By Richard Starkie*

Kent (309/8) beat Middlesex (306/7) by 2 wickets with 8 balls to spare

• Middlesex set a challenging 306/7, but innings tails off in final 5 overs
• Artemis Downer scores 67, one of three half-centurions
• Sydney Gorham (1/45) is the pick of Kent’s bowlers
• On loan Rachel King scores a century for Kent
• Wayward Middlesex bowling sees the total chased down in penultimate over

26 July is a good day for Middlesex. It was on this day last year in Northampton that they won the Vitality Blast in the most comprehensive way imaginable – batting through their semi-final against Leicestershire and the final against Yorkshire without losing a wicket. On that occasion Issy Routledge and Finty Trussler scored all the runs for a team who went through the whole season unbeaten until their final game: the One Day Cup semi-final, which they lost to Yorkshire.

This season has not been such plain sailing for the county from the north side of the Thames. Three defeats in the Blast and failure to win their final game with a bonus point meant that they did not even make it to Finals Day in the T20 competition.

Their early season form in the One Day Cup, however, was imperious: Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were comprehensively defeated in April and May, leaving Middlesex the clear favourites at the top of the table, alongside tier-one bound Glamorgan.

If this season has been a mixed bag so far for Middlesex, Kent exceeded expectations by reaching T20 Blast Finals Day. On top of that, their One Day Cup form was promising early in the season, mainly thanks to the phenomenal batting of Coco Streets, who scored 78, 108, 104 and 89 across the four games they played, although they only managed to win two of those (against Sussex and Derbyshire).

So today was always going to be an interesting match-up. Could Kent take encouragement from their Blast performance and transfer that energy to the One Day Cup?  Was the Blast a blip for Middlesex or have they really lost their winning mojo?

Middlesex won the toss and decided to bat. Despite not using the loan market to bolster their team, Middlesex have some seriously good batters right down to number 8 (who today was Routledge), so with plenty of strength in depth, they can bat with freedom.

Pippa Sproul and Scarlett Hughes had to be cautious early on, as the pace of Hannah Hardwick and the loop and swing of Sydney Gorham demanded patience and solid defence. Having nudged, nurdled and defended parsimoniously to accumulate 41 runs through the powerplay, a very avoidable mix-up meant that Sproul, in not so spritely fashion, ended up sprawled, spread-eagled on the pitch as she dived for safety when attempting a run. The Scot was dismissed for 21 and almost immediately, her opening partner Hughes followed her, caught by a remarkable cart-wheeling catch by Streets at mid-wicket.

With the score at 43/2, Middlesex needed a re-set. Riva Pindoria and Saskia Horley began slowly enough, but soon were moving through the gears, both regularly going onto the back foot to muscle the ball to the boundary through an arc from extra cover to midwicket. Together they added 130 runs in 20 overs, but then both got out: Pindoria caught at cover and then next ball, Horley going for an overthrow that was never there, was easily run out.

Another re-set was required, with two new batters. Trussler soon departed, edging behind, but it was Artemis Downer and Abbie Whybrow who added the extra oomph that was need in the late middle overs, regularly finding the boundary. Whybrow at one point knocked over her own stumps after hitting a four. The umpires discussed it at length, before concluding, much to Kent’s chagrin, that the ball had already crossed the rope at the point the stumps were broken, therefore she was not out.

It was a good total for Middlesex as they closed on 306/7, Whybrow dismissed for 48, but Downer unbeaten on 67. However, there was a sense that they had possibly left a few runs out there. Nevertheless, it was a very challenging total for Kent to chase, but having scored 314 earlier this season at Beckenham, it was a total they knew they had within them.

The key to success for Middlesex was surely to get Streets out early. And sure enough, in the sixth over, Kent’s prodigious run scorer was gone. Layla Judge, bowling fast and not always accurate left arm seam, was occasionally getting it right. As the ball was swinging a lot for her, she managed to send down at least one wide per over, but in her third and fourth overs, she got the ball to swing viciously back in to the right handers, removing Streets’ middle stump, then repeating the trick to Kelly Castle.

