedom. And sometimes I do think that I hasten to, you know, to emphasise when we say smaller nations, we mean those teams that have less funding. We don't, you know, there have been some fabulous performances throughout recent ICC events from the lower funded sides if you like smaller nations but there is freedom in its own way

to go out there and actually bring sides together because it's the big teams of where the pressure lies yeah it's interesting I think in the first week of this tournament both Joss Butler and Phil Salt of both just in passing but have mentioned sort of the pressure of World Cup matches was just definitely proves

that it is there in the back of players minds we spoke to Brad Weill the Scotland Baller before the England's Scotland match and he mentioned that almost the pressure doesn't the pressure of the associates in inverted commas nations playing against the so-called bigger nations doesn't necessarily come from the occasion it's because they get so few opportunities to play against England both the and the other India and Australia and those sort of those sort of teams to get so few chances to do it that this is a chance to put themselves in the shop window and

show what they can do but also prove that associate nations, whatever you want to call them, the teams who get don't get the chances that they do, that they deserve more chances like this. You imagine if Scotland turn up to a game and get hammered by someone, you know what the reaction would be, whereas if they can go out there and put in a really strong performance, that presses the case for the opportunities that we would all like to see. Well, look at Nepal against England. They look completely free, unburdened by any kind of pressure. They ran England so close in that. They executed their skills. A few days later they play against Italy when they are expected because their performance

against England to win that game. And it looked as though they froze and they lost by 10 wickets. So it's a massive shift in psychology in those two games for that team and sort of highlights the differences between the two and how much that can affect your game out there in the middle. I do wonder, there's a slight point to that that in between those matches, their captain had gone out and called for more matches against, they'd asked for England to. go on tour and for the India and Australia to go on tour as well. I wonder whether in some ways that's heaped even more pressure on whether that's the type of thing that just dodge the question. I mean, I was in that press conference and asked one of those sort of questions. I wondered

whether the smart thing there might have been for Roy Paudel, the captain to just let that one go by while you're in a World Cup and get to the end of it, do your thing, prove how good you are and then ask rather than do it and then get sneaky journalist here. Well, you can't trust. can you? I guess this is all part of it though, isn't it? Because you get such a variety and rich sort of, I guess, tapestry of stories and narratives that builds so quickly. And one minute, you're talking about whether the associate countries, if you like, should be getting more opportunities. The next are talking about whether the big countries are going to meet each other in the next round the next. It all moves so, so quickly compared to a bilateral, which feels a lot

more slower and steady, if you like. Right, in a minute, we're going to discuss what happens as a player when things either go well or when things go less well in a major tournament. Stand by for memories of 2015, Finney. Thanks. Sorry about this. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Welcome back to the Test Match Special podcast where we are discussing. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash.

dash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

the experience for cricketers and journalists alike of playing in a major ICC event how that differs from a bilateral series from a practical level to a cricketing one as well now Matt Henry has covered plenty of them for the BBC Sport website Stephen Finn has played in champions trophies, T20 World Cups 50 over World Cups as well for England

and we've seen tournaments go well for teams representing England in the last couple of days decades and tournaments that have gone very, very badly. Now, I would point out when we go back to 2015, your 50 over World Cup, Finney, that you took a hat-trick against Australia, so you can't be faulted there, and you also took a five-wicket haul, I believe,

in that game, too, and then three for against Scotland at Christchurch. So, you know, in the four games that England played, you did your bit, Finney. But it was a tournament that England... struggled for horrifically. They lost badly in Melbourne. Against New Zealand and Wellington, it really was bleak. One against Scotland at Christchurch.

