What happens if no Pakistani players are picked for The Hundred?

Okay, Seven stops to write this best man's speech.

Hi, I'm Liam.

And I've got nothing.

Stop funny.

When he's good.

I beat her.

He'd never forgive me.

What about friendship?

Is a journey.

Ugh, cringed.

Come on.

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Dan.

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Good morning and welcome to following on.

I'm John Norman from Talksport bringing you a new cricket podcast to start your week.

And it's a week that will feature the 100 draft across two days.

The players will be selected for the men and women's 100 teams, which of course gets

underway in July and August plenty of interest this week as to the makeup of the sides as

is normal.

It's going to be a really interesting year with the new money within the game and a lot

of money to be spent on a lot of players.

A lot of people are going to be getting very, very wealthy this year.

There is of course also a darker edge to proceedings with some reports in the press over the

last few weeks suggesting a ban, an unofficial ban, a shadow ban on Pakistani players.

We'll find out, I suppose, one way or the other later this week if any Pakistani players

are going to be selected for one of the 800 teams.

But in the build up to that, myself, John Norman, alongside Jarrah Kimber and Steve

Harmason, had a sit down to bring the situation into focus and to ask a question, what players

could and should be selected and what happens if they don't get picked for any of the teams.

Sit back and enjoy myself, Jarrah Kimber and Steve Harmason here on the following on

PooCost.

There are more than 60, I'm not sure of the exact number, there are 67, 67 Pakistani

players up for the draft for the 100.

If we are to believe that there is no unofficial ban on Pakistani players participating

in the 100, which players should be picked.

What's one to drink?

You've got shut up, Khan?

Yeah.

That's two, right?

Haras Ralph?

Haras Ralph's not even in their current side though.

I suppose he still plays in that.

Yeah, I would have 100 issues, isn't he?

Shane Shah?

Depends on how pretty he is.

But yeah, if he was fully fit, then obviously, the way he was bowling in the Big Bash,

you may never want to see if you go on sort of the 63 men.

Procaption?

Are you?

Yeah, are you?

Is it another one?

It's probably about what?

Seven.

I've got, bro.

You want to be rolling?

Yeah, it's probably about eight.

What a team.

Bring them in.

Like the old ICL days when they had a Pakistani team, the whole bad shots.

What happens if no Pakistani players are picked?

Pakistani players will be picked.

They just won't be picked by the teams that are owned by APL owners.

I think the reason it's become a story now is because of a story that the BBC picked

up on.

I think there's a difference between, because as we know how it works, a lot of things we

know as journalists will become a story.

Yeah.

We understand how the media works.

We understand that rolling new cycles, the fact that there's a kind of a time and a place

to stories like this, and it's been decided that now is the time.

So yeah, you're right.

Is that off the back of?

We can all sit back and go, well, we knew this was going to happen, but it is a story,

right?

Is that off the back of what happened leading into the T20 World Cup?

It's Bangladesh, Pakistan, Boycoine, all of a sudden, is that highlighting the story

that you want?

No, no, no, it's because, according to a story in the BBC, on the BBC website, a senior

ECB official put to paper in the form of an email, the notion that unofficially no Pakistani

players will be selected by an IPL owned team.

Well, so soon as the people that run the sport have come out and said that this is happening,

that makes it a bigger story, which is why it worked for a couple of IPL-only shoot groups

over the time, and every time I've worked for them, I've been told categorically you cannot

hire a Pakistani player.

This is just what happens.

So the team that I worked with was, I think it was the ownership group of the Punjab kings

and they owned the Edinburgh rocks in the European League that never went ahead.

And we were working with that team, Shane Bergo, who was the Scotland coach, and that was

the message.

It was that you can't get it.

And I've worked with other teams where they've come in and they've said, can you help us

find some players for this draft, and I've offered the players, and there's been Pakistani

players on there, and they've said, stop putting Pakistani players on there, we're not

going to hire any Pakistani players.

So yes, it's a bigger story now because it's been put to paper, but it was naive of the

ECB to ever think this wasn't going to happen.

And it's the same conversation, you know, Bumble's been sitting in Harmish here lots of times

for these shows, and beforehand he always asked me about what's going to happen when the

ownership groups will go over.

And you hear every time, I've been probably might have even done it on air a couple of times

where I said, they are going to do everything they want to do, they're going to rename the

teams, they're going to change the colors, they're going to put the people in charge that

they wanted to do.

And that includes them not having Pakistani players, right?

If the ECB did not know that beforehand, then they haven't been paying any attention,

and they did not beforehand, and they just chose to think that they could win them over.

You're not winning over billionaires, these billionaires have more power than the ECB.

So when you were put in that position, how did you react to being told that essentially

you've got to...

