Test Match Special - CWC Day 14: Warrior Warner, outstanding Amir and UN full member states

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Finally a day with no rain! David Warner’s brilliant century helped Australia squeeze past Pakistan in a thrilling match in Taunton, despite a superb bowling display from Mohammad Amir – Waqar Younis tells us just what he thinks it will do for Amir, plus Michael Vaughan, Geoff Lemon and Aatif Nawaz give their thoughts on a brilliant match. Trevor Bayliss explains to us why he hasn’t been watching any non-England games at the World Cup, and we continue our quest to find a listener to the podcast in every country in the world. We’re nearly half way there.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Simon Mann in Taunton. Last, the rain stopped, and we had some cricket. Available every day during the Cricket World Cup.

This is the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Corsacraboles, he smashed it. Smash it high down the ground for six. Into the seething crowd it goes. You've never seen anything like this all around the ground. Bonfires are going in the stand at the far end. Australia have won the 1987 World Cup. And straight towards Stokes, it takes an incredible, one-handed catch.

Unbelievable! Well, despite the superb bowling display by Mohammed Amir taking 5 for 30 from his 10 overs, Australia beat Pakistan by 41 runs. We'll hear from Waka Yunis on Mohammed Amir, Michael Vaughn, Jeff Lemon, Atif Nawaz and Andy Zaltzman will also join me. Plus, Trevor Bayliss will tell us why he's not watched any games at this World Cup, other than the England of course, but we'll start with Australia's 41-run victory here at the county ground in Taunton. The TMS podcast, available every day during the Cricket World Cup. Excellent. Days cricket. The rain finally stopped, and we got underway on time. And Pakistan, they threatened to get close, but Australia just had that bit of quality.

And they've taken those wickets. It needs to be the perfect chase late on from Pakistan. Michael Vaughn is alongside me. Well, that was quite a game. You know, we've had pretty much everything. We've had times today where it's been exceptional, particularly with the ball. Mohamed Amir, Pat Cummins, with the batting hand, David Warner, Aaron Finch, Pyrrish, you know, Imal Haq,

Mohammed Afiz. And then we've had some atrocious players also. I've seen some poor ball and some really bad fielding, some poor thinking in terms of the bat, particularly by Pakistan, chasing 308. I think they've gifted Australia five or six dismissals by really poor execution with the stroke. How close was Aaron Finch to not reviewing that Wahab Reyes caught behind? I have to say Aaron Finch so far in this tournament for me has been the best captain tactically.

I think he manoeuvred his team against the West Indies well to win that game. And then just over the last hour where it started to get a little bit panicky for Australia. He manoeuvred his bowling attack knowing that he had to try and get these overs. been he left one late because he wanted to go for the glory in terms of winning the game with Cummings and Stark and it's paid off and that's what you have to do as a captain and it was his instinct to go for that review I don't think he felt it was out but right at the last minute I think you know what we have to gamble we have to go and get Wahabrias out he gambled on the review he got a lot of things right in the field in terms of squeezing at the right time

putting the catches in at the right time then just spreading them out when the partnership started to develop I thought Aaron Finch was outstanding as a captain How do Australia strike you as potential World Cup winners? It's three wins out of four now. They drop the game against India on Sunday, but they bounce back with another victory. I think they'll have to play to a better standard. You know, the winning.

And I think what's important for an Australian supporter is that, you know, and if you're looking at, the World Cup's a long tournament. It's about peaking when you get to the semi-final. I can't see how they won't be in the semifinals. But there's a few things in their team that you look at. I don't think they've quite got the right combination. in the middle of the order when the bat.

I don't think they're quite using Kowager. Right, yeah, they either plays as an open or he doesn't play at all. They've got to get a spinner into the attack, so one of the seamers will miss out. I think Stoinus will come back in. Should be for Kowardra, in my opinion, and then a spinner comes in for one of the seamers. The good thing for Australia, they've won three out of four, and I don't think they've clicked. And the other good thing for Australia is they've won two quite tight matches. The West Indian game was a tightish game, very similar to hear that we got into the last 10 overs,

and all of a sudden you're thinking the West Indies could have won well, They managed to get over the line by bowling brilliantly start producing in that game. He's produced it again here. And I think when you start getting to knockout stages later on in the tournament, it helps if you've played tight games. It's helped that you've come across the situations of being in the field and you're potentially going to lose a game and tactically you've got to make the right move and got to get the field is in the right position and you win.

And they've done that twice already, Australia. So that holds well for them. Can they win the World Cup playing to the standard they've played today? I don't think so. I think they'll come up against better teams and I think they'll be out done by them. But do they have enough in their locker to improve and win the big, big games when it counts?

