Test Match Special - Good Pace for Radio Ep 4: Walking off injured, Numbers’ signals, and Woody the Mummy

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

Tymal may be out of the World Cup, but it doesn’t mean the podcast is over… Mark Wood and Tymal Mills discuss what it’s like to walk off injured during the middle of an over, and just how much PPE you have to wear when going for a scan outside the bio-bubble. The two are joined by Nathan ‘Numbers’ Leamon, the England team data analyst, to find the most ridiculous question he’s ever been asked by a player, and what his signals from the boundary edge mean. Plus they look back on two impressive wins against Australia and Sri Lanka, including a memorable century from Jos Buttler.

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Mills sprints in, very full, in the air and court. A wicket for Tumar Mills. Wood balls and he's yorked him. Exceptional pace from Mark Wood. Good pace for radio inside England's World Cup bubble with Tumal Mills and Mark Wood. Hi, everybody, welcome back. This is the latest episode, Good Face for Radio. Once again, Tomar Mills.

And I'm Mark Wood. It's been a little while, so. It's been a week or so since we last spoke. A lot's happened in this last week. We've had some really high performances out on the field. We had brilliant wins against Australia. Probably even better win against Sri Lanka, wasn't it? Led by that brilliant ton, of course, from Joss.

We'll get into those in a little bit. We're also going to be joined by Team Data Analyst Nathan Lehman. obviously had some bad news in there as well mixed in personally but as a team we're going really well Woody how are you mate I'm good I'm a bit sad for you actually do you want to tell us what happened out there I mean it was a it seemed all happens so fast in it for you it was awful to for me personally to say someone like that I know what that's like myself so what actually happened yeah so I've just got a minor quad strain so I'm going to I'm going to be missing the rest of the World Cup which is obviously

been pretty upsetting and frustrating. We were supposed to record this episode a couple of days ago, but understandably, I think I wasn't in the best of moods for the last couple of days. So, yeah, pretty much just playing against Sri Lanka the other day, bould my first over, all good. Had a bit of tightness in my quad in the field in between. Do you think that was because of the sweaty?

Did it have anything to do with that, do you think? Potentially, we've obviously looked back and kind of we trained Friday, we played against Australia Saturday, had Sunday off, and then we played Monday, and as you say, I'd probably say it's the hottest and sweatiest I've ever been on a cricket field. It's obviously hot. We're in the UAE playing cricket, but it was particularly hot and humid.

I'm sure anybody that was watching on TV or have seen any of the images, that we were all absolutely drenched full of... Well, I remember Jason Roy, he had the... He wore a long sleever, didn't he? And he was ringing the long sleeve out during, like, every over that he was playing. So that just tells you how drenched the lads were. I wonder if that had any effect. that you know where you're bit tight or just because you were sweating so much where you

dehydrated aren't there? I mean as a 12th man I've been doing the drinks and you are guzzling your drink on you. You're the one that everyone. Sam Billings told me that you guys on the bench have started calling me the Hummer. That's right because you're guzzling down and I get about four miles to the gallon. I'm constantly drinking so clearly I'm a 12th man's nightmare but yeah those type of things could have obviously contributed but um yeah it'd just been one of them things though couldn't you never you're never you never I don't know, it's just... But basically, I ran in, bowled the ball and I felt a bit in my quad,

walked back to my mark, and then I went to run in again, and then I felt it definitely more acutely, more, you know, kind of sharply. So you felt at the ball before, did you? When I bowled the ball, yeah, I felt just, I felt something more so than I'd felt before. But then I walked back to my mark and I didn't feel anything. So I was like, okay, you know, I didn't think too much of it. But then when I went, when I pushed off to run again, yeah, it hurt and... Do you know what to do in them situations?