Maddie Blinkhorn-Jones and wicket-keeper Rachel King, on loan from Surrey, then combined for an exciting and productive 10-over spell in which they took the game to Middlesex and started to make the Londoners feel a little nervous and uncomfortable. It seemed that Kent, after all, could actually bat well without a major contribution from Streets. Blinkhorn-Jones eventually edged behind for a run a ball 44, but Elsa Barnfather came in and carried on in exactly the same aggressive vein. Alongside her, King was still there, muscling her way ever closer to a century, which she duly achieved as she joyously smashed the ball back over Siya Nanavati’s head.

Suddenly, with 10 overs to go, Kent needed 61 with six wickets in hand and a set batter with a century to her name. The pendulum had swung. This game was Kent’s to lose.

Horley, desperate for a breakthrough as the game slipped away, brought herself back on. Almost immediately, she dismissed the centurion King, who dragged herself from the field distraught at a job unfinished. As the target got closer, first Hardwick, then Hollie Young were dismissed. Kent were seven wickets down with 30 runs still needed.

It was the unlikely combination of Genevieve Jeer and Izzy James who brought Kent to the edge of victory, needing just 10 from the final 3 overs. A four and a two from the first two balls of the 47th over meant that Kent were within one strike of a win. However, Izzy James skied a catch to Saskia Horley at extra cover. 8 wickets down. 4 runs needed. Were Kent about to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory?

It was the second ball of the penultimate over. Saskia Horley to Genevieve Jeer. The ball was sent tantalisingly outside off-stump. Jeer reached for it and delicately played a late cut down to the backward point boundary. Kent had won by two wickets. Middlesex had lost their second ever One Day Cup game.

Post-script: So why did Kent win and why did Middlesex lose?

This is the third time I have seen Middlesex in this season’s One Day Cup. The impression that they gave me in their wins over Derbyshire and Gloucestershire was of an energetic, chirpy and well-organised team. Their stand-out ability was their fielding. They had this way of denying the oxygen of runs to the opposition which added pressure and brought about mistakes. They were particularly adept at catches and run-outs. Their batting line up, as previously mentioned, has a depth unusual in Tier Two.

All of this was missing today. Any chirp out there seemed to have little effect on the opposition. Their fielding was poor. King, who scored 106, was dropped four times during her innings. Any of those fairly regulation catches would have changed the course of the game. Their poor running between the wickets cost them two of their most important batters at a crucial time – Horley’s dismissal was the most bizarre. She ambled through for an overthrow as if she didn’t care and watched the bails being removed from a distance without much of an attempt to get home.

I came away from the game feeling that Middlesex are a much better collection of players than Kent, but showed little hunger to win and demonstrated the sort of complacency which often brings about unnecessary defeat. They clearly felt that 306 was enough, whereas 320 or more surely would have been. Middlesex, when batting, scored only 32 runs from their last five overs – and it feels that this was the turning point of the game. Kent were pleased to have restricted Middlesex to a gettable total, whilst Middlesex believed that they already had enough runs.

The influence of loan players is also a key factor. Middlesex don’t have any, Kent have two. Hardwick was surplus to requirement at Warwickshire, but picked up a contract with Hampshire last summer. She still looks like a bowler who sits between Tier One and Tier Two, but her 1/52 today was a better economy than all but one of her Middlesex counterparts.

King’s innings was ultimately the difference between the two sides. The 21 year old, on loan from Surrey, comes from the agricultural school of batting – safe to say she’s no Smriti Mandhana – but she was highly effective today, without being faultless and secure at any point.

Middlesex’s bowling was poor. 19 year old Siya Nanavati was their opening strike bowler, delivering right arm medium pace. She had a bad day, conceding 10 boundaries in her nine overs. The spin of Routledge and Hannah Davis was similarly punished. However, Middlesex didn’t have or were unwilling to use a sixth bowler to mix things up.

On the positive side, Judge was a really interesting left arm pace bowler. The 23 year old caused genuine discomfort to the batters, but was not quite consistent and accurate enough to deliver a match-winning performance for her side. Her figures of 2/51 were by far the most economical in her team, but included seven wides, as she struggled to control the swing of the ball. Her dismissals of Streets and Castle were spectacular and if she could do that more regularly, she would be playing in Tier One.