Absolutely. They've got enough to get better and better and they've won three out of four. So many England fans have been listening. Unfortunately, Australia are well set in this World Cup. Let's have a look at Pakistan for a moment. Think about Mohammed Amir. You said on commentary earlier

that it's just a perfect one-day international exhibition of bowling at 5 for 30. Yeah, I mean we've been in such a privileged position here in the Test Match Special Comptopause because we have sat directly behind the arm of Mohammed Amir and what he did early on when Shahane Afridi

got dispatched by bowling too short, he had to bowl safe because he knew he couldn't gamble on the wickets because the runs were flowing at the end so he just held his length, he didn't gamble on the glory ball, he just went for dot balls and then in the middle of the innings he started to get a little bit of shape and a bit of seam Warner was on 50 odd not out and he came

came back on and he had him playing and missing on two or three occasions per over. And from where we were sat, we could see the ball angling into one and then just seeming away and the odd ball nipping back. And then in his last bell, he got the ball swinging. And then he was bowling cutters at the right time. You know, there's been some wonderful bowling displays in this World Cup. A lot of it's been short stuff, you know, aggressive and it's been great to see. But that was an exhibition in the art of pitching it up, using your skill, varying your pace, using your angles as a left armour. You know, I thought it was a masterclass and had a ball with a ball that's doing a little.

little bit on a pitch that offered just a little bit, but it was more his skill that outdid the batsman than the actual surface and the conditions. It was the skill element of what Mohammed Amir can bring to the game. Five for 30 and one day cricket in this area is absolutely astonishing. And I think he nearly didn't make Pakistan's World Cup squad. Well, I just wonder whether he was just trying to give him a little bit of a kick up at the backside. Well, it worked because he's producing some wonderful spells and his economy is very, very good. And he's produced you know, five wicket-taking deliveries or five errors from the batsman because of his

skill. It's not because I feel that the batsman was making huge errors, it's because they were being outdone by the skill of a wonderful left-arm scene bowler. So tremendous from him. Fortunately, he's on the losing side. So as much as he's got five for 30, he'll be in the dressing room, having got Nort,

and his team have lost, which will be very disappointing for him. Michael, stay there. Let's just hear what Pakistan great Waka Yunis had to say about that bowling display from Mohammed Amir and Pakistan in general. We haven't really topped the performance yet. We haven't really hit the best of our performances yet.

But with Pakistan, you cannot really say which out of the bed they're going to wake up. So that unpredictability is going to always stay with the – doesn't matter if it's a bilateral series or a World Cup. But, yeah, it's exciting time. And I'm sure this team will do well because they have got players who are experienced. and there's some youngsters in the side. And I'm sure they have got plans in place. Mickey Arthur has been working hard with them.

And I'm sure as the tournament sort of goes into the deep end or a harder part, I think they'll up the ante and make sure that they perform well. Coming into the tournament, Mohamed Amir had not had a productive couple of years, but a fifer, where do you think he found that from? I think, you know, because he was not being picked in the World Cup and it was probably hurting him a lot. And luckily that some of our other fastballers did not perform that well in the England series.

So Pakistan had no choice of picking him and he came in and he had a point to prove and he's been bowling extremely well. I mean, the last few games also and even against the Aussies, you know, that FIFA. I think that will take him a long way in talking when you talk about the confidence of a fireball. baller, you know, wickets always helps.

And it's not only the wickets, but he bowled superbly well with the new ball. He's swung it a little bit and he bowled the right area. I think, I guess I'm moving forward that this performance will take him a long way. Well, that was Waka Yunis, Atif Noaz from the Dusra podcast is here as well. I mean, some days we talk about Pakistan, it feels like a bit of a cliche, one day good or one day bad. Well, actually, on this one day, they were both good and bad. Yeah, absolutely, in patches.

I mean it was a gambit of emotions down there I can tell you because one minute you're thinking oh we've got this and the other minute you're thinking oh maybe we've got this and then you think nah there's no chance we've got this but I felt all three of those many times today towards the end I really did think they had a pretty good chance of closing it out

even with just three wickets in hand 54 from 47 you think you should really close that out it's all about the wickets left though wasn't it yeah it's a lot to ask of your lower order to close that out especially against the likes of Cummins and Stark who just bowled you know so well well just towards the end there. It was so, so, they made it very difficult to get the ball away,

just so quick as well. We saw that with Muhammad Amir. It doesn't matter if you've got a low full toss coming. It's very difficult at that kind of pace to play the ball first up. So, yeah, it was a little bit disappointing, but it was nice to see a spirited chase. What do you feel this means for Pakistan's World Cup hopes? You've got a small matter of India coming up on Sunday.

Well, it's gone from a small matter to a very, very big matter for Pakistan. Now, they've become essentially a must-win game for them if they're to make the semifinals. win game against India. Yeah, good. Could you imagine such a thing? I don't think they have those ever. It's become a must-win on many, many levels for Pakistan now. You know, you often meet Pakistani fans and they always say, like, I will happily lose, but we don't want to lose a tournament, but don't lose to India, right? It's become about much more than that.

Losing to India would mean losing the World Cup as well on Sunday or certainly losing the possibility of getting into the semifinals. I suspect that Pakistan will want to respond in a similar way to the way the Australians responded to their loss on Sunday. to India. If Pakistan can come back in a similar way, apply themselves, do their very best, they'll fancy their chances. But they've never beaten India in a World Cup match. Well, then the law of probability is on our side. Well, you say that. You said it every time. I do say that every time, and I shall continue to say so until I'm proven right.