I've been in that situation a few times where you're injured on that particular ball and you don't know whether it's just right the cameras are on am I going to make a big deal of this like can I actually get through it have a chat you don't want to make a big deal there but you know there's something wrong like what was going through your mind at that point yeah so it's it's something that I've learned the hard way with and I've got so much better at so I'm I'm so glad that I walked off the field when I did because previously when I've when I've pulled hamstrings or anything before you almost you don't want to believe it's true because you don't want to be injured do you so you kind of think oh no maybe it's just a bit of cramp maybe it's nothing and then you try

and go again and then you end up just making it worse and you pull it yeah pull it back um you pull it more severely and then you're just adding days a week's however really onto onto your return to play so i i've done that in the past and i'm glad that when as soon as i felt it i obviously went and spoke to morgues and told him that yeah i'm not sure my quad's any good here and then but that feeling have you ever have you had to leave the field like mid mid over before it's it's it's embarrassing isn't it you you don't want to do it all you know the all the cameras are on you walking off the field you know what they're saying don't you 100% you know for a fact that they say no he's gone or there's an injury or there's something there's something that

you're walking off and they're talking about you saying something especially in a world cup millions of people watching all around the world and it's it's not a nice it's not a nice place to be sure it out don't you 100% Especially, I'm sure again, you'll resonate with it. As a person who's had injuries a lot over their career, the last thing you want to do is have another high profile injury. Yeah, what happens to work. I've worked really hard, and I've had a really good six, seven months.

I've played non-stop cricket, really, kind of in the blast, played all through the 100, came out here. I've not missed a training session. I've played every game. Do you think that's maybe why then? Like, because it's so high profile player for England, isn't it? I'm not saying all that stuff isn't because the 100 was like, You call it what it is.

But I'm saying like if it, because you're having a World Cup, you're desperate to win the World Cup for England, you're back in amongst the Ford, you're doing really well. Is it just the fact that you've had so much crammed in or the intensity or is it hard to say it? Yeah, well, it's impossible to say, isn't it? It could have happened at any point. Yeah, I wouldn't say I was trying any harder than I have done in any other game. I felt, you know, in good rhythm and things like that.

But I think, yeah, it's just, it's just so frustrating. And that's probably one of the things. niggle into the game with you didn't you are you're totally 100% yeah I felt great I said I done did everything that I would do normally pre pre game and yeah it's just one of those things that it went you know pop a little bit and as I said I'm glad I went off when I did because subsequently the scans which will get onto and stuff have revealed it's not it's not a major injury I'll be probably two weeks three weeks which in in some ways actually makes it worse because I know it's not a bad injury.

You know, in some ways you kind of would prefer it to be a five, six week job and then you kind of, you deal with it. But whereas this, I know that, say if we get to the World Cup final, I know I probably, I won't be, yeah. I know I won't be there, but I won't be far off.

I'll be maybe five days a week away. So that's probably the, been the most difficult thing to cut to kind of, how are they? Tell me about the, tell me about the scound because I know, I know what happened in my scat. Did you have to, did you have to, leave the hotel and the floor PVEE.

So we've both been for scans whilst we've been out here now where you obviously went one for your ankle and me obviously with my quad. And yeah, it's not like back home where obviously you just go to the hospital and get your scan. Obviously because we're in managed bubble environments,

you've got to protect the integrity of the bubble, you've got to go to pre-approved hospitals, all this like. Do you give your experience for us when you're at an ankle? I just remember obviously I had to put the PBA and nobody could come with us apart from the driver and the liaison officer So explain the protection equipment.

Yeah, so PBA, full PBA hazmat suit. I had to put the bags over my shoes as well, even to go in. The double mask on, the only thing that I didn't put on that the givers was the goggles because I just thought, right, this is being ridiculous now. I kind of put the goggles on. So I had the hood up and everything over me eyes and everything like that. And then when I got into the hospital, they took us into like the back door of the hospital. So I didn't like go in the main entrance.

I went like a back door up in a little. a lift that a guy had opened for me and I just went straight up and straight in and then when I get out on the floor they cleared the sort of um path to the MRI yeah so like people were like waiting to the side and like they're like in the queen yeah but they're like in normal clothes and I'm in this suit and I'm looking at me as if I'm like an alien or something like that like what is this guy come as I don't know were you the same as that it wasn't as bad so I went the following night so it was it was yours during the middle of the day yeah it was mine was I think about eight o'clock in the evening so the hospital i went to was very quiet then so yeah i wasn't snuck

into the back door or anything we just went we just went through the front because it was it was very quiet and yeah i just got put into a separate waiting room had to just fill out a couple of bits of paperwork and then into the scanner we so when did you find out the news so the next yeah the next morning they obviously uh they send the images off to back to london to whoever they you know used for to report on the scans and yeah you get a text from the from the physio just to say can you pop down to the to the room? I hate that, text it. Can we have a chat or can you come down now?

