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Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Kristin Amio.

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Speaker 1: It's Friday, November twenty one, twenty twenty five. New South

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Speaker 1: Wales opposition leader Mark Speakman has stepped down, making way

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Speaker 1: for first term MP Kelly Sloan to take over the

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Speaker 1: Liberal leadership.

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Speaker 2: This morning, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping,

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Speaker 2: the jacarandas were blooming, and I was on breakfast radio

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Speaker 2: and on TV and staying that I would be continuing

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Speaker 2: as Liberal Party leader. At that stage, no alternative candidate

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Speaker 2: had come forward to tell me they wanted to be

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Speaker 2: the leader. No colleague had said to me they thought

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Speaker 2: it would be better if I resigned. But as I said,

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Speaker 2: a day, or even half a day or a few

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Speaker 2: hours is a long time in politics.

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Speaker 1: It follows days of speculation about Speakman's future and comes

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Speaker 1: in the same week as the ousting of his Victorian

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Speaker 1: counterpart Brad Baton. The first Test cricket match of the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five men's Ashes series gets underway at Perth

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Speaker 1: Stadium today and with two of the most evenly matched

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Speaker 1: teams in decades, it's shaping up to be one hell

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Speaker 1: of a contest. That's today's episode. Back in the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, Australia's fledgling national team clocked up its first

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Speaker 1: Test cricket win on English soil. British newspaper The Sporting

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Speaker 1: Times declared in a satirical obituary that English cricket was dead.

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Speaker 3: The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.

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Speaker 3: England's vow to retain the title spawned one of the

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Speaker 3: fiercest rivalries in sport, with both teams meeting every couple

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Speaker 3: of years for a series of five Test matches.

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Speaker 2: There is nothing sweet out of the boxing day hundred

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Speaker 2: and then the most dramatic circumstance is.

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Speaker 3: Well, that is the ball of the summer right there.

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Speaker 3: That's just about unhittable, England crushing down.

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Speaker 4: Three thousand MSJ just match one if the Bold's finding.

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Speaker 1: Time ashes on the back of a hometown hero. Today,

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Speaker 1: almost one hundred and fifty years later, the Australian and

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Speaker 1: English men's Test cricket teams will meet on the pitch

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Speaker 1: at Perth Stadium for the first Test in the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five twenty twenty six Ashes series.

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Speaker 4: We've never had a close Ashes series in Australia in

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Speaker 4: our lifetime.

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Speaker 3: Robert Craddick is a senior sports journalist.

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Speaker 4: Australian normally wins easily, and the two times they've lost

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Speaker 4: in the last forty years, they lost easily. So we've

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Speaker 4: been secretly craving the thriller, the one that goes to

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Speaker 4: the last of five tests, that builds up and goes

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Speaker 4: back and forth, and this could be the one.

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Speaker 1: What's the vibe like behind closed doors ahead of a

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Speaker 1: test like the first Test in Perth that the general

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Speaker 1: public maybe doesn't get to see.

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Speaker 4: There's a lot of nerves coming into the Ashes. And

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Speaker 4: a small anecdote for you. Joe Ruth in England Star,

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Speaker 4: who's the world's second most experienced Test batsman in terms

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Speaker 4: of runs. Only Sash and Tendulk has scored more. He

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Speaker 4: was playing a trial game a couple of weeks ago,

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Speaker 4: getting ready for the tour in Perth and looked as

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Speaker 4: nervous as any of the players they've ever seen him.

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Speaker 4: Because he never score a century in Australia, there's a

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Speaker 4: lot of pressure on him and this is the start

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Speaker 4: of his probably his last campaign in Australia. So here's

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Speaker 4: this guy a decorated giant of the game, perhaps England's

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Speaker 4: best player ever, and this little trial game out at

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Speaker 4: lie Kill was suddenly barely nervous. And just that's what

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Speaker 4: the ashes can do to your pressure expectation. It could

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Speaker 4: make the most experienced and hardy of souls feel vulnerable.

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Speaker 1: It's been something of an uncertain run up for the

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Speaker 1: Australian squad. In particular, we had captain Pat Cummins was

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Speaker 1: ruled out the first Test some time ago due to

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Speaker 1: that back injury. The reliable fast bowler Josh Hazelwood was

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Speaker 1: also ruled out due to a hamstring injury last week,

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Speaker 1: and there's been a question mark overhaul open Australia's batting

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Speaker 1: attack with usman Kwaja following the retirement of David Warner

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Speaker 1: after last summer. Do you think that's affecting the mood

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Speaker 1: inside the Australian camp right now.

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Speaker 4: I think it has robbed have a little bit of confidence.

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Speaker 4: I think without Pat Cummins there that's significant because it's

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Speaker 4: one thing to change your opening batsman and it's one

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Speaker 4: thing to miss Josh Hazwood. But Cummins is a tremendously

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Speaker 4: pacifying force in this team. He's Captain cool. It's just

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Speaker 4: great thats set on the best and worst days, she

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Speaker 4: still has that come and smile and she it's an

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Speaker 4: underrated quality because it's one thing being a tactical genius

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Speaker 4: in the field, which he probably isn't, but that he

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Speaker 4: radiates coolness and calmness, and not having him there thou

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Speaker 4: miss that nearly as much as he's bowling.

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Speaker 1: On Thursday, after weeks of speculation, all rounder Bo Webster

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Speaker 1: was dropped from Australia's starting eleven in favor of Debutane's

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Speaker 1: Jake Weatherald and Brendan Doggett.

