A crowd of 7,500 watched England beat Pakistan in the final T20 at Headingley, to seal a 3-0 series whitewash against the women in green.

A few folks seemed a tad disappointed with that crowd figure – apparently just over 10,000 tickets had been sold, plus “comps” (“complementaries” – tickets given away for free) so Yorkshire were hoping for 12,000, and it was a beautiful day in the West Riding, but despite the sunshine nearly 2,500 people bought tickets they didn’t use.

Nonetheless, at about 40% capacity, Headingley still felt pretty full – there were no huge empty spaces in the stands – and for a minor (and, let’s face it, pretty uncompetitive) series that feels pretty good to me. If we’re getting that for a dead-rubber against Pakistan, I reckon we are doing okay from a commercial perspective – not every series can be The Ashes.

On the field, Danni Wyatt put on a show, and looked all-but set to become the first full-member player to score 3 international T20 centuries. (It has been done twice by players from associate nations – shout out to Fatuma Kibasu of Tanzania, who scored her hundreds against Mali, Qatar and Eswatini; and Esha Oza of UAE, who did it against Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.)

With the help of some woeful Pakistani fielding (she was dropped 3 times) Wyatt made it to 87 off 48 balls before holing-out; and she did the right thing to keep pushing – given that there were still 6 overs left, the selfish option would have been to slow down and ensure she got the century, but there was clearly no thought of that in her mind.

Wyatt’s heroics meant that England powered through the middle overs, hitting at more than 10-an-over between overs 7 and 16. They didn’t have quite such a good death phase, losing 5 wickets for 33 to be all-out off the final ball; but arguably the perfect T20 innings is one where you max-out your resources, leaving nothing in the tank. The 174 that England made was by a distance the highest total of the series, and well in excess of a “typical” 1st innings score in a T20 between the ICC Championship teams.

It was certainly far too much for Pakistan, but at least on this occasion they didn’t collapse in a heap. Despite bowling their opponents out twice in this series, I don’t think England have been at their best with the ball. As I discuss on this week’s CRICKETher Weekly, recorded at Headingley before the game, outfield catches are cheap wickets for bowlers, and arguably should be discounted, as they are in what is increasingly seen as one of baseball’s key pitching metrics “FIP” – Fielding Independent Pitching. I’m not genuinely expecting cricket to suddenly change the way it calculates a bowler’s figures, but I do wonder if it is worth considering something like FIP as a supplementary metric?

England’s inability to take wickets when the opposition aren’t literally giving them away like they’re Maundy Money at Easter, has to continue to be a concern. Of course, they were without their main strike bowler today, which didn’t help. Her replacement got the ultimate vote-of-no-confidence from the captain of not bowling the opening over, but to be fair to Heather Knight, her lack of confidence looked entirely justified – she was all over the place, and how she only went at a rate of 6.25 from her 4 overs, I’ll never know. As one swallow does not a summer make, one decent ball per over does not an international fast bowler make, and England must be praying that Lauren Bell will be able to play every match when it really counts in the World Cup and the Ashes next winter.

I’ll be writing Wisden’s round-up of this series in the next couple of weeks, and cricket’s publication of record will document that England won this T20 series with some ease; but there will be caveats. Wyatt’s innings today, and Amy Jones’s keeping in the match at Edgbaston, were the highlights, but were they oases in the desert, or just mirages on the horizon? We’ll find out when the sterner tests come around later this year and next.