I hate that one. Because you have to try and stay optimistic. But deep down I knew that I was no good. I knew it was nothing. Sorry, I'm sorry, I knew that it wasn't nothing. So it's one of those situations where I was hoping that they'd say, yeah, look, very minor, five to seven days, you'll be okay. But, you know, in my heart of hearts, I knew that I've had similar injuries before and I knew it was probably, you know, kind of a couple of weeks. weeks, you know, two, three weeks, which is in the grand scheme of things isn't bad,

but in the context of where we're at, it's obviously kind of the worst news I could have got. So should we end this little bit on a positive then? What was it like to play in that Australia game? So the Sri Lanka game, obviously, you know, we did really well. Josh Butler's, Innings was amazing, one of the best I've seen in tough conditions. But let's, the Australia game, which you were a major part of, how good was that performance and to be part of that? Again, we just rolled through it, didn't we?

I got a little bit of taff towards the end, which is never fun, but that's bowling at the death. But, yeah, the boys have just been, we've just been relentless, haven't we? Those first three games, you go into it, that Australia game had a bigger match field, didn't it? It was a Saturday night, I think, it was a good crowd in. We had a few English in there. The Barmy Army were in. A lot of English fans had obviously come over for the match. I know a lot of English people live out here as well, so there was a good crowd in.

it felt like a big match, didn't it? It's the first time, as I said, I've played against Australia. And we were under pressure a little bit when you think about it. Because if we'd lost that game, we would have had to win, won the next couple coming into it, didn't we? But we won that match against Australia and it sort of give a little bit of breathing space for like, right, come on, we can now go in the next game's full of confidence. So it was a big game like you say. Yeah, definitely.

And we just, as we had done in the first two games, we just started so well. Did you get many messages? Before the game. Yeah, like, come on, beat the Aussies off. Nah, not really. What about after? Yeah, like, you get some, obviously, it does seem to mean more when you beat Australia, doesn't it?

But, yeah, look, just like the previous games when, you know, when we... That was 12th man, I was jumping up and down. When Wokesy nipped off Warner, that perfect ball, just nipped like, he did really well, so he changed his field before. So I was down on the boundary at third man, and he brought me up and he put deep point out, and then the next ball, Warner tried to run the ball past me at third man,

trying to get an easy boundary, but instead just nicked a regulation, beautiful ball from Chris Wozzy. But yeah, look, what? Bowling the Aussies out for 125 is a great effort in T20 cricket. Rash was brilliant. C.J was brilliant.

Everyone was on form. And it was just a great night going into the next game against Sri Lanka as well. And then we can touch on that as well. Joss was obviously on fire that night. so we've had loads of emails of support for you but this was my favourite from David Parlor I was so sorry to hear that you're out of the tournament

especially with everything you've gone through in the last four years I would love it if the England team go on to lift the trophy but please please please can you guarantee the podcast listeners that if they do you'll do a full John Terry and turn up in your kit with the headband on two I don't know if I'll get the headband down but what a guarantee Come on. Me and David want to guarantee. I can't guarantee that.

Especially not, I can't come off the bench. Headband on. Headband warrior. But yeah, I am staying out here for the rest of the competition. I was keen not to go home. So I was really glad and happy when I spoke to Morgs and Spoons and Wayne the manager about staying out here

to support the lads and hopefully be there for what will hopefully be a really good rest of the competition. but yeah i can't guarantee i'll go full john terry this is good pace for radio with tamar mills and markwood so as i mentioned we've following up from chris rokes obviously big boots to fill first guest that we had on the show we've we've gone to the the backroom staff now haven't we got nathan leeman otherwise known as numbers analyst extraordinary england man of many hats also works in the ipel with kkr the Kolkata Knight Riders.

He's even getting in the franchise gigs now. Shows how the game's progressing. Nate, thanks for joining us, mate. How are you? Very well. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for coming. Do you not think we should start with Numbers? Why he gets numbers from? Yeah, go on, numbers.