The most effective bowler on show today, however, was Kent’s Sydney Gorham. Her seemingly innocuous and slightly loopy medium pace proved difficult for the Middlesex batters to get away and her 37 dot balls caused immense frustration – the sort of bowling that buys wickets for other bowlers, as batters try to compensate for Gorham’s over with more risky shots against others.

Middlesex’s next game is against Sussex at Arundel on Sunday 2 August. Kent travel to Redditch to play Worcestershire on the same day.

*No we haven’t poached him. The editor of Noughtie Child is on holiday.

This week:

• Terrible batting in The Hundred… why?
• New team names & new players – does it matter?
• Women’s Ashes schedule announced
• Em Arlott heads to Yorkshire – but should there be a transfer window?

Our new Prime Minister Andy Burnham was apparently a bit of a cricketer in his youth – a recent Instagram post shows him as a teenager in some very 70s-looking “Devon cream” cricket whites. Prior to becoming PM, Burnham enjoyed considerable popularity as Mayor of Manchester, and his governing philosophy has therefore been dubbed “Manchesterism”. What “Manchesterism” actually means is really quite tricky to pin down; but it can in part be defined as the antithesis to what might be called “Londonism” – an end to direct rule from the centre and more power to local and regional authorities. London is over: Manchester is the new black!

So if Mr Burnham was keeping half an eye on The Cricket this afternoon, he might have allowed himself a satisfied smile as Manchester’s freshly rebranded Super Giants squished the London Spirit with a whopping 41 balls to open their account in this year’s Hundred at Lord’s.

The result, it has to be said, owed less to MSG being good than to London Spirit being really really bad. A Jon Lewis team having a batting disaster, you say? 2025 called – they want their England coach back!

Indeed, as the wickets rained-down at the Home of Cricket, London Spirit General Manager Heather Knight and Head Coach Jon Lewis sat at the back of the dugout sharing a joke, perhaps reminiscing about the old times – Bondi… Coogee… losing by an innings at The ‘G’ – thems were the days!

To be fair to London Spirit, the first ball went pretty well – a loosener from Grace Ballinger was driven down the ground by Grace Harris for 4, to whoops from the large Spirit social media team who had set up camp in the Media Centre. But that was about as good as it got. Harris holed out 4 balls later, and Marie Kelly should have been following her back to the pavillion shortly afterwards but was dropped by Richa Ghosh behind the stumps. (It wasn’t the easiest chance for the Indian wicket-keeper, but having got a good glove on it you’d expect her to have held on.)

After scoring a brace of 50s here in the Test against India, normal Amy Jones service was resumed with a golden duck as Richa reprieved herself the following ball. And then Spirit’s problems really started!

Ryana MacDonald-Gay was the main beneficiary, taking 4-17 as Spirit collapsed in a heap to 80 all out. If it hadn’t been for Marizanne Kapp taking Maitlan Brown to the cleaners, hitting two 6s and a 4 off one set towards the end of the powerplay, it would have looked a lot worse too. Probably not quite down there with the time Birmingham Phoenix were bowled out for 54 by the Northern Superchargers… but not far off.

Defending just 80, London Spirit’s bowlers were on a slow train to nowhere. Marizanne Kapp took two wickets in two balls to get rid of Smriti Mandhana and… someone else! (Ok… ok… it was Grace Scrivens [BINGO].) But she was bowled out within 30 balls, having sent down two double-sets; and although Hannah Rainey was finding a bit of swing under the first clouds we’ve seen in London for about two months, Meg Lanning and Paige Scholfield were happy to just knock it around. Rainey did eventually pick up Lanning for a maiden Hundred wicket; but Richa was soon out there doing Richa things (ie. hitting 6s), and not to be outdone, Scholfield joined her at the end, walloping Josie Groves into the Mound Stand to finish the job.

