Hot Take: Women's T20 Final on IWD with Dr. Kate O'Halloran

Shireen chats with Dr. Kate O'Halloran about the upcoming Women's T20 cricket final on Sunday, March 8 - International Women's Day 2020. They talk about women's cricket down under, rising stars, and the #FillTheMCG campaign that seeks get 95,000 fans to attend the match at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and make history. Dr, O'Halloran sahres her thoughts and predictions for this momentous event.

Transcript

Shireen: Hey flamethrowers, it is Shireen here. I'm so, so excited to bring you this hot take. And with me, all the way from down under, I have Dr. Kate O'Halloran. Dr. Kate O'Halloran is an award-winning journalist and academic researcher. She holds a PhD in gender and cultural studies, and is passionate about gender equity in sports, ending violence against women, and all forms of social justice. In 2019, she won the VicHealth award for outstanding reporting of women's sports, an award she was highly commended for in 2018. In 2019, she was also shortlisted for a Quill award for excellence in coverage of women in spor, while her AFLW radio show, Kick Like a Girl, was shortlisted for excellence in sports programming at the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia awards. And as a freelance journalist, she's a founding member of Siren, a woman in sport media collective. She's also a former Victoria state cricketer. Welcome, Dr. O'Halloran. 

Kate: Thanks for having me. It's a thrill to be on. I love this podcast. 

Shireen: And thank you for being so accommodating with my frenzied request to please come do this hot take, because we need to talk cricket so urgently.

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a very exciting time. 

Shireen: Okay. So, let's get right into it. The finals on Sunday, March 8th, International Women's Day, the women's T20 finals. So, for those listeners that don't know, it's a wonderful time to get into cricket. It's always a great time to get into women's cricket. What is the T20? Is it regular cricket? What is it? 

Kate: Well, I suppose it's become a lot more mainstream now, but it was pretty radical when it was first developed. It's a very short form of the game. So, instead of bowling your standard 50 overs that you might in a one day international, it's a 20 over game. So, it's well known for being fast paced, high scoring, very exciting, dramatic finishes. And yeah, here we are with the international tournament in Melbourne. 

Shireen: The air must be electric, to have this particularly with – and this isn't a spoiler – Australia being in the finals. 

Kate: Yes. Well, it was looking really dire there for a while, actually, [laughter] because there was two semi-finals played yesterday in Sydney, and they both looked like they were gonna be rained out, which would've been an absolute disaster, because in Australia there's been this huge campaign for a very long time now actually to fill the MCG for the world cup final on Sunday. And if Australia were eliminated on a technicality, like a rain washout, I think it just would've been a nightmare disaster for the promoters. So, they'll be very happy that we made it through, even with just the five runs in hand. 

Shireen: Right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the washouts, the rain delays. And so that means that in a tournament of this kind, there's no backup days. So, matches were essentially, they were ringed out completely and not finished, I guess you could say. 

Kate: Yeah. So the semifinal between England and India was completely washed out. They couldn't get onto the SCG within the allocated time period. And it's actually, I mean, I think it's been a huge oversight by all involved to not have a reserve day. So, a reserve day is when they have a contingency plan in place, at least for the finals, in case there is something like a washout. So you have an extra day allocated where the ground's reserved or perhaps you have a backup ground, more common to have the same ground, but a backup day. Because the final isn’t…Well, we had the semifinals on Friday, and the final's not happening until Sunday. So there are two days in between. Of course you don't want teams traveling the night before or morning of, but, you know, I'm sure if you asked all the England women that, you know, they would've happily played tomorrow and had less preparation for a world cup final than to be knocked out like that.

Shireen: Yeah. So, was there any media criticism of this? Did you see any of, you know, whether it was English media showing any type of frustration over this exact thing? Because England are ICC world champs. Have you seen any of that or heard any sort of commentary?

Kate: Yeah. There's certainly been some criticism within Australia. I mean, obviously from an Australian media perspective, they're just glad that Australia's in the final, but there was a lot of discomfort. And even Mark Waugh, one of the former Australian men’s cricket players here, he just wrote on Twitter that surely it's common sense that you have a backup day. I mean, I think they've really been saved huge embarrassment if the host nation Australia and world number one were knocked out. But you know, given England’s standing in the women's game, I think it's an enormous shame that their tournament has ended like this. I mean, they'll say that, you know, our loss to South Africa cost us, but really I don't think it's a fair way to have decided the finalists. I don't think India would be happy with that result either. I think they much would've rather, you know, proved their place in the final through a semifinal. 

Shireen: And speaking of India, who lost in the final to England in the ICC world cup. And you're right. It doesn't feel like this vindication, it feels like this isn't a fabulous way to finish. Like, it doesn't feel fulfilling. And with the amount of time and effort that these women put in, it just sort of feels anti-climactic, almost. 

Kate: Oh, absolutely. I think Mandhana was actually interviewed by Neroli Meadows yesterday, and she said the team had in-between emotions about the washout. You know, she said it's massive for women's cricket back in India, obviously, to made the final, and encourages so many more girls to participate. But you know, it's just not the ideal way that they would’ve progressed. However, I think, you know, look they're undefeated, apart from the washout. So I think they can be extremely proud of their tournament. 