Nicknamed Numbers. When did you get numbers? That's my fear of bit. So, my first tour was South Africa in 2009. And in those days, we had a, there was a tradition where at the start of every day's training or match, someone had to, like, do a thought for the day, basically, in the circle. Who's the coach then? Whose idea was this?

Andy Flower. Okay. Nice. And each time someone did it, you'd get, like, a tap on the shoulder five minutes before and say, right, you're up. And Reg, Reg Dickerson, who's our security guy, he would introduce you. He often did it in terms of a rhyme. And the introduction for me finished with him saying, calling me numbers, Lehman.

and then Matt Pryor was tickled by that, and he liked that, and then that, he kept going with it, and it slowly stuck, yeah. There you go, but of register blame. Early story. Let's start with maybe a basic question to maybe you and I and everybody here, but what do we actually do? How would you describe your job? Because it's not just like, you don't score the games, you don't code the games as such, do you? You're not sat there on your laptop whilst the games are going. on. So how do you describe your, you know, your general role within this England team?

So I suppose that first and foremost is to provide the information that coaches, captain and players need to give them the best chance for making the right decision on the pitch. It might be providing footage, it might be providing information on opposition players, it might be modelling the effect of different tactics or different selection. in terms of our likelihood of winning. But you're there basically to give everyone else the best chance of making the right decisions either being in selection

or in how you're going to train or how you're going to play on the day. And is that the same with England as it is with KKR? Is it exactly the same role? Do you do exactly the same with both teams or is it slightly different with each team? I think Analyst is one of those terms

that sort of covers a multitude of sins, and I think every team will use their analysts in slightly different ways. At KKR, I'm one of two guys in that role. We've also got an outstanding analyst there called Shri, who's also the West Indian analyst, and he's been with KKR for 14 years. And so we basically divide the job up between the two of us, and we take responsibility for different areas. So at KKR looking for a left-arm fastball and a right-arm fastball for next year in the auction,

would the analysts have anything to do with that? You must have a bit of sweat I've done interviews with you know the guys obviously at Crickbiz and the like and analysts now are very involved in team building aren't they? Like if you're going into an auction

it's no longer is it just an owner a captain and a coach picking the team the analyst is providing all the data on building teams and to be honest in my opinion it's probably one of the most important in franchise cricket this is sorry one of the most important jobs I think

because you've got to pick a good team first if you've got a chance of winning it and if you're going into a competition with a NAF team or a unsuitable team for the conditions. So that's also a role that you play a part of or your kind of colleagues play a part of? Yeah, I mean it's at least sort of half the role in franchise cricket. So with KKR at the moment, we're building up to a major auction. So every three or four years they have a major auction and almost all the players go back, into the pot and that's your biggest chance really to define your franchise for the next three years so that's a big deal and you know that's probably more exciting than the cricket it's like

the world's best game of monopoly how do you like deal with like anomalies so in the teams like people's characters or things that might be slightly different because obviously you've got the data and the stats do you have any way in which you can find those anomalies of characters or The human aspects, I guess, the bits of arm. Is there anything you can do to find out that? I don't know. I've never asked you that question before, have I? In terms of...

How do you deal with Mark Wood, the wildcard, Looney, driving around the team hotel? So initially, when I first started, it was all through the coaches because I wasn't used to this environment. I wasn't used to professional players. And so almost everything went through Andy Flour, Graham Gooch, David Saker, the other coaches.

These days, of course, I've been knocking around the dressing room for 12 years. A lot of the time I've got longer relationships with the players than the coaches have. So now it's far more sort of using those relationships. There are guys who I've worked with 10, 11, 12 years. And so, I mean, it's the harder part of the job. the numbers for me anyway are the easy bit and then the hard bit is turning it into something which is useful for a bowler standing at the top of his mark after he's just been donned into the stand I mean that's that's the tough bit of the job so we've mentioned before that

you know obviously we do team meetings with numbers and me and tea often we'll use the information that's given Malah is someone that is we've mentioned before is Milan David Malan is someone that is particularly, very, very particular, isn't he, with these. Yeah, he watches. I sit behind him on the bus on the way to training on the way to matches and he's constantly, you think he's the biggest cricket badger ever, he's just watching footage all the time. Is Mala, is this what you're about to ask? Is Mala the most analytical, the person that asks for the most from you, would you say,

in this England team? Maller, probably at the moment. Oh, yeah, probably good, within your whole time of England as well, who's been the, you know, the biggest number cruncher as such? Well, there's a difference between numbers and footage. I think looking at the numbers and looking at that complex tactical side of the game, it would probably be Strauss and Morgan, were the two who've gone deepest into those areas.

