Test Match Special - When Steven met Glenn.

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

England bowler Steven Finn chats to his hero: the legendary Glenn McGrath.

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. You're listening to the TMS Podcasts. from BBC Radio 5 Live. I'm Henry Moran and welcome to this bonus test match special podcast.

On the men's ashes tour, we've been privileged to enjoy the company of Stephen Finn and Glenn McGraw. And we've discovered that for Finn, he's been broadcasting alongside his hero. When Finney came out here, one of the things he said was, I can't believe I'm working with Glenn. This is unbelievable. I didn't call him Glenn. I called him Glenn McGrath. I never believed that I was on first name terms with Glenn McGraw.

It was, yeah, mildly baffling to me as the spotty teenager that grew up watching him and idolizing him and trying to emulate him. And then now I get to sit next to him and have chats with him about bowling like we did earlier. So why, but why? Oh, I hope it hasn't been too disappointing. No, absolutely not. I behave like a shy schoolboy. The first few days, I was like. creeping around the back of the box being like,

can I speak to him? I don't know. Is it okay? Yeah, it's a slightly weird scenario. I sort of spoke about the first time that I watched Glenn Bowl live at Southgate in 2004 when he played for Middlesex against Yorkshire. But it's like vivid memories. It's crazy.

Like, I don't want to make Glenn feel uncomfortable sat next to him talking about him like this, but like watching him bowl, having watched him on the TV and seeing how amazing he is and like just love watching him. every spell. Like you'd go to the TV and just watch it and then to watch him live and be too shy to go to the dress room afterwards and ask for his autograph. My mum had to ask the bowling coach to ask him to get his autograph. And when, and that evening when we got home, I gave it to my parents. And then that evening that we were speaking about it on air during the second test match, I think it was at Adelaide. My parents sent me a picture of the ticket. They've still got at home of Middlesex versus Yorkshire 2004 signed by Glenn McGraw. And a dodgy pen as well. I had to go over it a couple of times just to make sure it was legible.

What was it about Glenn's bowling? Well, like being tall myself, I was tall as a kid, and I loved the concept of getting close to the stumps, which, like, when I was younger, I didn't really, until I started playing cricket profession, I didn't realize the benefits of getting close to the stumps. I just knew that Glenn McGrath got close to the stumps, so it was probably a good thing.

So, like, everything from the technical element of it, like every time there was an Ashes series, you'd say, yeah, it's definitely going to be five, I'd be like, I'd like to play in a team that wins the Ashes 5-0. Yeah, just everything about the bowling personality, yeah, everything and loved it and still like shy and timid and turn into a score. But as you do, when you meet your heroes, you do. I think everyone would be the same. I mean, who was your hero?

Yeah, my hero was Dennis Lilly. And I didn't have any coaching when I was younger. And the first time I really had any coaching, I went to the Cricket Academy down in Adelaide and Rod Marston. was head coach and he got in guys like Ian Greg Chapo came in to give advice and he also got Dennis to come in and so I got to work alongside Dennis and I now

work in India at the MRF Pace Foundation which Dennis really set up and then he asked me to take over from him so yeah it was to me he's still the ultimate you know he's still the we call him the great man that we sort of form the fast bowling cartel and when we met each other

we do the sort of finger across the brow and flick the sweat like, you know, like Dennis did. So, but it's, yeah, he was my hero. So to hear people, you know, hear Finney talk about how he looked up to me is, is, yeah, it's interesting feeling because I never looked at myself as anything special. And, you know, so. But did you not think when all those records are falling, those series you were winning,

that there would be people around the world that were thinking, Wow, I wish I could do 1% of what that guy can do. Oh, I don't know. I think it was a pretty awesome team that I got to play in. You know, you look at the other guys in the team. It filled you with a lot of confidence. And to win a Series 5-0, it never came as a shock because I thought that's how it should be.