Shireen: Yeah. I mean, particularly one of the up and coming rockstars…I don't know if I wanna say up and because she's already in like the T20 record holding position, is Shafali Verma, who's 16 years old.

Kate: I just can't believe her age, honestly. I mean, she's just so calm and levelheaded when she takes to the field. I think she's made 161 runs for the tournament, an average of about 40 and a strike rate of 161. I just think, you know, along with Poonam Yadav, India have those two to be so thankful for, for progressing. But I'm so impressed with Shafali’s maturity given her age and how much she's led from the front.

Shireen: But, I mean, even if we look back at other players like Harmanpreet Kaur, who was, you know, previous captain, and Mithali Raj, and their dignity and their grace, you know, reading books on the pitch, actually, between batting. [laughter] I think you have some very focused and very…Like, it’s incredible to me that, you're right, she's so young. And I keep thinking, what was I doing at 16? [Kate laughs] But I mean, we can talk about some other really exciting things, like this was Thailand's first appearance at the T20. And that was wonderful. And even the culture of women's cricket was beautiful. Sri Lanka, or even Pakistan bowed out, and Pakistan beat the Windies very early on. And, you know, coming from a Pakistani family, that was very exciting. But you know, of course the commentary around the rain, washout and whatnot, it just wasn't meant to be. But the culture and the appreciation of women's cricket, it's not something that is performative. It was intentionally worked on in Australia. Hence the, you know, Fill the MCG. Can you talk a little bit about that and what you've seen in the last couple years? 

Kate: Yeah. So, it's certainly been a concerted campaign. I think they came out right from the beginning and said, you know, we're holding this game on International Women's Day. We wanna break the world record. I think it's currently the 1999 FIFA women's world cup record crowd of 90,815 between the USA and China. They were very confident that they could get that figure to the MCG, which I think took some people by surprise at the time. But I think, you know, it's really a testament to what Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association have done with the women's game here. And it wasn't that long ago that they negotiated really a world-leading collective bargaining agreement to ensure that our women are paid properly, to the extent that they can actually professionally focus on cricket. And, you know, as someone who back in the day played for Victoria, this is an enormous progression from where cricket was, you know, 15, 20 years ago, where we were still paying our way around the country to get to tournaments.

To think that we now have the best paid cricketers in the world, I think it's really off the back of that move by the union and by the governing body to say that we want cricket to be the sport of choice for girls and women in this country. And I think, you know, I'm just so impressed that they've gone and continued with this campaign. We've got, you know, billboards outside Flinders Street Station here in Melbourne, one of the main train stations, advertising women's cricket. Got a giant photo of Ellyse Perry, which is probably unfortunate given she's now injured and can't play. [laughter] But you know, you can’t miss the campaign here, even as a neutral, as someone who's not invested in cricket. Everyone knows about Fill the MCG. You know, they got Katy Perry along. They got a bit of flack for that, but, you know, whatever draws people to the ground, I think everyone’s happy.

Shireen: Billie Jean King is gonna be an attendance, the patron saint of women's sports.

Kate: [laughs] I know, how incredible. She’s actually speaking in an event in Melbourne today that I wish I could be at, but I can’t. But you know, I think everyone who's anyone is here. I saw on Twitter yesterday, you know, some Ladies Who Legspin, one of the women's sport accounts here in Australia, was asking, you know, where are you coming from to watch the game? I saw people say they were coming from all corners of Australia, some from New Zealand, you know, everybody wants to be at the MCG on Sunday. And it's an enormously exciting moment for women's sport generally, as well as women in cricket. 

Shireen: So something that might interest our American listeners is that Fill the MCG is actually trying to beat the record from the Rose Bowl, the 1999 US women's national team, when they went to the finals of the world cup. Fill the MCG in Melbourne is trying to actually beat that record of highest attendance of people anywhere in the world ever of a woman's sporting event, which I think is…95,000 people is bigger than a lot of towns and cities. So like, that's a lot of people.

Kate: Yeah. I mean, I saw a few days ago, they said at least 50,000 tickets had been sold already. And that was before we knew that Australia were definitely in the final, it's before we knew that India were in the final. I actually think that the matchup of Australia-India is probably the one that is most likely to get that figure. So, yeah. It's really exciting. I think I feel a bit nervous and excited at the same time about, you know, having set the bar so high, but you know, I'm confident. I think there's a real buzz around this at the moment in Australia and it would be really special if we could make it. 

Shireen: Yeah, I think that would be amazing. I mean, however the result, it's like a win on many levels for many things. Like, I think that looking at Australia as a model for how you can develop a domestic league and then make it potentially the best place in the world for everybody to go, to flock to, is so, so important. Are there a lot of international players in the domestic league in Australia?