And in terms of footage, Maller would be right up there. Stokesy watches a lot of footage, rash lots of watches a lot of footage. And then I guess what to touch on now You talk about your relationship with Morgs It obviously runs very deep It's obviously There's a trust there, isn't there? Yeah, massively

A lot of people at home It's been spoken about the number cards That you put up on the sideline I've obviously seen it From an outsider's point of view And I never knew what they meant And it's only since now coming into the team It's actually much more simple

than I thought it was Each bowler has a corresponding number and you kind of, based on who's batting, you give a recommendation on who could potentially be a good match-up for Morgs. Is that a good way of explaining it? Yeah, so, you know, essentially, T-20s are a batsman's game at the end of the day.

Thank you. Thank you. Eventually. We've been pounding that drum. And this is the man that knows the numbers. He knows the stats. Thank you. God.

So the only advantage that you've got as a bowling side is that you get to choose the battlefield. So you get to choose who you bowl to who. you get to choose where you bowl, you get to choose where you put the field. So essentially what every captain is trying to do, he's trying to ask his bowlers to do things that they find easy or easier,

to bowl a certain batsman and to perform and execute a certain skill. And he's asking the batsman, or challenging the batsman, to do something which is hard for them. So to face a bowler they don't want to face and to hit him into areas that they find hard. to access. And essentially that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to play your strengths

to their weaknesses. And all sides are trying to do that. The difference with us is that we've got some pretty complicated models which we run live in the game that help us make those decisions. Now those facts and predictions that those models produce are pretty cold and they don't take into account a lot of what's going on in the middle. So they want to take into account wind, for We can adjust them in game to account for things like how the surface is playing and the match situation, but they're still going to lack a lot of the nuance which is going out in the middle. So there's no sense in which the model is deciding who bats or bowls, sorry, who bowls, but that's a useful piece of information for a captain in an international game. So that information is relayed in real time out to Owen in the middle, and then that's one of the things that he takes into account. into account when he decides who goals

so I found myself so you quite quickly as a player you figure out which number you are don't you I'm sure you've done it as well and I've been going on this tournament I've been bowling a lot in the second half of innings I haven't been coming on till the 10th over sometimes and that's numbers fault

I'm looking over to the bench just like when's my number going to pop up I fancy a bow here but no it's all really interesting stuff Woody have you got anything else for numbers before I mean I think we'll end it on a bit of a funny note What's the most ridiculous question A player's ever asked you

I mean we've got some characters in this team So there must be somebody's asked you something daft Yeah What altitude are we at? We were sitting on the beach Fantastic Numbers Thank you very much for coming on the podcast

Really appreciate it Yeah, cheers numbers And give them a great insight Cheers fellas, thanks for having me Inside England's World Cup bubble This is Good Pace for Radio With Tamal Mills and Mark Woods.

So we'll get on to the Sri Lanka game, we've spoken about the negative of that game from a personal point of view, but there was an awful lot of positives, brilliant performance led by Super Joss. We've had enough to listen to questioning. Good pace for radio at BBC.co.org. From Bethany Proctor, thanks for emailing in.

She noticed that we had our Halloween party the other day for the kids, who had the best and worst outfit. I'll start off, I'd say, you had the least prepared outfit, I'd say. I went in the physio room and got the tuba grip and we've got like two big rolls of it I mean I originally decided that I was going to do

the bed sheet ghost idea to which the bed sheet was so thick that I couldn't see anything through and I thought well I can't rip the hotel sheets so we went with the mummy effect of the tuber grip so I think I'm probably up there for the worst outfit I mean the physio even had to wrap me up yeah well not for the first time

I think someone commented on our picture saying is this what he looks like coming back where he's really happened? I thought, I thought it's pretty accurate actually. But to be fair, it was all a little bit hodgepodge, wasn't it? Obviously, some of the girls brought outfits out with them for the little ones and other times it's just kind of cheap things that were bought off Amazon but my wife India, she did a treasure hunt for the kids which was quite cool

just various different kind of gifts all scattered around the hotel. Clues. You did the clues, the rhyming clues, surely, didn't you? She wrote them, I executed them. But yeah, so that was fun for the kids. We've got a lot of little ones out here with us. So they all, yeah, dressed up, a bit of face paint going on. Yeah, just another one of the little things that we've been doing away from the cricket for the families just to try and make it a little bit more normal, I guess.