So whether that, I don't want to become across as arrogant or cocky, but that's the way I thought with the team we had, if we play as well as we can, then no one's going to get close to us. And then to hear, you know, guys like Finney come out and say they looked up to me and they tried to, they wanted to, you know, the fact that he was too scared to come up to me when he was a young follower, I think it's quite funny. Because, you know, at the end of the day, we're just, we're the same. We enjoyed bowling, sort of had sort of similar techniques, tall, hit the deck, bowl good areas. So, yeah, it's, yeah, it's nice. It's a weird feeling like even, I mean, the odd person, they must be partially sized.

or something to come and tell me that I like they looked up to me when when I was playing for England it's a it's a funny feeling and you know I'm a very small fish in a big pond but it's like it's weird when someone says that to you but you when you're playing I think and I'm sure Glenn found it the same or even more so as well like you're so concentrated on just being out there in the middle that you're just doing you get in this zone where the crowd doesn't matter everything doesn't matter and you're sort of at one with just what's going on in the game and nothing else crosses your mind i suppose it's only when you stop and you sit back and you reflect and you take stock about what you achieved 563 test wickets right yeah yeah very good we go

with that in the amount decision clinic it should have been it should have been at least one more um but you know it's only when you sit back and look at what you achieved in your career that i suppose you really fully take stock yeah and appreciate it and the teams that you've played in like I took for granted the team that I played in and not took for granted but you're just there doing it so between 2010 and 2013 that small period where we were quite dominant when we played as an England team I look back on that team now and think what that is the best cricket team that I've ever played in and probably ever will play in but it's only now that I look back and reflect on it that way because you're always looking for the next big thing the next thing that

you can achieve and no doubt that Australia team would have been the same but just managed to keep on doing it, whereas we sort of exploded after three years. What would 14-year-old, Stephen Finn have asked Glenn McGrath, if he had the confidence? Well, I suppose the interest in, like, just little things, like how you hold the ball, what you look at when you bowl. They're the things that fascinate you as a youngster, and everyone has different things.

So some bowlers will look at the pitch, some bowlers will look at the stump. I think, I mean, I read this, I didn't, obviously I didn't ask you, but your mantra was that you decide the line that you want to bowl and you feel the length. I think I read that somewhere that you said that. So when I've played since I was a youngster, that's what I tried to do. I tried to decide the line that I wanted to bowl and focus on that and then feel the length out of your fingertips. It's like this feeling when you're bowling is you sort of, you just feel like you know the length. You could bowl with your eye shut and tell someone what length it was that had come out of your hands by the feeling on your fingertips.

So it's sort of being in tune with those two things. So that was the thing that I'd have loved to ask when I was younger was how do you find that state of mind or the balance at the crease to be able to do that? Because I wasn't consistent enough in my career. That's why I played 36 test matches and not more. I wish that I would have been able to master that. But that's what your great strength,

what has been able to bowl fourth stump and feel the length and play with the length. And that's what I loved watching. And that's what I wanted to emulate when I was bowling was tight to the stumps, bowl fourth stump. Like the ball that Glenn bowled to Vaughan at Lords, where Vaughan's like completely dumbfounded that he's been done by the length

and almost played up as if it had kept low, but he just misread the length because it had nipped back down the slope and beat him on the inside edge. And it's like visions like that of bowling at the pavilion end at Lords, like I did, which I know Glenn liked to as well. Things like that that I like inherently sort of ingrained

in your memory when you're thinking about how you want to bowl at a piece. particular place or venue, you look at guys that you idolize at those places. And like, whenever I bowled someone down the slope at Lords through the gate, you'd be like, that's a McGraw delivery. I'm happy with that one. So every time there was something, there'd be elements of every delivery that you bowled that would have a slight genus in what Glenn had done little snippets you'd heard and seen. Well, I suppose, yeah, you just try, I think, as a, as a youngster's as well, there'll be guys now trying to emulate Mark Wood with the way, I know it's not

gone his way today but the way that he's bowed in this series there'll be guys that want to bowl with that sweeping run up and flow through the crease and explosion at the crease that he has I went to the park in Sydney in between these test matches to have a bowl because I'm trying to remain relatively fit whilst I've been out here not quite succeeded but we're trying to remain relatively fit and keep your rhythm ticking over and stuff and I was in these nets and there were three nets in Snape Park in Sydney and I used one of them and there were two lots of kids, like just having a muck around, like where I would try and pretend to be Glenn McGrath. And there's kids batting like Steve Smith and Marnas Labashane, extravagant leaves, like,

