Couch Talk

Jarrod Kimber, the most featured guest on the show, appears on the 200th episode of the podcast and talks about his transition from a cricket writer to cricket data analyst working with T20 franchises, and even becoming the general manager of the St Lucia Stars franchise (a clusterfuck of a time, in his words). He also talks about how he preps for a T20 draft and working with players he used to write about, and then suddenly becoming their boss all in a space of few weeks!

Thanks to all of you that have made 200 episodes of Couch Talk possible. 

In this episode, off spinner Chris Green of New South Wales, Guyana Amazon Warriors, Birmingham Bears etc., talks about his path to a professional cricketing career that is not based in first class cricket, his attitude towards bowling in the powerplay, his mental approach to the game, his idea of a good ball in T20, the challenges of being an itinerant T20 cricket and his dream of representing Australia.

Australian spinner Brad Hogg joins the CouchTalk to discuss how he came to be a left arm wrist spinner, how he learned his craft, how he handled being behind Shane Warne and Stuart McGill in the pecking order, dealing with self-doubt, his dismissal of Andy Flower in 2003, the circumstances surrounding Warne being sent home from the 2003 World Cup and his elevation to be the No. 1 spinner in the team, comparison of the 2003 and 2007 world cup winning Aussie teams, role of spin in T20s and his philosophy in life.

Former Indian opener WV Raman talks about the circumstances under which he became an opening batsmen, the challenges of facing bowlers from West Indies, New Zealand and South Africa, his playing career, the spectacular partnership between Sachin Tendulkar and Mohd Azharuddin in Cape Town (1996), his experiences as a coach in domestic cricket and as well as the head coach of Indian women's national team. 

Former international umpire Simon Taufel joins the podcast for the second time and talks about his new book "Finding the Gaps", the effect of the terrorist attack on the team and official buses in 2009 in Lahore on him and his family, conflict resolution on a cricket field, the impact of social media and TV punditry on the heightened criticisms of umpires and whether there is a need for an umpire to be part of the TV commentary box, amongst other things. 

In this episode, cricket journalist Tim Wigmore and Cricket analyst Freddie Wilde, co-authors of the book “Cricket 2.0: Inside the T20 revolution” discuss the following: [Buy the book from AMAZON]

a) What should a T20 scorecard look like?

b) Why is the discourse around T20 doesn’t seem to have the appreciation of T20 being a different sport from cricket?

c) What more measures of T20 performances are done by teams to illuminate the sport better?

d) What is the contest in T20: bat v bat, ball v ball, or ball v bat?

e) What sort of specialization of T20 skills in players is to be expected in the future?

f) Could pitches be standardized in T20s to better understand the contest?

g) CSK v RCB methodologies

h) Are “The Hundred” and “T10” as sport more differentiated from cricket than T20 is?

In this episode, the quick bowler Harry Gurney of England and Nottinghamshire and a slew of T20 franchises talks about the use of slowers and yorkers in T20s, the art of setting a field and the options he has as a bowler in T20s, the difficulty in bowling the variations and the decision-making processes, and he breaks down the videos of Lasith Malinga's delivery to win the 2019 IPL (), and Jasprit Bumrah's slower to Shaun March in a Test match in 2018.  

Malinga Video: https://www.iplt20.com/video/191529

Bumrah Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV_BriRUC_o

Gurney Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LW43mTHxjU

Indian offspinner R Ashwin talks about his stints in the English county system with Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire, the reasons behind it, rediscovering the joy of playing cricket again, how he has handled Team India's decision to play him only in Tests, managing worload and injuries, spin culture in England, amongst other things. 

The father of Dale Steyn, Schalk Steyn, joins the show to talk about Dale's beginnings in cricket and his rapid rise, his childhood and his retirement from Test cricket, and his everlasting memories from Dale's career, amongst other things. 

Indian Test batsman Cheteshwar Pujara discusses being compared to Rahul Dravid early in his career, dealing with the tag of "defensive batsman", his approach to training sessions, his favorite Test innings and most intense Test series he's been part, and the most difficult spell of bowling he'd faced in his career, amongst other things.