If I’m being honest, I’m yet to be convinced that Manchesterism is the answer to all our problems. And… we have many – including a widening gap between rich and poor, and our public assets being sold off to overseas billionaires! (Remind you of anything?) Similarly, the jury’s still out on whether Manchester Super Giants are the answer to anyone’s cricketing problems; but this is such a short competition that momentum is everything, and as they top the table tonight on NRR, they are the ones with the ball.

This week:

• Blaze win the Blast!
• Why was Finals Day on a Friday?
• Is The Oval the right ground for it?
• Afghanistan Refugee XI put on a World Cup pathway
• Will ICC World Cups continue to grow for the women?
• The Hundred: a whole new world

The average 1st innings score in the T20 Blast at The Oval this season has been 150… and that includes Durham being bowled out for 102 back in May. With Lancashire, Surrey (twice) and Warwickshire all hitting 180+ here in 2026, hopes were high for a run-fest on Blast Finals Day in South London.

But that reckoned without the accumulated impact of two record heatwaves in London – a Black Swan Summer perhaps, but one which global climate change almost certainly made inevitable at some point – which created unprecedented challenges for the groundskeepers here. The result was a pitch that had a decent head of green, grassy hair left on it, to try to stop it breaking up totally over 120 overs; but was still as dusty as a spring field.

The good news is that if you’ve ever wondered what a cricket match would be like if it was played on a giant suet pudding… today was your lucky day!

The biggest losers from this were… ironically… Surrey – the reigning champions – playing Finals Day “at home” for the second consecutive year. The team with the highest Strike Rate and Boundary Percentage in this year’s T20 Blast, with the likes of Bryony Smith, Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Laura Harris in their lineup, couldn’t adjust and were bowled out for just 105 in 15.2 overs in their semi-final.

Albeit with the luxury of knowing they didn’t need to go hard, the Blaze batted even slower in reply – reaching the target in 16.3 overs.

Strike Rates in the second semi-final were similar at just under 110 – less than bottom-of-the-table Lancashire managed over the course of the season – as Durham out-stodged Hampshire with 4 balls to spare.

So the question for the two finalists was: who could learn the lessons of their semi-final and find a way to play cricket, rather than something closer to croquet, on this pitch? Take a quick look at the table and the answer might surprise you: the Blaze came 3rd, behind Hampshire and Surrey; but the top 3 sides were closer than that suggests – all won 8/12 games, the difference between them being ties – one for Surrey and two for Hampshire.

Across the whole tournament, the key player for the Blaze has been Australian overseas Charli Knott. Knott impressed in the half a season she spent at Hampshire last year, but come the Blast was superseded by Ellyse Perry. I felt at the time that Hampshire’s money might have been better spent engaging Knott for the whole season, and someone at the Blaze obviously agreed. Having taken a further 6 wickets today, Knott finished as the competition’s leading wicket-taker; as well as its 3rd highest run scorer, with 404, behind Hollie Armitage (421) and a certain “GE Scrivens” (428) who did it in two fewer innings than Armitage and three fewer than Knott… just sayin’!

But the lynchpin today for the Blaze was Tammy Beaumont – now a “former” England player, after her final appearance in the Test match at Lord’s this week. If Lord’s was a game to forget for Beaumont, scoring 2 and 0, today was one she’ll long remember for a classy 54 in partnership with Sarah Bryce (53) as the Blaze suddenly made batting look easy, cruising to a 10-wicket win inside 14 overs.

When she announced her international retirement Beaumont explicitly said that she’d continue to play domestic cricket, but I can’t have been the only one who immediately wondered how long for? A day like today can go either way – the perfect note on which to finish; or a clarion call for more? But she has certainly shown that she still has what it takes to dominate at the highest levels of the domestic game, even if her England ship has sailed. For a player for whom T20 was never really considered “her game”, it was quite the statement.

This might sound like an odd thing to say about someone who has an international T20 century in her kitbag, and is the only woman to have scored a hundred in The Hundred. But the T20i century (versus South Africa) was on a road at Taunton, where she could slog-sweep almost everything – 68% of her scoring shots that day were in the arc between 3 and 6 o’clock.