dipping at the knees with their feet close together as the bowlers running in, like, and saying, no, run, things like that. So you inherently just pick up these things when you're young that do eke into your game as you go through your professional career. I mean, yeah, the slight jump in and angle into the thumps that Glenn had, I loved. I also got too close to the stumps and started nearing them at one stage. So thanks, Glenn. Sometimes when I was getting tired, I'd go back and look at where my spikes,

where my front foot landed. And you can see where they've marked centre and my spikes are actually on center, which is probably not ideal when you try to bowl down there. But I guess then you are bowling stump to stump. But like Finney said, you know, when you're out there, you're playing,

you're focusing 100% on the... You don't think of the impact it has on other... sort of youngsters coming through, they think they love cricket, they want to get out there and play, they start emulating their favorite bowler, whether it's a fastball or spinner or a batsman or what have you. Those little, you know, idiosyncrasies that you have, you said about Marnas and Steve Smith, the kids are starting to do that. You see, you know, the first shot they want to learn is a reverse sweep. There's no forward defense anymore, is there? So you don't think about that. And, you know, sometimes, you know, I'll, you know,

got in a little bit of trouble with the match referee. That you don't think. Emotions come out and then you see the footage and you go, oh, I wish I hadn't done that. I'll carry it on a bit of a pork chop. And you don't think of those things because you're focusing 100% on what you're trying to achieve out there. So, yeah, it's nice to hear those stories

that you have a positive impact on people who love the game and sort of come up through the game itself. And to see, you know, you know, Finney, what he's achieved. You know, Stuart Broad has sort of said that he'd like the way of bowl as well and to think broadies sort of got me well and truly covered played over 150 tests you know there's quite significant things there and it's nice to have a positive impact on other people does it surprise you when you hear england players and england supporters yeah they're talking about you and those well the question i want to ask finney is so if you like the way of

bowl when australia played england who are you actually supporting i wanted england to win but i wanted you to knock everyone over I've got a really, really bad admission to make that I shouldn't really make on British national radio but the 1999 World Cup when I had the chance to watch it first so I'd have been 10 years old in 1999 so sort of just getting into tune with cricket

and like beyond just messing around in the garden and stuff and I'm going to say it's very quietly but I had an Australian shirt with the green stripes running up here I had one that I wore to the local cricket club Langleybury Cricket Club and yeah people weren't happy with me wearing it then but Andy Zaltzman is shaking his finger at me. I know I've really disappointed

a lot of people there but also could as say you haven't disappointed blame Glenn McGrae I say blame Glenn McGraugh people no Finney there are going to be people across the nation do you know what I don't care

I don't care I'm sat next to Glenn McGra I couldn't care less but does that surprise you when you hear that people that England supporters and that Ash's rivalry is something else because we always talk about look at those Australian

players and think oh they're trying to knock England batters heads off they're trying to smash us all over the place those horrible Australians but you know that actually the reaction it isn't really like that necessarily and there is a sort of sense of you know of respect and real admiration I should just say covers a starting to come off here

yeah so fingers cross it keeps going but yeah that rivalry goes back so long and I guess the Australian way was a little bit... We'd like to have a bit of chat out in the middle as well and I'm not sure how well that went down with a lot of English fans as well

but you're out there just giving everything and the Ashes to me was still the ultimate and to go over and especially to play at Lords to me is one of the most special places in the world to play and the fact that I've played quite a few games there I've played three test matches, I've played that month at Middlesex yeah there's a lot of special memories there and the thing I find now, which maybe was a little bit disappointing

back when I played, was I only had a couple of seasons of the IPL and I got to play alongside guys I'd only played against. And the one thing you realize very quickly is we're all very similar, very similar attitude. We have a love for the game of cricket. And, you know, blokes you played against, you thought, yeah, I'm not sure what they're like. All of a sudden, they're good blokes.

And, you know, I played a full season for Worcester, which I absolutely loved. the month at Middlesex I really enjoyed. And to get to know guys you only played against, I think that's what's special these days, whether it just takes that, you know, that killer bit out of it where you can't, you know, because you know everyone and you think they're actually good blokes.