It's tough, obviously, being away from home, different experiences for everybody. Well, I remember as well, we also had Jason Roy's wife. She was doing face paint, wasn't she? There was Cobwebs, a few spiders. Jason Roy had... He was just face paint, wasn't he? Yeah, just face paint. Fuzzy James Foster, the coach that's with us,

he had like a sort of screen mask kind of thing, didn't he? Like a ghoulish mask. James Vince was a grim reaper, I believe. And didn't you provide that? Yeah, so my... You had two costumes? No, my wife bought two costumes, yeah. Right, okay.

Gave me a choice off Amazon. They probably were to buy one, get one free job. But yeah, basically Vincy and I had the same. same outfit just with different masks too. It was just a black cloak with a couple of masks. As I say, unfortunately, I don't think we're winning any prizes. No, I'm trying to think what other players, I mean, Morgie's Littland was there, but he didn't dress up, did he? We really embraced it, I felt. Yeah, your little one looked really good. He had Frankenstein, yeah. He looked. He probably was the best of the kids that were dressed

up, but no, it was a really good day, had by all. Yeah, so that was the Sunday and then we played on the Monday against Sri Lanka, didn't we? Yeah, what a win, hey? Proper win. It was obviously the first time, the first three games we'd bowled first and chased and won obviously pretty convincingly but this time we lost the task the game was at Sharja against Sri Lanka and yeah we batted first and it was it was slow going wasn't it was difficult they bowled well the pitch was quite sluggish. We didn't bounce that much did it? No it was it was hard work we lost a couple of early ones and then obviously Morgie came out and joined and joined Joss and they put on a bit of a clinic didn't they really? Well I thought Morgie and

and Joss soaked up that pressure really, really well to start with. Like, actually, when you're watching, like, people at home might have thought, oh, like, why aren't England whacking it like they usually do, or why aren't they getting on there? But actually, the conditions were so tough that, you know, the natural bounce where you're expecting it to be, or might stick in the wicket, or skids on really low, it was quite hard to naturally time the ball.

And if you think of someone like a Joss, at that point in time, he was actually, he was timing it okay, but it wasn't his fluent best of when he was against Australia, and Dubai was he wasn't belting it out the park you had to build these innings i mean i went out i think at the halfway stage it must have been it's 10 overs isn't it where where you have a little time out brick and the message back from the middle was um let's say if we can get the 110 120 i mean that's that's probably low that isn't it especially for a t20 game in charge of traditionally in years gone by has been a very high scoring ground it's small very small boundaries but

I think they've relayed the pitches there quite recently. It's obviously quite an old ground, and they obviously tried to long-term, do whatever they need to do to the pitches. So in the kind of short-term, this IPL just gone, and now the World Cup, the games have been really low-scoring there. And as a bowling unit,

the one thing that the IPL guys, Morghs in particular, Nafe, the analyst, said, you just need to smash kind of pretty much the middle of the pitch or back-of-a-length straight for as long as possible. they're the most difficult balls to hit because if you imagine as a batter normally if you see a ball pitch short you go on the back foot to try and pull cut

don't you but on this pitch at Charger the ball is dying and it's not bouncing as much and one skips through and then the next one stops so you're hard to get the rhythm yeah yeah the pace of the pitch so we knew that was the plan and Sri Lanka did that

for the first probably 13 14 overs of the game but we did talk about that though didn't we what he'd said that in these type of wickets and venues there's always one over that you're never out of it is a bowling group you can drag it back with a couple of wickets as a batting group if you get one good over which is like gold dust