And then Sri Lanka at Wellington was almost as bleak as the New Zealand game. Yes, yeah. I remember both of those games very well, actually, at Wellington. It's not my favourite ground to visit the caked-in there. The great ground, horrible memories of being sat there in silence after we'd been carted around the place by New Zealand before the dinner interval, they're on the cusp of winning the game when we were supposed to be having the break in between innings. So yeah, horrible memories there. But it's just the, I think in that 2015 World Cup, we had no identity or any identity that we did have was outdated. And we didn't really recognize that before we'd played that

first game. And the game felt so different to anything that we'd played before. And I think think the one thing that came of that was Owen Morgan being captain. He was then allowed to carry on as captain by Andrew Strauss that summer. And he came with what he thought was an identity that would help England compete in 50 over and whiteball cricket. And from that moment forward towards the 2019 World Cup, there was absolute clarity about roles within the team, about what was expected of you as a player. There was no just, oh, well, we'll hope for the best, kind of like hedge our bets and hope that 270 will be enough. There was a clear direction that he expected his teams to try and score more than 300.

And if you weren't willing to do that, you wouldn't play. And I think that, yeah, all of the disaster and all of the pain that we felt throughout that World Cup, because it was really, really difficult. You just wanted to shut yourself in a room. You've taken sleeping tablets to try and sleep because you can't switch your mind off after you've been pumped all over the place. yeah that was an unpleasant experience but what was born of that unpleasant experience was amazing could I ask for any people may or may not be aware we kind of get the

the main press conferences which happen match day minus one as it's called the day before a game and then after a game and then in and around that you get opportunities England put forward a player to to speak to the media each day so that usually happens two days out from a game maybe three depending on the gap and that whether it's a T20 or a 50 over World Cup obviously T-21, the match has come around quicker. When things do go south like that, is it harder to get volunteers to go out there from the media? How does that work?

The media manager obviously plays a large role in that, but then does it turn to the more experienced players to put the hand up and say, yes, I'll do that, that sort of thing? How does that sort of play out? Subliminally it probably does, but I think I can't remember ever saying, no, I'm not going to do that. because you have to front up. You can't, you don't, if you're being asked to do a really difficult press conference, and I was asked to do a few over the years for differing reasons. And yeah, you feel like you're kind of letting your team down if you say,

no, I'm not willing to do that in that moment. But certainly you want to have a strong message and you all want to be singing off the same hymn sheet. and maybe the media manager in those situations will probably turn to his more trusted people to speak to the press than maybe others but yeah you're in it together

and you want to be consistent in your messaging and again like we were inconsistent with our messaging throughout that 50 over World Cup I think we chopped and changed our team we chopped and changed our mindset we were playing catch up and before you know it we were dumped out the tournament with the game against Bangladesh at Adelaide

wasn't it where it all fell apart I mean it fell apart but falling apart before them but that was where we were definitely out of the tournament after that game so yeah you have to consistent messaging strong messaging and that reverberates throughout the dressing room as well and that's something again when owen Morgan came in in 2015 after that world cup when people might have been slightly shocked by what he was saying in the press I remember a game in Southampton where England were bowled out in 45 overs. They could have patted around 30 more runs off those last five and his messaging was 30 runs wasn't going to be enough.

We needed 60 in that situation. And I trust my team to go out there and try and score 60 rather than just be happy with those extra 30 runs. So that kind of messaging might have seen Maverick at the time but that was then relayed through the dressing room to say, oh, he trusts us. He's not thrown us under a bus. there's no finger pointing here.

We're all in this together and that's something we didn't do in that 50 over World Cup. Because careers are defined by World Cup success for a lot of people. In Whiteball cricket and in football World Cups,

it was always, if you like, the Messi versus Ronaldo where to settle it we need to decide who's won a World Cup or it might be the case that could Owen Morgan,

Trevor Bayliss's team ever be classed as a great team had they not won a World Cup whereas actually it was almost a flip of a coin, wasn't it in the end, whether they did win that World Cup. And so much rests on whether you get your hands on the trophy. And if you know things are going wrong, then that sense of expectation, it must just

weigh down on you as well as the disappointment of what's happening. Yeah, and it's not the expectation. It is that disappointment that you're not doing yourself justice, that the team isn't doing itself justice. And that's where you need calm people in the dressing room to just try and realign you towards the things that you believed were really important before the tournament started. I think we saw it here in India. In 2003, England were chasing their tails with the squad that they picked, the team that

