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Chris Rogers | Victorian Cricket Team coach (14.05.26)

13 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What are the highlights of the Victorian cricket team's recent season?

0.723 - 17.458 Gerard

Throughout the cricket season, we plotted the outstanding campaign of Victoria, which ended frustratingly at the Junction Oval not that long ago. The coach, Chris Rogers, has had his contract extended by Cricket Victoria for a further two years, and he's here with me in the studio. Buck, congratulations. Welcome back.

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17.719 - 18.54 Chris Rogers

Thank you, Gerard. How are you?

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18.841 - 20.284 Gerard

Nice to have the future sorted.

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20.534 - 33.211 Chris Rogers

It is. It's an interesting life when you work contract to contract. And I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who do it, but there's always a little bit of unknown, uncertainty about what's next.

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Chapter 2: Why did Chris Rogers extend his coaching contract with the Victorian team?

33.872 - 54.063 Chris Rogers

And in cricket, it's kind of not like you can go around the corner and get a job there. Sometimes you're thinking, I might have to move overseas and go elsewhere. So then you have to pick up the family and do that. So there's those kind of challenges, but... I'm not going to complain too much. I get to coach cricket for a living. It's a pretty good life.

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54.704 - 63.282 Gerard

Are you excited to have the two years? Because the journey, you can see the journey and clearly the mission is not accomplished.

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64.004 - 73.313 Chris Rogers

Yeah, I mean, obviously you think deeply about these kind of things and where you are as a coach as well.

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Chapter 3: What challenges do coaches face when working contract to contract?

74.554 - 89.809 Chris Rogers

But one of the overriding factors was the fact, I think this group is really, really starting to come into a special time. You don't achieve what they did, even still probably the youngest group in the competition.

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89.789 - 115.493 Chris Rogers

without um you know unbelievable talent um and skill and and uh and commitment so I feel like there's there's there's a lot more to come with this group um and one of the real special hopefully bits of the journey will be seeing a number of these players um further their careers going on to you know play for Australia do other things and and you kind of want to be on that journey you you want to

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115.473 - 130.364 Chris Rogers

You want to be there when you see them get the baggy green or something like that. That's going to be very, very special moments. And we're getting a bit of a snapshot with that with Ollie Peak. But yeah, that's something that I'm really looking forward to.

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131.106 - 136.317 Gerard

How did you digest the disappointment right at the end of the Shield final?

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137.157 - 152.712 Chris Rogers

Uh, I've had a bit of time to think about it. Um, it is interesting. I was, I was, I knew you were gonna ask that question, Gerard. I thought about that and I was watching Fug Swing, the, the, the golf documentary and, and, and Tommy Fleetwood, who, you know, who'd gone through his own journey of, of number of seconds.

152.772 - 173.884 Chris Rogers

And, and, you know, he just said, um, along the lines of look, it's, it was immensely disappointing, but it's just gonna make it that much sweeter when, when you do one and, and you just gotta crack on and, and, and we're gonna crack on and, and. And I think if we keep doing the right things, then eventually it'll go our way. And yeah, that will be a very special moment for the group.

174.425 - 182.503 Gerard

It's at the end of the season. Have you reviewed it already? What happens when you come back is how are you going to use it?

182.652 - 203.832 Chris Rogers

Yeah, we've reviewed it. And there's mixed feelings about it. I think there's, you know, there's the recency bias where you're kind of frustrated with what happened in the end. We're so close. I mean, I still think we were one ball away from winning that game when we had them seven for 60 effectively in the second innings.

203.912 - 228.097 Chris Rogers

If we'd got one wicket there, their last couple of batters, you know, wouldn't have held out and given Kerry that support. So, yeah. You know, you put things in context. Their number nine, McAndrew, he played and missed 16 times. You know, he could have been out any moment. And down the other end was Alex Carey, one of the best performers for Australia in recent times. And it happens.

Chapter 4: How does Chris Rogers assess the potential of his young players?

270.832 - 293.511 Chris Rogers

Yeah, I just think about... the moments throughout the year and, and what a lot of the players were able to do, um, and, and showed just how good they, they could be. That what was interesting, particularly from the batting group, um, there was only one player who really was consistent throughout the, the whole, um, the whole campaign. And that was Pete Hanscom.