Atif, thanks very much. Pleasure. Indeed. How do you see Pakistan now, Michael? Well, the problem is you summed it very nice advice saying, usually we're not too sure which Pakistan is going to arrive on a given day. Well, we didn't know which Pakistan were going to arrive in five over blocks today. For the first 40 overs in the field, you take away Mohammed Amir. Let's be honest, they were atrocious.

In the field, you know, they didn't look like they'd played the game a few of them. They weren't backing up. They were throwing the ball at the stumps and they were getting buzzards. There was plenty of overthrows. Dropping chances, fumbles in the outfield

with the ball in hand in the conditions that they won the toss and balding. You know, it was just a pitch up morning. Get the batsman coming forward. They're ball too short and then they ball too wide. You know, the captain will be so disappointed.

because, you know, I don't think the conditions change so much, but certainly was that there's a small advantage for half an hour this morning with the ball in hand. If you got it right, I reckon they could have knocked two or three at the top order of Australia, got themselves off to a really good start. You know, and the discipline element of Pakistan cricket has crept in where they are ill-disciplined and in a World Cup where there's some strong teams, you know, they won the Champions Trophy two years ago

by having a similar start and then they came through and suddenly found great form and beat India in the final. I don't see that happen. with this Pakistan team. I just don't see where they're going to suddenly start firing. I know they're great to watch and they can beat anybody, but I've seen them feel like that too consistently now. You know, it's not a one-off.

I saw them feel pretty much every game before the World Cup against England that way. It cost them probably 30 or 40 runs a game. I would say it probably cost them over them 30 or 40 days. And with the batting hand, they're just making poor judgments. They've been bounced out here, you know, with the short stuff. They got bounced out against the West. Indies had one good day against England.

They have to beat India on Sunday. And for me, India have been the best team in the tournament. So far, they seem to have everything covered. I know they lost to Pakistan two years ago in the World in the Champions Trophy final. But I watch India-Pakistan. I always feel that India have more players that believe they're going to win the game than Pakistan do. Pakistan will arrive on Sunday with two or three of them thinking, you know what, I can deliver today. I think India will have seven or eight who believe that they can produce an individual performance to get India over the line.

bus win for Pakistan, it'll make for a great occasion. The noise will be louder than we've had throughout the whole World Cup. Can't wait to see it, but I just can't see with Pakistan producing this inconsistency, how they're going to be good enough to be India. Jeff Lemmon is here as well. Give us an Australian perspective on, well, Australia. Well, I think they've got a little bit fortunate, to be honest. A couple of times, I think, against the West Indies, they've been,

they were certainly lucky to get away with that and Stark dragged them back into that game. And I think here again, Stark bailed them out where they could have lost because they didn't quite score enough. You know, sure, it's a big score 308 and they'll be saying, well, it doesn't matter we've found a way to win regardless of how we went about it. But from the position they were in, 124 after 222 overs, that opening stand, they were absolutely smashing Pakistan. They should have made closer to 400 than 300. The batting order is disjointed. They've got batsmen playing out of place. There's no hiding the fact that they were trying to hide Osman Kowager when you see a batting.

been being shuffled down who he was opening then he was the first drop now he's not coming in at four or five he came in at six he's never batted at number six in a list a game let alone an international game he's batted at number five once in a list a match 10 years ago and suddenly he's walking out at number six in a world cup for his country saying oh just go out there with ten overs to go and knock off a quick 60 off 30 would you asman it's not his style it's not fair to him you know there's no criticism of him as a player but Australia's got a lot of things backwards, they didn't score enough today. And they could have seen that score chased down by Yahub and Safra as if Mitchell Stark hadn't turned the match on its head. No Stoinus today. What's the

latest on him? The latest is that he's staying in the squad as far as we know. So Mitchell Marsh is around as cover. But if they make that change to the squad, it's permanent. Stoinis would then have to have someone else become injured before he could come back into the squad. So they're not pulling that rain yet because they need the adaptability that he brings. They've got basically their backup players are three bowlers who can't bat very much and one batsman who can't bowl. So there's very little adaptability or flexibility in that Australian squad if Stoinus is injured. But they do have David Warner and they do have Mitchell Stark and they do have Pat Cummings. I mean, they do have match winners.

Yeah, they've got match winners and it's a bit thin in between those match winners. So Mitchell Stark has won them two matches. Can you rely on that as a really sensible and reasonable method to win a World Cup? I don't think so. I think they got shown up against India in terms of what happens when they meet a more quality opposition. You know, that loss to India even

was a bit of papering over the cracks. It was a much more substantial loss than 36 runs really on the day. They'd lost that game by about 20 overs into the chase. So they've got those issues. We'll see that again, I think, when they come up against England. So they've got to find a way to play more cohesively,

but I just don't really know if it's possible with the squad and the limitations they've got in terms of what role which players can play. Michael, David Warner today, back to the Warner that I think that we've become used to after two strange innings so far, two half centuries in two previous matches. But this was more like the Warner we've been used to today. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's back to what he was, but he's a lot better than we saw

against India and a lot better than we saw against Afghanistan. It's his calling. When he calls loud and you hear it through the stunt mic, you know that Warner's got his energy, you know he's got his buzz. And that's what he brought here to torn. and that, you know, straight away he got off the mark with a quick single to mid-off.