At Taunton, the runs found her; today she had to seek them out. There was no slog-sweeping over cow-corner (though there was plenty of sweeping backward of square); and there was a lot of running – this innings actually had more “run” runs (26) than her Taunton century (20). I’m not saying it was a “better” innings than her international hundred… but I am saying it was a harder one.

Support came from Sarah Bryce, who has struggled to make her usual impact for the Blaze this season – this was just her second half-century of the domestic summer, but under the pressure of a final she turned up with a feisty 53 off 41 balls.

The Win Predictor gives an indication of just how dominant the Blaze were, reaching 99% by the end of the 5th over, and never falling behind. (By comparison, Australia didn’t hit 99% until the end of the 14th over, as they sauntered to victory in the recent T20 World Cup Final.) They say that if you wait long enough, one day a lemming will fly. But why wait for the lemming? Tonight at The Oval, Tammy flew.

Batting

Bowling

This week:

• England’s Test v India: did England select the right team?
• Sophie Ecclestone gets on the Honours Board
• Kranti Gaud & Yastika Bhatia shine
• Farewells for Beaumont & Knight

Last Wednesday evening at about 9pm, the peace of our quiet south London street was broken by a wailing screech followed by a loud bang. Someone had taken the turning a little too quickly and skidded onto the pavement, totalling the “20mph” sign on the corner. He continued home, but leaving a substantial chunk of his front wing (including the number plate) at the scene. (The police officers who attended a few minutes later didn’t exactly need to be Sherlock Holmes to solve that one!)

I can’t quite decide if England are the car or the 20mph sign in this metaphor; but either way… it was a car crash!

England were defeated, an hour and a half into the final morning, by the small matter of 270 runs, having made 170 and 186 – indicating that they wouldn’t have won this match even if they’d had a third innings to do it!

Sophie Ecclestone scored a maiden international 50, which gave the England fans something to cheer… or would have done if there were any in; but as far as I could see, almost everyone who took advantage of the free tickets available for the final day was an India supporter.

Ecclestone was given out LBW on 44, and having confessed in yesterday evening’s press conference that “sometimes I hate cricket”, I did wonder if she might be relieved to just walk off; but you can’t say that she isn’t a competitor. She immediately reviewed, and was reprieved by a small spike on UltraEdge, which allowed her to reach her maiden milestone. (I had in my mind that she already had a T20 50 against South Africa at Derby, but it turns out it was just a very rapid 33!)

Any hopes England might have had of saving this Test match (and I’m honestly struggling to believe there really were any) were extinguished with the dismissal of Amy Jones, who struck her second 50 of the match before reaching for a completely unnecessary pull and (you’re not going to believe this!) getting caught on the ring. I know that 9 Test matches aren’t a lot – some of the boys will occasionally play that many in a year – but you’d have thought she’d have learned something from them, like… you don’t have to hit it if it isn’t going anywhere near the stumps!

Issy Wong looked more the part, digging in for 1 off 30 balls. She is (I suspect not entirely uncoincidentally) one of the ones who watched a lot of (men’s) Test cricket as a kid, so she was doing all the right things – leaving alone, or getting well down the pitch to defend. It took a change of bowling to see her on her way, finally outfoxed by the craft of Deepti.

It was a pretty disappointing end to the summer for England. (Though there are ODIs in September against Ireland, which will likely be played by an “A” XI.) Nat Sciver-Brunt took a lot of stick for electing to bowl first; although I suspect the decision was at least 50% Charlotte Edwards’. My guess is that this will be NSB’s final game as captain, which might explain why she was so desperate to play – Charlie Dean will almost certainly lead the side in those ODIs versus Ireland, and it would make sense to appoint her full time from there. Dean has shown she can do the job; and it would permit NSB to focus on staying fit, which might be the one thing that would allow her to fulfill her dream of playing in the Olympics.