they picked. And by the time they'd finished their nine group games, everyone looked completely shot. There were retirees. There were people whose careers basically finished after that 50 over World Cup. So, yeah, certainly that feeling of chasing your tail and the disappointment of not performing on a stage like this knowing you get those opportunities in a 50 over world up once every four years is the thing that makes you extra tense as well Harry Brookers said I think it was his very first interview he did as captain you and I

were there at Headingley Henry that you said he hates meetings and that sort of thing so how would someone like Owen Morgan who was very successful at setting that sort of mindset and within the group is that like a going around and speaking to people individually were you were you hanging on every word he'd say in the media or would he have meetings to say this is what we're going to do this is how it's going to happen and all that sort of thing i think that when you hear players say they don't like meetings um and we don't have that many meetings as a team i think i've played in teams at both extremities of it i've had a team where to decide what cover tea you're going to have we'd have a meeting to decide um and then we've

played at the other end of the scale as well in domestic cricket and um i think the thing that you don't want when you're having meetings is just a load of word salad and waffle where there might be one good point in amongst loads of words but it gets lost around it the thing that Morgan was good at and the great leaders that I've played under Andrew Strauss in particular as well with the test team from 2009 to 2012 was that they spoke infrequently but when they spoke there was meaning there was purpose and their point hit through Again, Trevor Bayliss was a coach where he wouldn't say that much, but if he got angry or if he sat the team down and wanted to say something,

you knew that he absolutely meant what he said. And when you hear players say they don't like meetings or they don't want to have a lot of meetings, it's because you can sit through a 45-minute meeting, an hour-long meeting, and absolutely nothing be said. And they're pointless for everyone. They're a waste of time. They make people resent going to meetings.

So what Harry Brooke will mean by his statement there is that if we have a meeting, I want there to be a point and a message to him. When you've got a tournament where either you know you're eliminated already, and of course you're not going through the motions, you want to win, you've got professional pride, all of those things. But do you get fewer meetings? Is there fewer bits of socialising? Do you find that actually the team almost drift away from each other? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And that's natural because people, you do back off. you lose your confidence and that unfortunately one of the things about cricket

is that it can become all-consuming to your life like how you kind of you try to be level and the best players do generally stay level but certainly you ride that wave with it as well and that's not just when you're out there on the pitch that's away from the pitch as well so but I during that 2015 World Cup when I got smacked in a couple of games

you know I took wickets but were They weren't the wickets that I wanted to be taken or how I envisaged myself going into that World Cup, how I would be playing and how I would be bowling. And you do retract yourself from social situations because you're worried about, oh, if I, you know, I'm not bowling well, I shouldn't be seen to be doing this. I shouldn't. It affects your whole mentality.

And then that affects your cricket. So it's like this snowball effect. And in 2015, certainly we had quite a few characters who were inclined to be like that as well. So yeah, the team did drift apart. I can imagine that that would be an exhausting process. And for fans who, you know, main event fans, if you like, those that follow the Winter Olympics

and get very into the curling as we all do or become high jump experts, once every four years for the Olympics, there is a sense, Matt, that with cricket World Cups, that they can suddenly draw an audience that wasn't there previous in. You do find that there is a sense. slightly different reaction to performances from an England side during a World Cup than there

would be during a bilateral series. Yeah, well, it's World Cup and Ashes for England, isn't it? That's where it feels like it's a level above, and that's where you get both ways. Obviously, 20's 19 and was brilliant. It's interesting how the time zones and things come into it and that sort of thing as well. You feel like a World Cup that can really hit home being in a good time zone for the UK as well, almost drives that narrative as well, almost to Josh Butler's detriment, I feel, sometimes in his sort of era's captaincy, because that World Cup in 2022 that he won happened all the way in Australia, and it was at funny times for England and that sort of thing. People are at work. It doesn't quite stick in the memory as well as, like, maybe 2019 did on banging UK hours and all that sort of thing. I wonder whether maybe that's me thinking about it a bit too much.