Kate: Yeah, including from the Indian team. So I think that's something that people probably don't think about. These are teammates otherwise. [laughs] So, you know, how incredible that we get a final where our domestic league players can play off against each other for their countries. But I think, you know, that's a testament to Australia's commitment to being a world leader in cricket. And the fact that we are getting the best cricketers coming over just enables them to perfect their craft and to progress to an even higher level. So, I think one of the things I was thinking about was I really hope that India having done so well in this tournament fast tracks their own IPL league in India, because wouldn't it be incredible to see them even get some of the limelight, attention, money, that the men's IPL does, you know? So, fingers crossed.

Shireen: Well yeah. And even a stronger example of that as well would be Pakistan's league and how minimally the women are supported as opposed to the men. And I think that, you know, something that has been being spoken about for a very long time, about how like the discrepancy in terms of what the women are getting and what the men do get,  and that's an important something to look at. And if, you know, hopefully all the cricket boards across the world are looking at Australia to say, this is what you should be doing. Because the talent is worldwide, is all over there. One question I have is when I remember being really excited when the Windies, the West Indian team won in 2016, I really, really got hooked back then. It was a lot of fun for me. And I was really excited about how the men's team came out to support the women's team. Are you seeing that level of support as well? Because the men's T20 is coming up soon. It's not too far in the future. So, are they out there? Are they vocalizing in public with their support in Australia of the T20?

Kate: Look, I think yes, to an extent, I think it could always be better. But I think the interesting thing that's happened in Australia over the last couple of years is that the WBBL, the Women's Big Bash League stood alone from the men's Big Bash League. And, you know, we've seen great crowds on the back of that decision. And I think we were in a position only years ago where we had that model of the women's final being played before the men's final, you know, often it wasn't in the home state of the team that had actually finished on top. So it always felt like that really awkward, you know, double header/curtain raiser. I hate that term, but you know, this idea that the women open for the men and, you know, will catch some of the men's crowd. Well, I think that thinking has totally shifted in Australia over the past couple of years. And they've backed the league in to draw its own crowds, which it has. So, I think that's the most important shift I've seen in Australia recently. 

Shireen: Yeah, definitely. I think that's really important. And it was also intentional to do the final on International Women's Day, was it not?

Kate: Mm, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, they were very open about wanting it to be, like for people who aren't aware, in Australia, there's been a lot of movement in terms of national elite women's sport over the last few years. You know, we've had Australian rules football is the most popular here, probably just ahead of cricket. And we've had the national women's league now into its fourth season. You know, rugby league followed with their own national women's competition. But cricket really got on the front and said, well, we think we're leading in terms of resourcing, conditions, pay, et cetera, and we wanna mark this so-called revolution for women in sport with an enormous show of support from a huge crowd on International Women's Day, which I've really admired.

Shireen: That's amazing. So I have two tough questions to round up this hot take. [Kate laughs] Predictions. 

Kate: Oh god. [laughter] Oh, that's hard. For the final? 

Shireen: Yeah. 

Kate: Ooh. As in, who do I think is gonna win.

Shireen: Yeah. And I hate that…Actually, I'm so sorry I'm asking you this question. I hate this question. [Kate laughs] But I'd love to hear your thoughts just generally about both teams and their strengths and what we should be looking for.

Kate: Well, look, I think Australia have had a very nervous tournament. I think they haven't looked comfortable throughout. I think, you know, you saw the nerves even Ellyse Perry standing on the sidelines, just looking incredibly nervous because she couldn't be out there. And I don't think we can underestimate her loss and how big that is for the Australian team. But I think, you know, I think the double edged part of the Fill the MCG campaign is that there's just been this assumption that Australia are gonna be there because they're world number one. And, you know, I think that almost came to fruition, that nervousness in that first game against India – taking nothing away from India. I don't think Australia at their best. And I don’t think they really have all tournament. So, I'm not sure whether the big crowd, whether the occasion will actually backfire in terms of Australia's performance. I think they're slowly moving towards their best cricket, but I think India are really on top of their game in terms of their confidence and how they've gelled as a team. So look, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if India upset Australia, is my thinking at the moment, but you know, that's sort of sacrilegious to say here. 

Shireen: Yeah. [laughs] Last question, for those of us on the other side of the world, what do you all eat during cricket matches? What is the food of choice? Is it Vegemite? Is it roo stew? What do you eat?

Kate: [laughs] No, none of those things. It's probably like French fries, hot dogs, meat pies. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]

Shireen: Just like regular stadium food, right? 

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Totally stock standard. Like, wouldn't be outta place in America by any stretch of the imagination, I'm thinking. So, yeah, that's what we'll be all eating.

Shireen: Awesome. I just wanna thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down for this hot take and sort of going through this and talking so excitedly and making us so excited about women's cricket, which I'm really hoping will pick up on this side of the world too, because these time zones are killing me. [laughter]

Kate: It's made a very stressful tournament, I can tell you that from an Australian point of view. But yes, I hope it takes off in the US too.

Shireen: So, thank you so much, from all your friends on this side of the world. And we'll be cheering for everybody on Sunday.

Kate: Thank you. I love your work, you know, always very inspired by you. So it's been an honor to be on the pod.