With other retirements already announced, some have asked if this might also be the end of the line for Jones; but I doubt it. Frustrating as she can be to those of us who have to watch her repeatedly make the same mistakes over and over again with the bat, she remains far and away both the best wicket keeper we have, and the best batter of the other ‘keepers. With England’s coaching teams having had long hard looks over the past few months at Southby, Chathli and (here) Threlkeld and apparently decided “No”, I would imagine that they are now keeping their fingers crossed that Jemima Spence (who looks very promising, but not quite ready for this level yet) might be the answer in a couple of years, with Jones retaining the gloves until then.

As an occasion, this Test has felt incredibly positive, with fans turning out in their tens of thousands in weather that was (if anything) a little too perfect, as London suffered under its third heatwave* of the summer. India showed how positive Test cricket can be played, and we were entertained (if perhaps not inspired!) as they extended their unbeaten Test record in England to 10 matches.

England meanwhile have won just one Test in the past decade, against South Africa; and none against the other members of the “Big Three”. Can they correct that statistic next summer in The Ashes? I’m afraid I’d put my money on another car crash; but if it is a car crash involving a new, younger team led by Charlie Dean, at least we’ll be able to say we’re looking to the future, having left the past out here today, where it belongs at this most historic of grounds.

————–

*Or is this just a continuation of the second?

This wasn’t in the script. It was supposed to be Smriti Mandhana’s name on the Test Batting Honours Board for scoring the first hundred at Lord’s – on 69 overnight, it was written in the stars! But instead (plot twist!) it was Yastika Bhatia who raised her bat about 5 minutes after lunch on Day 3 of this historic Test. Smriti was batty; but Yastika was battier.

The Indian keeper-batter has been out of the team far more often than she has been in it over the past couple of years, partly due to a succession of injuries culminating in ACL surgery towards the end of last year. ACL surgery is every female athlete’s nightmare; but at Lord’s Yastika was in dreamland – the only player on either side to really master the conditions, bringing up her maiden international hundred off 145 balls.

Yastika was eventually out, caught on the ring for 113, as India looked to force the pace after lunch. The wicket was Ecclestone’s, and shortly afterwards she bowled Sneh Rana to bag her 5fer and become the first England woman to get on the honours board. Her teammates celebrated but Ecclestone didn’t – she knew the writing was on the wall as India’s lead passed 400.

By 3pm in the afternoon a declaration was looking iminent, with Harmanpreet spotted on the balcony in her whites, and Richa and Sayali throwing the bat at anything and everything. Ecclestone dropped Richa on 47, and she took a couple more overs to get to 50 via 3 more singles, but as soon as she did Harman called them in, setting England a target of 452.

Once more for those at the back, the highest ever 4th innings total in a Women’s Test is England’s match-saving 245 at Canberra in 2022; and the highest successful chase is just 198, by Australia versus England, in the match we mentioned in yesterday’s report which was the last time anyone overturned a 1st innings deficit to win a Test.

We’ve occasionally looked at chases in Women’s Tests, including that match at Manuka where England needed (and came within an Umpire’s Call of getting) 257, and thought: “Well, if this was an ODI it would be doable!” Here? Nah! In the friendly sweepstake I had with friends on how many England would get, I called 135… and was soon quite worried I’d overcooked it!

England’s top order folded quickly to 59-5, with a golden duck for Tammy Beaumont in her final innings for England, after a career that has included a record 12 ODI hundreds, a T20 century and a Test double-hundred. There were plenty of setbacks in the early years, but although I never held back (once writing that she should never have played for England!) she understood our role and never took it personally. Ultimately she did all the talking-back she needed to do on the pitch; and I have the uttermost respect for her for it. She’s a legend, and (if she wants it) she will one day make a fine England coach.

England fought back in the final hour with a partnership of 67 between Amy Jones and Mady Villiers, with Jones picking up a second half-century of the match. But realistically they were making India work a little bit harder for the win, rather than there being any possibility of England saving the game; and Villiers eventually fell to a weirdly “zen” catch by Richa at silly mid off, who just stood her ground where anyone with an ounce of sanity (!) would have leapt out of the way of a drive so full-on Lewis Hamilton would have been proud of it.

With Villiers gone, India are now into the tail – England closing on 130-6, with India now surely virtually certain to close out the win when we return for the final day tomorrow.