And, you know, a lot of people don't want to believe that I was a sort of half-decent person. They want to... Let's not get carried away. No, no. It was a massive disappointment to me. After all that trauma you caused, for all those days.

It's funny. I still have people come up to me in England go, you know, I used to hate you with the passion when you played. And I say, I should take that as a compliment. Thank you very much. It can only be a good thing. Do you think the Australia team would have lost their aura, though? So say the IPL had have started 15 years before,

the intimidating nature. Because I don't know, and I was only a young kid, but I saw England playing against Australia. And I think that's part of the reason why I liked Australia as a team. I mean, I was a glory hunter of a kid. I was a shocker. I love Man United. through the 90s when they won everything,

liked Australia's attitude towards cricket. But I don't know, I liked the hard nature with which Australia played, which obviously England didn't. And I don't know, like, this has been dubbed the Friend, the Ashes, isn't it? And you see people like this morning, knuckle bumping Sam Billings from the Australia team

about making his debut and things like that. That almost certainly wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. Like, would the team have lost their aura, I suppose, is my question. I think it still would have had that aura, because what you saw at the middle, the confidence in the way the Australian team played, they were like that as well. And when they went and played county cricket,

I think they showed that they were, you know, they had that, they were just normal blokes like anyone else, but they had that strong self-belief in themselves and in the team. And so I think they would have seen that aura that you see, but it's actually real. And then when you come up against it, you know, I think the Australian way is, you know, we play hard against. but you see a group of mates playing, you come up against you, it's even harder.

It's tougher. Some of those Sheffield Shield matches, some of the toughest I've ever played in. And there was plenty of chat out there as well. So I think to a degree in some sense, yes. Others probably, they see that it's actually real. These guys, this is the way they play. And the first time I really noticed it was we played South Africa in Adelaide. And we had the Adelaide test match dinner.

the night before and I remember I slipped out to go to the bathroom I came back and I saw the two tables of the Australians there there was they were talking chatting all amongst themselves and having a bit of fun and then I looked over at two South African tables and they were watching everything the Australians were doing and I thought that was the first time it hit me that you know that a certain aura that was around the Australian team and sort of how people viewed them and and sometimes we probably had teams beaten before we walked on the field because of that and maybe the IPL has softened that a little bit and now with the way people come out

and yeah they know each other so well like Sam I think I like Sam Billings and I think he's his attitude and everything he plays for the Sydney Thunder and so he knows all the Aussies and they know him and they get on so well so it's yeah it's it is different now because it's also funny in that scenario

I think when I've only done a few franchise tournaments but people are vulnerable with the same within dressing room, whether you're Australian, English. If you're together playing for a team, it actually doesn't really matter what team it is. You still share your vulnerabilities with people, which then is probably a disadvantage to play in franchise cricket because you spend six weeks or two months with someone

and you're saying, oh, Steve, can you help me out to Steve Smith? Josh Butler might ask Steve Smith at the Rajasthan Roy's. Like, I'm really struggling with a cover drive. So now next Ashley's series they play, they know Josh Butler's not comfortable playing a cover drive. And I've just picked that out of thin. that's not an actual example, but you have those conversations because you're trying to learn, but then you release your vulnerabilities to your opposition that then they can take advantage

of when you probably had to do the working out of that yourself 20 years ago without having the conversation. So there are definitely negative and positive things to it, but it's fascinating just how different, like I loved watching that Australian team play because they were so tough. They got their backs against the war and they fought their way out of it. And that sort of stuff were the things that you loved watching as a critic. cricket fan. And then 2005, when I was 16, was sort of when it all blew up and I really, really fell in love with it all, I think. Ali joins the conversation at BBC TMS on Twitter, saying, lucky enough to watch Glenn McGrath play

live a lot during the 90s and 2000s. He had the aura of a cartoon villain. Then had a chat with him once in a pub in Auckland after a match, and that view was completely shattered. Lovely, personal fellow that took the time to chat. And I think, you know, We're absolutely right for you. That Australian team, and that's part of what made 2005 so special, is it felt like two real heavyweight tussles between sides. And maybe from the outside, the sense that the teams didn't like each other was stronger than it perhaps was on the inside. But there was that real feeling watching on as we were, what, teenagers. Yeah, yeah. 60, it would have been 15 or 16.