But all those sort of things do come into it, a little bit, I would say. do world cups to find careers do you think i think they can do yeah i think clearly a cricket career um is far more nuanced than that but so look at the guys who won that 2019 world cup they'll be remembered to a man um the people who played in that tournament um forever that's and and that is the thing that you're chasing you don't want to want it too much because then you snatch at your opportunity but certainly that carrot is there and that's the hope no matter how you've been playing in the build up to a World Cup

no matter everyone starts on a level playing field at zero points. England had a horrible Ashes series but they come here with the ability to have a clean slate to try and win a World Cup and potentially win a World Cup and that's the exciting thing is that you start there on zero with everyone else.

So yeah careers can be defined by World Cups with a few caveats and nuances in there as well. Yeah, it's a fascinating one how, Matt, some players, not getting lucky, but they'll find their career coincides with a wonderful period of time, that it is a World Cup cycle. And you might be a World Cup winner having just had a brilliant year or two and be another cricket that had a fine decade, but never got that trophy. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, think of someone like Joffre Archer. It was perfectly timed for him to come in that summer. and then even you don't necessarily have to be the winner, do you? You think of someone like Dwayne Leverroch for Bermuda in 2007 or Steve Ticcolo at Kenya. Like there are those people who capture the imagination in World Cups and that goes back to the lesser nations, not getting the opportunities point.

They're always playing cricket, but they're not getting to play on the biggest stages and then they get to show what they can do and go on and deserve more opportunities like that. So yeah, definitely World Cup because it's such a big stage in a stage which has so many different nations and different teams bringing so many different things to it allows these sort of stories and narratives to come through.

What about the uncertainty over scenarios? Things being out of your hands, not knowing if you're coming or going or staying or where you might be going, because that's unsettling. It is, and that's why you remain way more engaged in a World Cup every single day than you do in bilateral series and anything else that you would experience as a cricketer. Yeah, you're looking.

at other results to say okay how's their net run rate looking if so-and-so beats so-and-so it means we could play them yeah there's there's all these permutations that make it fascinating to watch as a broadcaster and as a fan but also the guys there playing it feel those things too yeah and what about then if your tournament comes to an end people are always surprised by how brutal it is because it's not like well do have a couple of days staying just to unwind and have a few meetings. You are almost out within, you know, players are showing up to the ground almost with their backs back if they don't know if they're going on. Yeah, you're whisked off. In 2015, we had a clear-the-air meeting. I think we had 24 hours after our last group game

against Afghanistan, I think it was in Sydney. And then we had a big clear-the-air meeting that got quite heated and emotional. And we were in there for ages. There was a bit of finger-pointing around the room. Yes, I think we'd have been glad to fly out directly. from the game rather than have that meeting in hindsight. And then there's the logistical headache for the organisers thinking, well, we know that a party of about 30 people, some are going to be either going to Bangladesh or some might be going to England and we've got about a three-hour turnaround time to get it sorted.

That's why they're flight partners. Well, yeah, indeed. But it is, you know, there is a massive lack of certainty that doesn't come with those set fixtures and bilateral sport. Yeah, definitely. There's a bit of that with England in this tournament as well. and would impact Scotland as well, but because England play there,

because it's a five-team group and you've got four games, everyone has to miss one in a round of fixtures. So when England get to the end of this group, should they have done enough to qualify, or should they have finished their games, they still have to sit around and wait for those other games in the group

to finish before they know whether they've qualified, if that makes sense. So then you decide, do we go to Sri Lanka and wait there? Do you stay in India in case it's a flight home from India? it's a tricky little things that you don't realize that come up and thankfully I imagine for the players that's totally taken out of their hands and you've got team that's why you have team managers and that sort of thing but equally it's not taken out of your head if you see what I mean it's still the mental strain of that yeah is it yep still still very much there and I think all the way through one thing that we haven't necessarily spoke about from we talked about it a bit from the associate nations and smaller countries but um the it's a shot window and as a player now with franchise cricket and the life-changing sums of money and you don't want to make it about money