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Speaker 4: For starter gives excitement and freshness to it. And there

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Speaker 4: are two great stories. Jake Weatherall has been to helen

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Speaker 4: back as a cricketer. He's in his thirties now, but

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Speaker 4: on the way up, his game was in really poor

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Speaker 4: state and he was having suicidal thoughts and his wife

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Speaker 4: said to him, Jake, you need specialist help, not for

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Speaker 4: your cricket but for yourself, and he somehow found his

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Speaker 4: way through it. Now, normally that's a crisis a guy

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Speaker 4: will go through after his cricket career has finished, or

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Speaker 4: normal the end, he hadn't even started it so to

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Speaker 4: go from that fragile mental state Christian to play Test

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Speaker 4: cricket makes him one of Australia's best sports stories of

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Speaker 4: the decade. It really does. He has climbed an incredible

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Speaker 4: mountain and then you've got Brendan Doggett, just the third

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Speaker 4: Indigenous male cricketer to play a Test for Australia. What

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Speaker 4: a story he is. At age twenty one, he was

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Speaker 4: a country carpenter into Woomba with no aspirations. He'd never

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Speaker 4: played representative cricket. He never thought he ever would. He

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Speaker 4: was working as a chippy Monday to Friday, playing club

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Speaker 4: cricket on the weekends and his life was bliss. And

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Speaker 4: then his brother went to Brisbane. He thought, oh my

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Speaker 4: goad and enjoy him and play a few games down there,

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Speaker 4: and he just went up through the system. Ten years

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Speaker 4: later he's playing a Test match. It's a great story

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Speaker 4: and it inspires every country cricketer who has a dream

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Speaker 4: but never thinks they're going to make it. Well, Brendan

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Speaker 4: Doggett is your man, because every dogget has his day.

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Speaker 1: Someone who wasn't named in the Australian Ashes squad is

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Speaker 1: twenty year old Sam Constance. He put on an incredibly

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Speaker 1: entertaining and fearless display against the incredibly dangerous Indian pace

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Speaker 1: bowler Jasprett Bumra last summer.

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Speaker 2: Ruck with big noise supporting him, running into Constance who's

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Speaker 2: tried two ramps and two charges in his first twenty.

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Speaker 3: One balls test level. Now we go for the ramp

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Speaker 3: over the top of Russat.

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Speaker 1: Pads, but he's been inconsistent in the domestic Sheffield Shield

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Speaker 1: competition more recently. Do you think he will have an

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Speaker 1: ash's birth in future and do you think the criticism

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Speaker 1: that's been leveled against him is fair?

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Speaker 4: The criticism has not been bitter or a cerbic or

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Speaker 4: anything like that. It's just been a statement of fact.

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Speaker 4: You know, he's really struggled to know his game. He's

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Speaker 4: a young boy of twenty and he's so far off

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Speaker 4: knowing who he is and what he is that the

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Speaker 4: best thing they can do with him is put him

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Speaker 4: in the Sheffield Shield for a couple of years and

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Speaker 4: let him find himself. He's a really nice lad. Everyone

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Speaker 4: likes him. You talk to Mitchell Stark about him and

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Speaker 4: he'll go on for minutes about how he's such a

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Speaker 4: humble kid. He's open to any sort of suggestions and

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Speaker 4: I think he'll get back there. But at the moment,

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Speaker 4: Christen he doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know

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Speaker 4: whether he's an attacker, he doesn't know his defensive game,

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Speaker 4: so he needs to find himself. So a couple of

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Speaker 4: years out of the spotlight will be just what Sam

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Speaker 4: Constance needs.

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Speaker 1: Coming up, why England's feeling more confident than ever ahead

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Speaker 1: of this ASHES series? Now, in fairness, we should probably

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Speaker 1: talk about the English team. You mentioned earlier that these

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Speaker 1: are two of the most evenly matched teams we've seen

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Speaker 1: in an ASHES series.

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Speaker 3: In a long time.

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Speaker 1: They retired English vice captain Stuart Broad said recently, this

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Speaker 1: is the worst Australian team in fifteen years and the

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Speaker 1: best English team. How do you rate England's prospects in

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Speaker 1: this series?

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Speaker 4: They were two pretty extreme observations, but it wasn't far out.

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Speaker 4: This is the best England team in fifteen years and

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Speaker 4: with the two injuries to Australia, this is one of

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Speaker 4: their weaker teams in fifteen years. But there was something

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Speaker 4: else he said about England. They're playing this baseball cricket.

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Speaker 4: It's a really rampant attacking game. But their coach, Brenda McCullum,

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Speaker 4: has had a policy of no winging in the dressing room.

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Speaker 4: You do not complain about anything, and they've been mocked

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Speaker 4: for it and people laughed at it because they said,

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Speaker 4: our winging pomps, I'll find a way to complain, but

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Speaker 4: they don't. Mark Wood twins his hamstring the other day

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Speaker 4: went back to the dressing room and would not complain.

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Speaker 4: And I really like that game plan, Kristin, because I've

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Speaker 4: seen so many English teams come here over the last

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Speaker 4: forty years and you can almost see Graham Gooch used

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Speaker 4: to walk through customs with his shoulders down and say, oh,

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Speaker 4: it's bloody hot here, isn't it already? And as soon

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Speaker 4: as you start winging you it's like the All Black

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Speaker 4: Shrubby union team when they toured England used to have

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Speaker 4: a policy you weren't allowed to say it's a cold day,

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Speaker 4: because as soon as you do, it gets colder. And

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Speaker 4: I like this positivity. There are chance this year England

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Speaker 4: they really are.

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Speaker 1: Robert Craddick is a senior sports journalist. You can follow

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Speaker 1: all the action from the first Ashes test at the

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Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot Au