It made me feel very old. Sorry, Glenn. But, yeah, no, it was an amazing series, and it was probably the first time we came up against an England team that were confident. They were playing well. They believed in themselves. They'd been playing some good cricket

for the 18 months leading into it. You know, Michael Vaughn was a captain, and the team was similar. So they had the same team. They believed in themselves. And that first day at Lords, they came pretty hardest, the way Harmi bowled to Ricky Ponting,

bounced him, sort of hit him and cut him. And they knocked us over for a hundred and i think about 180 and then the way we sort of came back and you know i was lucky enough to pick up my 500th wicket there and got a couple just to come down the down the slope at lords there and uh yeah it was it was an incredible competition yeah it was a good battle and it was the first time i think i'd seen some of our batsmen really challenged uh and you know the way england played that series was was incredible and but the impact it had on the english public and the crowds that were coming along,

you know, the stadiums only held so many people and, you know, they were turned away. But I was passing people in the street coming up saying, you know, I don't really like test cricket that much, but I cannot miss a ball of it. And just a positive impact it had on cricket was incredible. And it was just a shame that after that series, 0607, England came to Australia and, yeah, it was from the first ball,

that series was gone. Yeah, we could have done without you predicting 5-0 every time. Well, I couldn't bring, you know, I've made a rod from my own backs and I've got to predict 5-0, 3-0, 4-0 every time now, don't I? So, but I'm, I feel quite comfortable doing it. The thing that I'm fascinated by, especially looking at 2005, so like since I've played international cricket, and some of my favourite memories have been having a drink or socialising with the opposition team after the fifth test match and the conversations that you have in the dressing room after that fifth test match, where you've sort of been going hammer and tong for six, seven weeks in a five-match

series, and then all of a sudden everyone just relaxes. And you have some fascinating conversations. Like, I'd imagine that dressing room at the end of the 2005 series. Like, was there any socialising mid-series, or was it just after the last test that you guys would have had a drink together? Yeah, I think most test matches, we'd try to sort of have a drink together. And I remember talking to guys like Rod Marsh and that they used to come in at the end of every single day's play.

So whoever was bowling, the batting team would go into their room every day and you'd have a chat and, you know, the stories about, you know, chatting with Jeffrey Boycott. You know, if you couldn't get a certain batsman out, you have a chat with Boyk said he'd tell you how to do it. But that's where you learn a lot about the game of cricket is, and that's, if there's anything I miss from cricket, is that time in the change rooms with your own teammates, with the opposition team coming in. And, you know, sometimes, occasionally they get away. away from it where they don't do it and it's I think that's a big loss and especially if you're playing a team that's regarded as one of the best in the world and you know the other team look up and admire

a place that's the best place to learn to come in and get to know how they go about it and realize hang in a minute they're just people like like you and I and everyone else and yeah that's that's where you learn a lot about the game and if anything that's what I miss from from the game of cricket we look back at 2005, that image of Freddie Flintov consoling Brett Lee at Edgbaston, I now look at that in quite a different light because that actually feels like it was just a vision on the field of a lot of the relationships that were happening off the field in terms of that respect and that collegiate nature between the two sides. In terms of, you know, there was complete respect and that moment was actually just a reflection

of exactly how the two teams were seeing each other. Especially when Ricky got run out at Trembridge, there was that sort of that love between the two teams, you're right? Gary Pratt, where is he? Wheel him out for this. So Gary gets wheeled out about three or four years. What England could do with Gary Pratt's accuracy these days?

Absolutely. I'm going to embarrass Finney now because he sent on our WhatsApp group at the start of the tour. He sent a video of him at the Under 19, was it the Under 19 World Cup? Oh no, this is dreadful, yes, yes. Yeah, under 19 World Cup. I was 17 or 18 years old, yeah. And talk us through that.

I think he says, my name is Steve Finn, Fastballer, and... Yeah, I mean, my vocabulary has increased significantly since that moment in my life. I wasn't a man of many words, not that comfortable in front of a camera. Still aren't that comfortable in front of a camera. But you were asked, as part of the video content capture bit, who you're... Where you were, where you were from, sorry, who you are, where you're from, and who your idol was, and some people would elaborate on it, but I just went for the succinct and to the point answer.