We didn't see that against India. And then he got the cut shot away, the pull shot, the ball too short to him. He feeds on anything, just a hint of width outside of Ostum, plays a square of the wicket shots as well as anybody. Let's hear from him then. David Warner is with Rami's Raja.

Fantastic, 100. This is what Australia needed on a tough fish like this from their opener. Thanks. Yeah, look, I think when I got out, we had 70 balls to go. And, you know, as the end batter, you want to try and bat 50 overs.

and then put on more runs. I think 300, we should have been around 340, 3.50. But credit to the way that Pakistan bowled, their second spells were fantastic. They hit their lines and lengths and made it hard for us to actually drive down the ground. It was a sea change for you in a way from that innings that you scored against India

to where you were in this innings. What changed actually? Yeah, I think it was a used wicket for one and it was a tad dry. And they bowled very straight lines to me and gave me no width. So, look, guys, just have to come out here and, you know, sort of adapt. It was a bit of movement early on in that wicket, so you sort of had to be a bit more tighter.

And then if you got any sort of back of a length balls, you know, you get to try and climb into it. And that's all that my mindset was. What does this century mean to you and to Australia? Oh, look, it means a lot to a batsman. But for us, it's about the way that we finished just then. You know, there's some great efforts and great knocks there from Pakistan. Obviously, why have at the end there coming out and freeing. his arms but look you know our bowler's bowled fantastic there probably got closer than we probably

expected but look it was a great game fantastic knock will done thank you what it'll do for him is you know as much as he's a great player and a great strike of a ball you do lose confidence and i think the innings against india will have just knocked his confidence somewhat now he's arrived against pakistan and he's got the century ominous signs for the rest of the the world could because I'm sure he will get better and better from an Australian perspective it's Glenn Maxwell that I'd be frustrated with because they just don't know quite how to use Glenn Maxwell

and it can come in late like... How should they use him? Well, today it was perfect but he's got to be smarter himself. You know, he can't just keep blaming that he's not getting in or he gets a lot of noise from people outside the group saying, oh, you've got to get him up high at the audit.

Well, today was his perfect opportunity. It was a good pitch. The ball wasn't doing a great deal. He knew that Mohammed Amir had bowled a number of oath before he gets out there and all of a sudden he gets to a 20 quite nice. They're just knocking it around. And then the big fellow, Shanina Friedi, comes on. And he plays a nothing shot. It's a nothing shot.

I mean, his feet go nowhere, tries to launch it over the top. And with so many overs left, you know, I think he's got to, as much as you've got to have the boundary options, he's got to start rotating the striker as well, thinking about ones and twos and playing a little bit less risky. He doesn't have to climb into the ball every single time that he's facing a delivery. He's got to play a bit smarter. And if they can suddenly find a method for Glenn Maxwell to back, and bat sensibly at times.

You know, what happens when Maxwell goes, it's very similar to Butler. When Butler goes out to the middle, the fielders go deeper because they know he's going to take them on. So straight away, you've got a single. And Maxwell could easily get a runner board, just can knock it around and just play the page, and almost bluff the opposing team into thinking

that he's playing a different way. And then you might squeeze and think, well, he's playing a bit differently today, Glenn Max, we'll come in a bit tighter, and then you go. But so far, this thing he plays one way, and I think he's easy to plan against. And that would be the frustration for me for Australia, He's got all the talent in the world.

He could be a great, great player. But playing and thinking the way that he is at the minute, I would be very frustrated if I was a coach of Australia because he continues to get so opportunities and he plays a shot and go, well, I mean, the innings he played against Indy, the first three balls, he went down the ground off Bunba for four.

He played a glance down to the vacant third man off, Bubanesh Rekuma. And he thought, well, this guy's got a bit of genius in him. But then he just makes a mistake. And very similar again today, he just knocks it around, hits a boundary to it, and then makes a stupid mistake.

If he can get his mind on, not making those silly mistakes, you add him to your match winners and he can win Australia World Cup. He's that good with the bat. No question, he could win a game on his own, as Butler can for England, as the likes of Roit Sharma, Virak Kolikhan, for India. But it's just finding his mentality,

and that would be a real frustration for me if I was in the Australian camp. Andy, anything to add? Well, just a highlight. This rather curious maker by the Australian side in which they appear to have not quite enough batting and not quite enough bowling. Stark and Cummins between them in the tournament, 18 wickets, average 20, the rest of the Australian bowlers,

13 wickets average 55, Stark and Cummins going at just under 5 and over, the rest going at 6 and a half. So it is a strangely balanced 11 that Australia refielding. A time now to hear from Australia's Captain Aaron Finch. He is with Alison Mitchell. Aaron, you're pushed a little bit towards the end, but are you pleased with the way the team fought to get that win? Absolutely, we stuck tight there and got a bit closer than what it looked for a while. They come out and smacked a few Wahhab and Hassan Ali. We were great strikers of the ball.