but certainly there's always that carrot there that if you score as a bat of 120 or 60 balls in a World Cup game whether you're in or out of the World Cup that is a shop window that then opens doors for you as well because of the amount of eyes and interest that there are in World Cup such as this so there is always something to play for Yeah, and that's what makes it so interesting and so compelling, isn't it? Because everything has context and everything has meaning. Cricket often talks about its crammed calendar with Bionatural Series. But when you get a World Cup, everyone's in the same place. You sort of have a bit more of a sense of a tournament with rhythm

and knowing that there's going to be a certain number of games a day and following the paths and the stories and everything else. And it is easier almost as a cricket fan to be able to watch and follow what those stories might be. just to finish and wrap up from a journalist's point of view and a player's point of view best thing and worst thing Matt

about a World Cup it's a good question that you've sprung on me right at the end I guess the best thing is the amount of different places you can tick off and the amount not tick off that's the wrong phrase but the amount of different places you get to and get to see

and you get to see different teams and just the overall like the multinational nature of it. You get to lots of different grounds, but crucially see lots of different teams and get to see lots of almost all the time, very high quality cricket.

And the worst thing? Yeah. I'll let Finney go on the net best thing and I'll come back to you. The best thing for a player about playing in a World Cup is playing in a World Cup. When I was a kid, I watched the 99 World Cup, 2003 World Cup,

and you've got the logo on the front of the shirt that says ICC men's World Cup 99 and you dream of wearing your National Crest, a company with that logo on a shirt one day. So, yeah, opening your kit bag and then realizing that it is actually happening is probably the best thing about playing in a World Cup. The worst? The worst thing is that if you play badly, it feels like it never ends. It feels like it goes on for about three years. Do feel like that. The best of times, even when things are going well, Matt. Can I get the violin out and say 7 p.m. start times for

T20s can we move and fall just half an hour earlier? 7 p.m. start times for a journalist is because you think a match that starts at 7 p.m. goes these days pretty much 4 hours. That's 11pm before the press conferences even start

so it is a pretty late night in the end by them but I appreciate we're very looking to do what we do. My violin is tiny for that one. It's a tiny little violin I'm playing for you. That is a small area of suffering for you there. But no, I understand what you're saying. I'm going to chuck in the unpredictability in the stories.

At the start of a tournament, it's the same for the Allsport, really. The names that you've never even considered who suddenly spring their way into the spotlight for a few brilliant performances. I always think that's so, so exciting. Yeah, exciting is the word, actually. You said there, Henry, that you get those things that you don't expect to be talking. talking about when you come into a World Cup but become something that become part of the narrative. I think that is really exciting at a World Cup.

It's quite some things that you can predict what is going to be a topic of conversation like here before this tournament. It would be the Harry Brooks situation or the Brenda McCollum situation and his future and that sort of thing. You know that's going to come up. But then other things just happen and erupt out of nowhere. I remember the Champions trophy, you end up writing a piece about Glenn Phillips's fielding because he pulled off three brilliant like Superman dive catches those sort of things

I remember like you wouldn't necessarily expect to be writing about that but because of you're at a World Cup and you get these access to different players and you get to see different teams it just opens the door to write about so many different things and the narrative can change quite quickly. Yeah I agree with that

and World Cups are special things I know they happen pretty regularly but the four year cycle for the 50 year of World Cup does mean it still feels a little bit a little bit more special perhaps. Stephen, thank you very much indeed. The victims of your hat trick were, Stephen Finn. Three poor, poor men that must have felt very sad that night. I think it was Brad Haddon, Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Johnson. There you go. I'm going to say

the three. Caught deep third, bowled beautifully to a plan that was set and he fell into the trap, caught Long Off exactly the same perfectly executed Yorker that he towed out towards Long Off what great execution and then a well-disguised slowable

to get rid of Johnson caught Midoff who spliced it to mid-off and Jimmy Anderson took the catch and that was the last three balls of the innings so fine bowling it was fine bowling it remains England's only hat-trick

for a man in a 50-over World Cup and so you can't argue of that Philly thank you very much Thank you to you, Matt, as well. Thank you for listening. Don't forget, subscribe to the Test Match Special podcast to make sure you do not miss a thing. BBC Sounds the place to do that or wherever you get your podcasts,

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