Which was? Going to play it then for a second. I don't have it. I thought whether I could get that audio to our studio, but I don't think I can. We'll see if we can think it out, but it is quite straight. Yeah, it is. I'd had a dodgy, um, dodgy haircut as well a few days before where I, I looked, yeah, not very well, um, a complete shaved head because I tried to put some red tips in the back

of my head like Jimmy Anderson, another one of my idols and yeah, I didn't quite go to plan and the team manager said you're going to have to shave your head before we go to the World Cup and you have your photos taken because that is terrible but as part of the interview and I had a slight mild fake cockney twang and I said, I'm Stephen Finn from England. My favourite cricketer, Glenn McGrath. It literally sounded like that and when I heard it back I was like, oh no,

but I'm going to have to send that on because someone's going to find it in amongst these conversations so i might as well get it out there early that's very sensible and we've all enjoyed it enormously during this trip but that just tells us a little bit isn't it's you know it's it's an admiration that has lasted a long time finny and it certainly has yeah and now yeah i'm on first lane turns with glen mcgaret's amazing exactly yeah and it's called me finny it's like blowing my mind honestly it really is blowing my mind well it's lovely and it's so much fun chatting to you too about about you know the years gone by and looking up to players i find the the relationship between england and australia and how you can idolize an australian

curricular as an england supporter to the extent you'll buy an australian shirt i mean that is the greatest revelation it was well luckily i my pocket money didn't quite cover it so i think my parents treated me so right so there's a burden of responsibility there as well yeah terry and diana fin blame them send them the hate mail don't send me it yeah it wasn't my fault i was merely a child But do you look at cricket and can you look at cricket and recognise things of you in modern players and say, do you know what? I kind of see. That was kind of what I did. Yeah, I wouldn't.

No, I'd never say that. To me, that's a little bit too arrogant and a little bit self-obsessed. But I guess in the same way that Tilo Gratley Dilsham will look at the scoop and think, okay, I can see how I did that and certain elements of what the game's done. Personally, probably no, but when you see a bowler come in and sort of bowl good areas, they're tall, hit good areas, bounce and a bit of the same, they go, oh, they, oh, he's a, yeah, just like Glenn McGrath or sort of another clone or what have you, and you think, well, it's probably a little bit more than that. You know, they're still their own player, their own person, but yeah, it's, I guess it's

a nice sign of respect when you're compared to modern, Monday players that are doing well. yeah it's just fascinating yeah Glenn's incredibly modest but I think it's the thing for me as someone who who looked up to players Glenn obviously like my biggest one but there are other players that you look up to as well and you try and like the beauty about learning the game is you like try and cherry pick the best bits of everyone and like and try and make your own style I suppose so yeah I find it fascinating to talk to young players and I think one of the best ways that you can learn as a cricketeries just watch and observe and try and pick up little tips or things that you can listen to or and that's why like the openness of the players to the media now I think

it's fantastic because people know or understand what what players are trying to do and it's so readily accessible that yeah you'll have an element of trying to get close to the stumps like glen mcgras but you'd also love to swing the ball like jimmy anderson or bowl round the wicket with a wobble seam like stuart broad and if you can take those little components of different boulders and put them together, that makes you you, but you'd always have that one driving force that's like your inspiration, I suppose. And yeah, without making you feel uncomfortable for me, that was yeah. Yeah, and there's, you know, you're always learning as well. And, you know, if you hear someone say something, go and give it a try. I remember talking

to Polly, to Sean Pollock, and he was talking about holding the ball, sort of quarter seam, you know, the seam going across and just bolting into the pitch and sort of getting good seed movement predominantly away from a left hander, so I went and tried that. I heard someone else talk about how they bowled a slower ball, so I added that slower ball to Marmary as well. So, yeah, and I've learned so much about the technical side of fast bowling since I retired, I wish I knew when I was playing. I could have sort of fixed up certain things which I felt, you know,

I could have improved on. So you're always learning, and yeah, the only advice I'd say is give it a go. And if it works for you, great. Belson, okay, move on. Fascinating. It is fascinating. You can be listening at home and there is every piece of information. But even at 32, like you have conversations like this

and it's inspiring for like at 32 years old. I'm like excited to go and practice. You're excited to try things. I think the moment that you finish having that is probably the time to pack it up and stop and start to move upstairs into the commentary box where it becomes far easier. But yeah, whilst you still have that drive and and determination to get better. It's really exciting, yeah.