I think our batters can learn a lot from the way that Safra has played and batted well with the tail. At the top of the order, though, yourself and Dave, we're picking on 100 runs together. Do you think we've seen Dave Warner back to his best? That was an unbelievable innings. It was the way that he played on a difficult surface. He was disappointed. He was kicking himself.

He got out when he did, but at the same time, to play the way that he did was outstanding. We often see emotion from him when he reaches. three figures. Do you think there was a bit of extra emotion for the fact that he's come back into the side like that? Wouldn't you have a little bit of extra motivation, a bit of extra emotion? It's been a tough time for them, no doubt. And you want to take every opportunity you can when you come back and, yeah, it's a special for him today, I think. And do you feel the whole team has rallied around and is enjoying his success as a group? Oh, absolutely. And that's been a real, not a real focus, but it's been, it's really evident that that's been the

case for the whole last few months is that everyone's really enjoying each other's success and when you do that you get you get you get better function in teams because no one plays for themselves no one plays for for their own stats or or to get a nod out or something like that or to get some extra week as everyone just plays for the team whatever the team needs reflection as a whole to finish with on today's performance what will you still be looking to finesse as you move on through the group we didn't bat our 50 overs again which was disappointing we didn't have an in-batter go deep into the innings when we had a couple of set batters probably the whole way through and we probably just pulled the trigger a bit early.

A bit of execution with the ball at times, but all in all, it was not a bad. I thought our fielding was excellent. And it stayed dry. Aaron, thanks for your time. Thanks, Ellie. Cheers. So, Trevor, can I just get you to say, like you're listening to the TMS podcast

at the Cricket World Cup? Make sure you subscribe on BBC Sounds. You're kidding, Andy. What's a podcast? Now, as you may well know on this podcast, we've been trying to see if we can find listeners in every country in the world. Andy Zaltzman.

how many countries are there in the world? Well, so I mean, there are currently 193 UN recognized countries. That's not including non-member observer states, nor countries that have ceased to exist, nor countries that indeed will exist in the future. No doubt there'll be some cracking ones coming into the cricket World Cup as it expands to encompass all the countries in the universe, but 193 currently.

What's a non-member observer state? None of your business. Right. Two weeks into the tournament, how many countries have we ticked off? 82 so far, which is pretty good. It's a long tournament. This is when we're thankful that the Cricket World Cup is that long. 82 countries tick off.

If you had rain days, it'd be even longer. We can't fit even more countries in. Countries we've ticked off since the last match include South Africa, which I think they used to play cricket in, didn't they? Germany, Pakistan, is that too soon? Pakistan, Hungary, Ghana and Slovakia. Please, we don't need any more from the USA. The USA, of course, participants in the first ever international game of cricket in 1844,

and they lost to Canada. So let's have a look at some of the latest emails and where people are listening. Matt Collins, actually, this is someone who emailed yesterday from Barbados. Just a quick follow-up to our email, which I was very happy to hear being expertly read out by Andy Zaltzman on today's podcast. He says, however, just a quick correction. Andy gave the breed of our dogs as corgis. I think he must have thought my email was a typo. Double question mark, is that right or not?

Well, that double question mark Surely is a typo in itself They're actually Doggis Being across between a miniature Daxant and a corgi Photo attached To show them

Enjoying the Bayesian sunshine That's what you can do with With dogs It doesn't make great radio this But there are two dogs In the sand In the picture I hope you've got sun cream on

Do you need to sun cream dogs or not You don't need to But it is a lot of fun and presumably reasonable for their health as well. Paul Brown says he's listening from Phnom Pen in Cambodia. Great podcast, if only to remind me, of the unpredictable weather in Bristol. Well, lying by the shade by the pool. I mean, Bristol, your hometown has taken an awful lot of hammer.

I think it's very, very unfair, that. Very unfair. Sadly, we've already had someone from Cambodia, Paul, as well as Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia. but if you are able to nip over to Bhutan and listen to an episode that would be much appreciated. So no one from Bhutan just yet? Not yet.

Right, Gidi Hilkovitz. Hi TMS, I'm a listener from Israel. Unfortunately, there aren't many other TMS fans around these parts, but the weather here is really nice and dry, and I'm hoping to send that over to you guys in England. Well, at least it was dry in Taunton's there. I can't vouch for the rest of the week.

The forecast for Trent Bridge doesn't look that good. England playing on Friday in South Hampton. I mean it really is a fingers crossed week. From Dominic and Lottie Gogol I don't know if they're related to the 19th century Russian writer.