then you can suddenly get ahead of the game so it's quite you know where the game might seem slow or it's hard work all of a sudden it can change in a flash and of course that's what that's what happened yeah and Josh and Mugge obviously there was a turning point in the game where they decided to kind of counter attack and go back and try and hit the Sri Lankan paces

off that hard length that heavy length and as soon as they did that as soon as they got a couple of boundaries away the Sri Lankans then naturally went to more defensive skills would you say they went to more deaf skills the triads of all yorkers slower balls

which is actually an easier type of delivery to face on that charge of pitch and then you know it was it was just brutal hitting at the end wasn't it especially from Joss to score it did you think he was going to get there oh well he almost didn't he give up a couple of balls he didn't get runs out he's not going to cook together

he hasn't got 100 in T20i that's something we talked about in no man isn't it is that actually actually, from ballers I'm back at this point of view, the other person's under pressure as well. So, like, for Josh facing that, he's probably thinking, right, if this guy's under pressure, he's going to miss one.

And that one he misses, I'll hit it for six. And he did. And he did. And that's it. He got his hundred. So, yeah, it was obviously an excellent way to end the first innings. We went out with the ball expecting to defend it. Like, we were confident of defending it. Especially when we felt that we got above average. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, all the momentum was with us. And then again, we got early wickets. The boys did brilliantly. I thought we were tactically, we were quite good, won't? Because obviously in other games, we've bowed CMAs early on. But this game, we both spin, because we knew it was going to be wet. It was so wet, and it was only getting wetter due to the dew. And obviously, one of the things that – one of the reasons I assume that is why Morgs brought the spinners on early.

So kind of Mo, Rash, Libby bowled a lot early before the ball got really wet. Obviously, I left just over halfway through, but it. In the over that I left the field, the ball was very wet. You're really having to work hard to try and dry the seam, which makes it really difficult to grip, obviously. But it was the one thing we spoke about is, even if we get hit for four or six, by bowling that short length, bashing it into the pitch,

keep going. It's still the hardest ball to hit. It's still the hardest ball to hit. We wanted to learn from the first innings where the Sri Lankans went to their deaf skills early. We kind of said, no, we need to just keep slamming away, keep slamming away, and hold your nerve and just back over the course.

of 20 overs for it to pay off and it was those last five overs we used so there was literally no dry towels yeah yeah there was more towels in our dress room than it was in miami beach at one point it was like as as you mentioned earlier it was as hot as i've been on a on a cricket field and as sweaty as i've ever been um but yeah it was it was a great win obviously four from four now where all but through obviously there's a bit of maps going on and such but we know if we if we if we if we beat south africa well and the muzzle sorted out one he'll cruncher So again, we're off to Sharjah for the next game. Got to South Africa on Saturday.

Obviously, I won't be involved. How are you going? How's your ankle going? You're making good progress? Yeah, back off my long run now. So I'm not far away. I'm hoping that if I can have a good couple of sessions, then I can put my name on the hat for selection,

but still had to wait and see stage at the minute. But like you say, a big game against South Africa that we want to win in Sharjah again. We now know the conditions. So another chance to impress. and build the momentum going into the hopefully the semi-finals. Yeah, definitely. And, yeah, we'll call it a day there.

Obviously, you had it covered a lot of ground. As I said, it's been a week or so since we last got together to record. Personally, I just want to say thank you to all the, you know, everybody that's tweeted in, messaged in. It really means a lot to get that support from outside. Obviously, it's been a tough couple of days, but that's a professional sport. So, yeah, thank you to everybody that's got in touch. And, yeah, please continue to. good place for radio at bbc.com.com.

We'll do another podcast probably next week, start of next week after the Serenka game and before hopefully the big semifinal, wherever that might be. But yeah, you'll see you can, as always, you can listen to the games on BBC 5 Live Sports Extra and BBC Sounds. And Woody, what can you do with the clips?

You can look at them. You can watch the highlights. Where can you watch them? On the BBC app. Sports app. That's right. And the website also. So we'll get there at the end. By the end of this podcast, Woody will remember

where you can watch the highlights and clips. But, yeah, until next time. Thanks, everybody, and take care. Cheers, thank you. This is Good Pace for Radio with Tammal Mills and Mark Wood. We get to the end and I just switch off. It's twice you've told me that.

I just, we get at the end. I'm just like, right, that's the end.