Exactly what I said, the first time it happened, I said, if I knew you were doing this,

and I was working for another team, I would just go about getting all the best Pakistani

players into my side, and I would have a tactical advantage over you, like if you're actually

trying to win, this is the stupidest impossible, but they're not trying to win, right?

They're trying to build brands.

Well I should say, not all these ownership groups, they're not in a situation where they

always believe this themselves, they're doing this because of public perception.

I said there was a LinkedIn post this week, guys, these brave owners, I've talked to some

of these owners, some of these owners have no issues with hiring Pakistani people.

They're all taking selfies with wasn't Akram every time they get a chance, but there

is a perception that it will hurt their business interests, it might hurt their relationships

with the government, so they're having to do what they have to do.

We can be completely anti them as much as we want, but when it comes down to it, this

is a much bigger issue than just about cricket.

The issue from cricket perspective is that the ECB thought they could handle this, and

they were either being naive or dumb, and you can take your choice on which one of them

it was, but they've had two years to prepare for this.

Everyone knew this was coming.

Holly?

Yeah, I'm from player's point of view, you've shared a dressing room with, I've shared

a dressing room with good Pakistani players, and you don't want to see the politics come

into it more unfortunately, it just seems to be getting more and more, like we spoke on

a couple of other podcasts about the power that India are getting, where's this game

going to go?

What we're going to look like in 10 years' time?

What's the landscape?

I'm with you.

I think anybody that thought that ECB, or the 100, or the marketing team, or the people

that were getting the 100 in a position to sell it, would go, right, that will not happen

here, is naive or, or pretty dumb, but I think from that point of view, the inclusive

this competition for everybody, this is the audience, this is, this is, this is, this

is the 100, 100, that's been rammed down throughout, like me, who have been a skeptical

of the only thing I'm skeptical of as the actual format, don't mind it playing in August

or don't mind, I'm all for the best playing against the best, definitely looking for a new

audience, that comes in a cricket, but all of a sudden we're closing the door in England

where England closes the door on somebody else's politics, then I think we've got, I think

we've got a big problem.

Also, I think we've got a big problem.

We're talking about Pakistan now, must have his or her mum was pulled out of the

IPL.

So it's Bangladesh and Pakistan, it becomes a bigger issue, and those are two pretty important

cricket populations within the UK.

So all of a sudden, you're telling the supporters from those backgrounds that they're not

welcome?

Yeah, and you're, and you've got half the tournament.

So four teams, four venues, if they're basically saying we're not having Pakistani or Bangladeshi

players, we don't want your Bangladeshi or Pakistani supporters, then all of a sudden

if there's an issue there, then I think that's a bigger issue for the ECB when it comes

to, we set out this tournament, you're 100% spot on when you talk about Bumble and

about changing the names and stuff like that, my worry further down the line is we're

at a sky fit in all this, because they've, they've gone out on a live, careered

a tournament, careered a brilliant product for everybody in this country to love and around

the world.

And in 2028, 2099, when the TV deal comes again, I can't imagine these, these ownership

groups going, yeah, we'll give you that as part of the, they have the English cricket

broadcast.

It's got to be kept separate.

So there's going to be an issue there, so like the ownership, if four teams have decided

they're not having players, supporters from Bangladesh or Pakistan, what sort of messages

that driving and what's that going to be looking like from the, the top, I.E. golden Thompson

at the top of ECB, because at the end of the day, whether they've got invested interest

or not, or it's not being handled by them, once to see one's chief executive, one's charming,

they are in charge of English cricket.

This is a flagship tournament.

This is just created 500 million.

This is a massive problem for them.

For a wrench to you?

Well, I'm just about to throw one back to you guys, but yeah, go for it.

We mention eight players, and none of us mention Baba Razam.

So the opposite of this is the cricket Australia is just basically used Baba Razam as a

PR tool to play for the Sydney Sixers, where no one thought he should be playing T20

Cricket as an overseas pro at that stage on that level of cricket, right?

So a lot of these players are exploited for fan groups.

And county teams are more than happy to do this.

We know that county teams are looking for players that will bring them more eyeballs

sometimes, rather than the best players.

So it is a little bit disingenuous to pretend that the hundred is for all, when sometimes

the hundred is actually about marketing more than it is anything else.

And I think if I was on the other side of this, that's what I would be saying.

But that's sport now.

Cricket at the moment is a billion dollar industry and a geopolitical mess, right?

And both of those things are true at the same time, and things are going to bounce around.

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What is the difference between this and what happened all those years ago when South Africa

wouldn't allow black players to come and play there?

The biggest difference at that stage is that South Africa weren't actually engaging in

world cricket or world sport.

South Africa didn't play India.

They didn't play the West Indies.

They didn't play Pakistan.

