Hyderabad: Former Australian skipper Lisa Sthalekar on Friday in an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat opened-up about the future of Women's sports post COVID-19 pandemic, racism in cricket and how Women's Indian Premier League can reshape the future of Women-in-Blue.
Here are the excerpts of the interview.
As there is not much happening in the cricket world currently due to COVID-19, what are you doing to keep yourself busy?
I am getting fit. Due to pandemic, I am getting time to exercise. I am also enjoying cooking in the home. Simply because I am normally on the road. That's all I am doing. I am pretty bored to be honest. And I am looking forward to cricket starting soon.
Due to the pandemic, ICC has released new guidelines for players. What do you think of it? Especially the saliva ban?
It's an interesting discussion because here in Australia rugby and football league have started up and these guys are tackling each-other and we are not allowed to use a bit of saliva on the ball and rub it off and hand it. I understand that these guidelines are for around the world and obviously Australia are a bit fortunate at the moment regarding the pandemic. So maybe our rules are a bit more relaxed compared to the rest of the world. So it's a tough one because we want an even competition between the bat and the ball. And you get the sense that if the ball is not swinging, it would be more of an advantage for the batters. So I would say that batters are licking their lips at the opportunity to score plenty of runs.
Do you think ICC should allow bowlers to use the artificial substance to shine the ball?
Again, I had an interesting discussion with Simon Doull on the ICC digital platform, and he was saying don't bring any artificial substances. But players should be allowed to throw the ball into the ground to get one side really rough and that would hopefully allow the ball to swing.
However, I have always been of the opinion that it is an odd way to get the ball swing. And I don't think you should be bringing anything or any substance on the field to get the ball to swinging. But obviously a bowler can use sunscreen, sweat, you name it. But the main thing is we want cricket to start, even if it means that we can not use saliva.
Do You think, the men's T20 World Cup will go as planned, given that Australia has managed to control the virus outbreak?
It is an interesting discussion because Nick Hockley, who was Chief Executive of the ICC T20 World Cup, is now the interim Chief Executive of Cricket Australia (CA). It means that the T20 World Cup won't take place this year. We are fortunate enough in Australia because we are an island so we could shut down our borders pretty quickly. But what we have seen is -- the big influx in Cornavirus is when people came from abroad on to our shores.
So you can understand, one team coming in and being through quarantine period is more manageable then so many teams coming in, broadcaster, crew and commentators.. you name it. And obviously, ICC officials to run the event. So I would say it is highly unlikely. But we will have to wait and see until the decision is finally made.
Can the sports industry survive the coronavirus shutdown? Given that many cricket associations have laid-off their staff including Cricket Australia, Cricket West Indies have even announced pay cut for players.
I am sure all the sporting organisation are currently looking at how they do their finances and how much they expand. Be it grass-root, staff and obviously broadcast right deals are imperative for the organisations to grow and for sports to prosper. We can see all sports including cricket not being immune to the pandemic. And yes, Cricket Australia has gone through some difficulty. But I still feel the public, once the cricket is allowed to resume will enjoy it, they would still want to watch it and take part in it.
And everyone needs to sit tight and go through this really tricky period and be as supportive as we can for each other. And once we go through this tricky phase, I am sure things will go back to normal.
2019 was an important year for the women’s sports, but COVID-19 put a pause on it. So do you think women's sports will survive this health scare?
There has been a lot of investment in women's cricket, money has been poured in women's game. Surely, 86,000 plus people at MCG for the Women's T20 World Cup final -- shows that people do enjoy women's cricket and it is a commercial commodity. Boards can earn money from women's game, it may be small to start with. More and more fans are turning towards women's game. So I would hate to see that sporting boards going back to their archive view that it's just men's sports that would be commercially viable.
Following Sammy's racism allegations during his stint with SRH, the debate around racism in cricket have kickstarted. What are your views on that? Have you ever been at the end of racial slur?
Growing up in Australia, I was the only non-white player within the Aussie squad for a very long time. I think there was always casual racism, there were moments where it was just a joke and a bit of fun. But you have to remember it was back in the late 80s and early 90s where everyone was having a bit of laugh and there was not much political correctness back then. So there was casual racism.
However, there was one incident that I did not appreciate at the time and it infuriated me that some of my teammates thought it would be a great joke to pin me down and put a bindi on me my forehead because I am from Indian descended. There were four people pinning me down and I did try to fight them off. So that was probably one time when racism really affected me.
But one thing I would like to add is that not long after doing that they realised what they did was wrong and apologised to me profusely. So the main thing was that they understood what they did was wrong. And that was probably the only time when I kind of felt uncomfortable. But I have never faced any racist remark in the 21st century.
What do you think about women's IPL? and can it reform women's cricket not just in India but across the globe?
I think Women's Big Bash League in Australia is like Women' Indian Premier League at the moment. And what we have seen is that foreign players that take part in WBBL, starts to perform on an international level for their country. The prime example is South Africa, we had the most number of South African players playing in last years WBBL and the Proteas team beat England for the first time in an ICC tournament during the group stage of Women's T20 World Cup. So we are starting to see the effect of WBBL in women's game already.
If the hundred would have started, we would have seen many international players playing in that tournament. And as you mentioned no doubt, Women's IPL is not that far away, because the talent in India is pretty impressive. Because of those women's exhibition matches, Shafali Verma was roped into India's national side. When people watched Shafali playing in those games, everyone was like, this kid got to play for India, she did and she performed really well in this year's T20 World Cup.