Of course they are. Of course they are. Dominic and Lottie Gogol, Bula! As the Fijian say. Well, boola to you. People have said worse. They're right, we are currently volunteering on the Great Sea Reef in Fiji for two months, so are sadly missing the whole World Cup at home. The 11-hour time difference

makes it tough for us to follow the matches, so the TMS podcast, keep us up to date with the action every single morning as we have breakfast. What sort of excuse is that for missing the World Cup? What, saving a reef? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's quite a good one, isn't it? Yeah, okay, fair enough. Tim Stevens, I've been listening to your Daily World Cup podcast every day on the way home

from picking up my two boys from school here in Hong Kong. My boys are 10 years old and are absolutely hooked to the pod as every day they listen out to see if they get a mention. Well, there we go. We've mentioned them today. out that as yet you haven't mentioned anyone else from Hong Kong. They're also working hard on increasing your audience

as they now have a large percentage of their class and their teacher subscribing to the pod. Not that many of them know much about cricket yet, though. So please be pleased, could you give a mention to Charlie and Alfie Stevens age 10 from Clearwater Bay School in Hong Kong? It would mean

so much to them. Please to do that. Hong Kong is not officially a UN member state. Oh no, so it doesn't came? No. But China, is it? I understand there's certain disputes regarding that currently taking place. So did Charlie and Alfie Stevens, I've just given a mention to, do they count for our countries or not? So we have to scrub them out?

Am I the adjudicator of this? Do we have to give them a non-mentioned? Well, no, I think we can keep them in. And I think it's good that, you know, I think cricket should be taught in more schools like this, you know, because you learn an awful lot. It's maths, isn't it? Adding up numbers with another number up to six, generally. And you learn about geography,

countries in the world, obviously at this World Cup, you learn about far fewer countries than in the previous World Cups, but still you're learning, you're learning. And philosophy as well, you learn that life's not fair. Yeah, exactly. That's what the zing bales are brought to this tournament. You know, cricket is supposed to be a metaphor for life, and life is unfair. The zing bales are merely reflecting that. They're showing that you do not always get what you deserve.

And it's time these professional cricketers stop winging about it. Right, what we need to know is where people have been listening so far and what other countries we need to have on our list. So I think the best thing to do, Andy, is just give us the list of where people have listened so far and be snappy about it. All right, I'll do my best, Simon. Well, starting in alphabetical order with Argentina, where Ben Rutherford emailed us. Then we've got Armenia from Nathan Brand, Australia, Tim Cox, Austria, Julia Raffault, Azerbaijan, Kevin Gosling. Hello, Kevin.

Bahrain, Sam Sysland, Barbados, Gary Hutchinson, Belgium, Lizzie Morris, Brazil, Alan Dens. Can you not give yourself a Brazilian cricket fan name, like Picnicino or something? Brunei, Christopher White, Cambodia, Ross Maw. McDonald, Canada. Daniel Morris and many, many more, Chile, Beth Willard, China, from Oliver Smith, and several others, Colombia, Winston-Chang and Olivia Taylor, Costa Rica, Doris Ward, Croatia, Dave Pendleton, Cuba, Anna Bronskill, the Czech Republic, Mr. G. DeFelisci Antonio, Denmark, Neil Butler, Ecuador from, in fact, not just Ecuador, from the Galapagos Islands. Kate is also there. She says she's taking pictures

of boobies. I'm going to have to just take you on trust there, Kate. Egypt from Harvinda Babra, Fiji, Dominic and Lottie Gogol, as we heard from today, France, Rachel Campbell, Gary Sargent, Germany, Matt Clements, Garner, Stephen Roboram, Greece, Simon Oglo, Hungary, Cameron Dodd, Iceland, Iceland, Graham Innes, India, Dustin Yard, Indonesia, Kashmani and a few others, Iraq, Tom Callard, Israel, Giddy Hilkevitz, Italy, Rebecca Lawrence, Jamaica, Duncan Haynes, and Olly, Justin Boutiches, and Ollywayal, the same too, also, also, also, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Tim Rollinson, Liberia, Stephen Bix, Luxembourg, Henry Spaulding, I hope things have perked up there, It was awfully, Ben Siddell, Malaysia, Christopher White, Marley, Harry Horsham, Mauritania,

Sydanteau, Mexico, Mark Williams, Mongolia, Angus Richardson and Ollyway. Oh, he'd been there as well, have you? All right, Marco Polo, don't flash it about. Montenegro, Mike Dodd, Mayan, Marr, Tom Platt, New Zealand, James O'Hawarra, North Macedonia, South Macedonia, and many other. I'm extremely popular in Norway, it turns out. Oman, Robert Hughes, Pakistan, Papinegne, Papinegne, Papinegne, Paris, Peru, David Smith, Poland, Chris Taylor, Tom and Gemma Peter,

Everton, Everton, Roberta Comley, from the Republic of Korea, Paul from Romania, Tim Judy, the Russian Federation, Mike Ball, Saudi Arabia, Shankar, Krishnan, Versa Seychelles, Cona Gibson, Singapore, Viraj Mata, Slovakia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Andrew Elder, South Africa, Bester, I think he's coming over here on a coal-back contract. South Sudan, North, Nicholas Hercules, Spain, David McElroy, I mean, that's a big surname to live up to. Spain, David McElroy, Switzerland, Mark Bennett, Tajikistan, Mark Benet, Oh, it's Angus and Olly again. Traffey-up, and this does look like some kind of MI5 operation.