They weren't actually engaging in cricket as a whole and cricket was still very late to

kick them out.

Let's let's not forget.

The second women's World Cup was almost scheduled in South Africa.

Australia was still going to play them into the 70s at home until essentially a future

Australian Prime Minister got involved to do that.

The biggest difference between these things is what you have at the moment is geopolitical

tensions between these two countries which goes back years and we can blame England for

if we will happily do and I will happily do it anytime.

But when it comes down to it, that is a geopolitical issue between those two groups.

What you had in South Africa was a system where one whole section of the population were

not treated as human beings and the rest of the world said, well, we don't want to be

involved.

South Africa wouldn't play anyone else at that stage.

That's very, very different than what you were seeing with what India and Pakistan

is happening.

But of course, we're not asking India to do this at home.

We're asking India to do this or India are asking for this to be played out overseas as

well as at home, which…

Yeah, but it's also different because…

I'm not saying that what you said is true, by the way.

But South Africa would refuse to play certain countries.

Yeah, so they weren't really participating in World Sport, right?

They were half participating in it and eventually the racial side of that became too bigger

a thing for all of World Sport, right?

It wasn't just a cricket thing.

Cricket was one of the last countries, one of the last sports to be involved in this.

Although tennis gets away with it and South Africa and the Davis Cup a little bit longer

as well.

But Cricket was one of the last sports to really get involved with this.

This is very different because this is actually… it's not even the Indian government.

There are people who have Indian citizenship, who own cricket teams around the world, who

still have Pakistani players playing for them.

It's certain owners who are famous.

Musta Fizzar Rahman, there have been tensions between Bangladesh and India for a long period

of time.

Musta Fizzar Rahman was going to play in his fifth or sixth IPL team and his eighth or

ninth season and he was pulled out and it's because it was made a big deal by a former

politician and then messenger and everything else swept up and there were other politicians

involved.

So sometimes it's a local news story that suddenly gets big that makes these things

into something.

It wasn't that long ago, I mean when the IPL started there were Pakistani players playing

in the IPL.

There are still Pakistani people commentating on the ICC so it's not like it's a complete

blanket rule which is also part of the issue here at this point and when a Pakistani player

is playing in the 100 they're not actually representing Pakistan.

So it's separate again.

It's okay for them to represent Pakistan and play in a tournament where India interests

are making money but it's not okay for them to do it this way.

So it doesn't even completely follow logic and that I think that's one of the bigger issues

with this and also the other thing I would say is having dealt with this for a long time

it's not surprising to me that the first person to write this down anywhere was in English

person or someone to do with ECB and not someone to do with Indian cricket because when

Mustafa's went down I haven't seen an efficient official thing from the BCCI saying that

Mustafa's a Raman could not play in the IPL.

He was just taking out and when Pakistani players first stop playing in the IPL, Lalit

Modi who was running it at the time said there were no Pakistani players good enough

to play in the IPL while so Hal Tanviya had been a star a couple of years earlier and

they had a couple of other key players.

So this is my point of what we are talking about here is local politics, populist government

positions, we're talking about billionaires who were already about their relationships with

people with the ECB they were already about marketing and their local markets.

This is not cricket issues and when sometimes I'll talk about this stuff and people will

be like stick to cricket.

I was like I'm fortunate to see cricket now.

Talking about a billionaire and their relationship with the government and that's why they might

not have a Pakistani player on their franchise is actually where we have ended up in cricket

and it was probably one way or another I think cricket has been lucky to actually have

as long a political I wouldn't say a great run but a good run in that I'm surprised that

politics hasn't derailed cricket more often when you think about the fact that these countries

are all in search of it because it all comes from the commonwealth than how the commonwealth

is.

Asking the Pakistani women would probably raise their hands.

No, but you've got Kenya and Zimbabwe.

We've had little flabs, right?

Afghanistan women is a perfect example of that but look at Zimbabwe, Namibia and South

Africa.

They were all kind of one place, they were playing all domestic cricket at one stage together

and all these sorts of things and now they're three individual teams separate to each other.

Cricket is so unlike almost any other culture where some of this is, right?

The West Indies, yeah.

It is an island, right?

Island is.

Yeah, it's not an island and Republic of Ireland.

So my point being is that you have situations where Grenada was part of the West Indies,

the rest of the West Indies were leading, were involved in the US forces invading Grenada,

while Grenada was still technically providing cricketers for the West Indies.

We are a complete geopolitical mess.

Okay, seven stops to write this best man's speech.

Hi, I'm Liam and I've got nothing.

Stop funny.

Funny's good.

I beat her.

He'd never forgive me.

What about friendship is a journey?

Oh, Crint, come on.

That's it.

In year five, Dan had the bright idea of tracking the best, best man's speech on the train you

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