Rob joins us on Twitter and says, I spent part of my wedding day with Glenn McGraar and Barbados, 1999, staying at the same hotel, as all have said before, a true gent and a wonderful cricketer. I know, it's disappointing, isn't it? I have a lot of people. I'm sure they're disappointed when they come up, and I'm sort of half-night.

I remember going to India in early stages, and people would come up to me, and they'd be really timid, and as if I'm just going to attack them, because they thought I was so aggressive and then they can't believe it. So, yeah, there's a certain persona you have out in the field and, you know, I remember I had an ex-girlfriend

that I met, I caught up with again in South Africa, and she, you've just become so arrogant. And I said, that's exactly the perception I want to put out there. You know, when you start targeting batsmen, the best batsman opposition, when you start making predictions. So, and that's, to me, how I found a way to make my self-send,

stand out from the team without having a negative impact on the team because the team was always the most important to me but you still have to show who you are and you know find a way to make you stand out from everyone else in a positive way so yeah there are certain things we do and and yeah that persona that you put out there perception sometimes doesn't equal reality but if they can go hand in hand and yeah happy days and if you clean up the ashes and take 563 test wickets along the way, then I'd take that sacrifice for all of Australia thinking I was an absolute idiot. Well, not an idiot, but a great, like, you know what I'm mean. Don't ruin it now. I don't, no, no, no. I'm going to have to run away.

Oh, no, no, I'm sweating. Can I take my jacket off? It's hot in here, isn't it? Right, a couple of emails have come in. Good news, Finney. Ben Edwards joins us and says, I found a link on YouTube to the under 19 interviews. Brilliant. Good news, hey. Simon joins us and says, Great to hear Finney and Glenn McGrath. Just to say, Finney has been a big hero to my aspiring fast bowler. Son still has his size four bat Finney signed. His greatest moment as a cult at Hampstead was bowling with wicketkeeper Finn. That's very sweet.

Again, you just feel like it's amazing, but also I can't believe that someone would feel like that about you. Yeah, it's a bizarre feeling, but yeah, thank you. Do you still see young fast bowlers come through the ranks? you know, does it get the sort of the juices flowing? Does it get that excitement when you see someone who's learning their craft? I do enjoy seeing someone improve because I always say I'm doing a bit of coaching in India and coaching and commentating with two things I said I'd never do. And, you know, doing both and enjoying both.

But to see a young guy start learning and start knowing himself and why he performs at his best and why he performs that he's, you know, the best coach any one of us as a person, players going to have is ourselves. And to see someone learn and not continually make the same mistakes and then move through the levels and do well is I think very rewarding. So yeah, it's, but when I watch a game of cricket, the only times I slightly miss it is when things are starting to fire up in the middle or it's right down to the, you know, the last few overs and it's getting really close. And, you know, it was funny.

I never felt I missed cricket. When I retired, I thought I've never missed it until, of all things, I watched that movie Bohemian Rhapsody. And so there's Queen playing at Wembley Stadium in front of 110,000 people. And I thought, that's absolutely amazing. Imagine doing that and the feeling it must be. And it was the first time it hit me that I actually did play in front of big crowds. and that atmosphere, when you're standing at the top of your mark and, you know, the crowd's just, the noise is building and building.

And I just realized then, that feeling you get then is something you can't replicate in life. And I thought, that's what I miss, that feeling of being out the middle, the atmosphere. Yeah, it is an incredible feeling, and that's what I miss. So playing, traveling, training, you know, all that sort of stuff. So it's only those few precious times, you know, that feeling, the times that fires up, close moments, all the time in the dressing room. With all the boys, that's what I miss. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Well, absolutely fascinating to listen to Stephen Finn and Glenn McGrath.

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