Is there's some pipeline involved. Thailand, George Walsh and many others, Timor Les, Mark Young, Turkey, Nick Doddy, Ukraine, Ukraine, Alad Williams, the United Kingdom, the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Lots. The United States of America, loads. Surprisingly, loads. Uzbekistan, Angus and Olly, again. Vietnam, Jono Gooch. And from... Well, international territories, Pranav Baradwage, listening 37,000 feet above the Atlantic. I assume that was, on a one-off basis. That's not where he is currently residing in some kind of balloon of protest about the way the world is going. Maybe that's just floating around the world in a giant balloon of solitude. Right, please keep your emails coming in and let us know where around the world you are listening. tms at bbc.co.uk and put podcast in the title any more stats for us andy before we move on

a few coming out of today's game pakistan against the short ball lost seven for 55 against west indies and seven for 78 against australia today so i don't know if you can call it an achilles heel when it's more i don't know an achilles throat for pakistan's batting great performances from two of the finest bowlers in the tournament so far pat cummins and mohammed ameer between them, eight for 63. They both took the first over. That's the third best combined analysis by number one bowlers

in the history of the World Cup. Mohammed Amir has taken 10 wickets average 12 in this tournament and had taken five in his previous 14 matches before this tournament average over 90. So he has turned it on in the big tournaments having finished the Champions Trophy in 2017

in a blaze of glory before that barren run. Best start of the day though, we had nearly 90. six overs of cricket. After all that rain, we've seen in the last few days. If it keeps increasing at that rate from day to day, the games are going to get way too long. We can take it. We can take it.

The World Cup is long. We've got stamina. Now, England had some great news today. Moen, Alice, Fieruzza, has given birth to a baby girl called Haidia. Moin didn't train today, but we'll be back with the team tomorrow, and we'll be able to play on Friday against West Indies. Don't forget, we'll have full commentary on that game, on Five Live Sports Extra. You can listen out and about via BBC sounds if you're in the UK. Josh Butler will also be available.

He didn't keep wicked against Bangladesh on Saturday because of a bruised hip, but he did take part in training today. And head coach Trevor Bayliss has been speaking to Eleanor Oldroy. The TMS podcast at the Cricket World Cup. Well, Trevor Bayliss, welcome to the TMS podcast. First question, I suppose, is how is Josh Butler? Yeah, he's fine. He'll be here at practice today and taking, yeah,

he'll be training fully. So it's been a good recovery from the hip bruising? Yeah, it was just, yeah, some bad bruising, which I think he, look, he could have kept in that last game, but he wasn't too confident of sprinting after a catch, so we thought we'd, you know, that we'd take the, not the easy option, but just be careful about preserving him for the rest of the tournament.

How much of a concern is it that you've got a key player like that, such a talisman, really, for this team, not completely fit. Would you have rested him if you were worried at all that he might not be, that it might aggravate the injury? Oh, yes, certainly. You know, the tournament's a long one. So, you know, for a player, even if it is one of the best players in the team, you know, to miss one game, you know, that's not going to hurt us.

Hopefully, you know, that would be, hopefully over the last three or four years, what we've done is try to give a number of guys their opportunity and create a number of guys. a squad with depth and hopefully if we've done our job right then if someone has to have a rest like that well then the replacement should be ready to go you know the west indies pretty well of course you've played them back in february march which is a pretty tightly contested series to all what did you learn from them from that well that they're yeah they've got a good team and on their day they can they can hurt any team in the world you know they've got batters

that can hit the ball out of the ground and and some fast bowlers you know that can take wickets so yeah they're a dangerous team and we'll have to play well to beat them are you surprised at how pace is actually you know becoming quite a big thing in this in this World Cup that you've got obviously players like Shane Thomas playing for the West Indies you've got Joff Archer and Mark Wood playing for you well not really I mean the I mean everyone knows over the last few years you know the scores from a batting point of view have been very high obviously you know there's a number of teams doing their homework on well how can we

we first of all stop the flow of runs and that's certainly a tactic I suppose to to bowl a little shorter and cover those cross-batch shots but you know they're not the only team that can run in and bowl short you know we've got you know a couple of guys as well that can make their batters jump around a bit I was reading that Mark Wood says that Joffa Archer was actually pushing him on to get a little. a little bit quicker himself. Is that a kind of nice little rivalry between the two of them? Not really. I'd much prefer if they were spurring

each other on to take more wickets. That'd be probably be more to the point. If that leads to more wickets, well then that's what we're after. Mark Wood, of course, actually had a good time, didn't he in the West Indies? He took some wickets in that series earlier in the year. Does that encourage you going into this game?