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294.292 - 315.5 Chris Rogers

Um, and that's because he had something to, to fall back on. I mean, the game is hard. It's really, really hard, whether you're batting or bowling, it's difficult. Um, And Pete had something to fall back on. A lot of these other young guys, they're still developing. They're still kind of finding their feet. So once they find that, you know, I think that there's going to be some huge growth.

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315.7 - 333.096 Chris Rogers

And, you know, I think that the thing that got us to the position was the talent. That can't be denied. And the more games you put into them, you know, the better they're going to be. The foundations are going to be there. So, you know, exciting from that point of view of what we can achieve.

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333.076 - 342.65 Gerard

What did you do squad-wise? You kept... There was clearly some attempts to poach. It looked like you kept your squad pretty tightly together.

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343.252 - 371.175 Chris Rogers

Yeah, we did. I mean... It's really interesting, particularly with a lot of our batting group. We feel that there's a lot of players who are the best players in the local Premier League. And they found it hard to get in at times. It wasn't easy. There was a bit of a queue to get in. And we felt maybe that we might lose one or two, just two who might go to other teams.

371.335 - 394.258 Chris Rogers

And I mean, I look at some of the other teams and think, gee, gee, Some of our reserve players, you know, could be in those positions. So the fact that they stayed with us, I think speaks a lot to the culture of the group, to the coaching staff, and to belief that they're getting better. You know, I think that they know that there's kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

394.799 - 397.103 Chris Rogers

And if they keep progressing, they're going to get to where they want to.

397.876 - 409.337 Gerard

So you referenced Ollie Peake, who's about to go on his first Australian squad as a white ball player. In terms of his development and exposure, is this a clever way to go about it?

410.937 - 442.091 Chris Rogers

Yeah, I mean, it is definitely a stretch opportunity for Oli. You know, I've said about Oli a number of times. I think I've probably said to you, Gerard, he's such an interesting case study for us because I think all the players that we see come through are these kind of high-talent players. But low cricket IQ kind of examples, just because they haven't played in enough cricket.

Chapter 5: What lessons were learned from the Shield final disappointment?

604.437 - 619.262 Chris Rogers

And I hope he just keeps playing with a smile on his face because he's just such a great person to have in the team. He brings so much energy. There's a little bit of naivety with him, but, you know, he just is loving the opportunities that are coming his way.

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619.242 - 633.117 Gerard

And it wouldn't be right to finish our chat without a salute to Scott Boland, who at 37 years of age played an astonishingly good summer of cricket or season of cricket, Shield and international.

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634.21 - 659.998 Chris Rogers

Yeah, I was just thinking about the highlights of the year, Gerard, and there were some great highlights. I'll probably special mention the Sammy Harper's 200s at the WACA and a number of other ones I could talk about as well. But one of the ones that probably goes a little bit unnoticed because you get used to it was him taking the last five wickets against New South Wales in round two.

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659.978 - 681.948 Chris Rogers

When we were still kind of trying to understand where we were at and he knocked over the last five wickets, it looked like we were going to lose. And I said to the group after, I said, just try not to take this for granted and appreciate that you are actually, and I don't use this lightly, but you're in the presence of greatness.

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683.55 - 699.438 Chris Rogers

He is, you know, if you look at his record over the last few years, I mean, that is just quite extraordinary what he's achieved. Um, and it's not just, um, how good he is with the ball. It's, it's his personality that, that goes with it as well. It's, it's, he never gets above himself.

699.518 - 722.277 Chris Rogers

He never, he's never arrogant, you know, and he's, and he's so supportive of everyone else in the, in the side and he's the absolute, um, you know, best teammate you'd like to play with. So this opportunity for the guys to play with him has been so good. And I think there wouldn't be one person who doesn't, who begrudges the success he's had. And I think that speaks a lot of the man.

722.377 - 723.78 Chris Rogers

Yeah, we all get to enjoy it.

724.262 - 728.932 Gerard

Great. Thanks for coming in. Congrats on the new contract. And we'll pick up the journey with you a little later in the year.

729.373 - 732.099 Chris Rogers

Thank you, Gerard. Hopefully there's a little bit of silverware to come too.

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