Yeah, certainly. He took wickets, but he also made them their batters jump around a little bit as well. It could be an interesting game and hopefully the weather stays away and we can get a full game in. Final thought, have you watched any other games? No. I've seen the results

but just bits and pieces here and there. Not a cricket watcher. Not unless we're involved. I watch enough cricket so I don't want to spend my days off watching other games of cricket. It's sometimes on in the background. As I said, I obviously keep an eye on the results but to sit down all day and watch another match

when I don't really need to. Yeah, I'll leave that to others. What have you been doing instead? Not a real lot, to be honest. I flew up to Glasgow to a friend's funeral in the last couple of days, but caught up with some old friends up there. I played league cricket up in Glasgow in 1989 and 90, so caught up with a few old friends, which was nice.

Not under the best circumstances, but it was still good to. you need to get up that way. Trevor, thank you very much indeed. No problems, thank you very much. That's England head coach Trevor Bayliss talking to Eleanor Oldroyd, Michael Vaughn and Vic Marks, alongside me. Trevor there saying West Ind is a good team with dangerous players. I mean, he's seen a bit of them in the Caribbean, a lot of them in the Caribbean recently. I don't think anyone can argue with that.

They've got the players to hurt England. Yeah, they have. And if the pitch is similar to the one that India, played South Africa on, there was a little bit of spice in the wicket, there was a little bit of movement, a bit of bounce. You know with the West Indies that they're going to come hard at you, you know, with the bat and the ball. Very, very dangerous, very powerful, but I do think England should have enough skill. You know, I think you can outskill the West Indies. They've got, obviously, Shane Thomas at the top, Andre Russell, that you pretty much know the way

that they're going to bowl now, so it shouldn't surprise England that the short stuff will be coming. So you would feel that over the course of the next two days, you know, the bats one will be practicing those short balls or they should be. With the ball in hand, it's more which way England go. Do they go back to two spinners? I would against the West Indies team. I think the boundary size is that the Hampshire Bowl will suit. And would one of those spinners be Moines Alley?

His wife just given birth. He's been a sort of, you know, didn't play in the last game. Is Liam Dawson potentially playing on his home ground? No, Moines Alley will come straight back in for me. And, you know, the boundary sizes help you at the Hampshire Bowl. You know, if you're playing at Taunton, you know that as a spinner, you don't have much chance and you know

he's very interested to hear that Trevor Bayless doesn't watch you know I find that quite revealing and whether he's just trying to portray this image that it's not that important to be really studying

the World Cup all the time that might be just a message that he's sending to us I'd be amazed if he's not got half an eye on some of the other games I like the fact that he said I'll leave that to other people

so he's obviously got quite a strong staff that do all the work in terms of watching and research and analysing the opposition but you know I think that's just Trevor Bayless, he's very relaxed. I think he's so important for the team's ethic around this World Cup

because I think we all felt that England in the first three games, even before Bangladesh, you felt it was edgy, you felt it was a little bit nervy. And having someone like Trevor around must be fantastic because he is just ultra cool, very calm, very relaxed. I think he's a very, very important cog in this England wheel. You can just imagine someone asking that, Gareth Southgate that. You know, the football World Cup.

But Gareth, did he watch Brazil against Argentina? No, no, I can't be bothered. Someone else do that. Well, you've got all these analysts. You've got to give them freedom, don't you? I mean, he's not arson thing. I imagine he watches quite a bit of football when he's off. But he will, I'm sure the analysts will be working,

and they will want to know what Russell and Ted Russell and Thomas. Because that's going to be a key challenge, that England have got to be cool when they get, We anticipate quite a lot of short balls. Unless it's a pitch like this, where, actually, David Warder, quite right, you bowl test match length here because you get people out. But if it's truer, as it has been, and you get these short balls coming, you've got to show a lot of skills, which ones to take on, which ones to let go.

That'll be a little test that England have got to pass because some of the other sides have struggled with that so far in this tournament. Not many teams have beaten England twice in a one-day series since the last. World Cup. West Indies managed it in the Caribbean. They won a game in Barbados and they won a game in St. Lucia actually by bouncing England out. Yeah, I'm interested to see

if they do go back to the two spin options which of the Seamers misses out. I just wonder if they might throw Wood and Joffra Archer to go with the new ball together, yeah, and go really quick back at the West Indies and someone like Chris Wokes may miss out. I think that there's a fair chance to do that. It's sort of, they aren't

doing a rotor system, but it's Wokes is time to miss out in a way. He hasn't looked that potent with the new ball. He's usually taken it. He's batted quite nicely and he's caught brilliantly but I think if you go from the last game Wooden Archer were more of a threat

and they are, it's not a question necessarily of fire with fire but if they want to go short you're happier with Wooden Archer doing that than Chris Wokes who hasn't got that extra bit of place. Yeah particularly to someone like Chris Gale, the universe boss he just feeds on anything H of Mars and now of length. You might get

him early with one that just moves a bit but he survives two or three overs and lined you up at that pace. There's a chance that you could cause a lot of damage. So I just wonder if they'll go, right, you've talked about the quick stuff. Well, we can match you with a couple of our own and we're going to hit you hard and possibly England will go short as well. The TMS podcast at the Cricket World Cup. Download and subscribe via the BBC Sounds app for a new episode every day.