A recent piece on Women’s Cricket Blog asked Do the Aussies have a seam problem? Basically concluding… yes they do – their pace options are limited and apparently ineffective!

In fact, looking at the stats for the Women’s International Championship, it might be argued that EVERYONE has a “pace problem”.

Just 4 of the top 10 wicket-takers in the Championship are pacers, with spinners occupying the first 3 spots:

And across the entire Championship, spin dominates – it takes more wickets than pace, more economically, and at a better Strike Rate:

Contrast this with the situation in the men’s game where, looking at ODIs over the past 2 years, spin has its place in keeping the runs down, but it is pace bowling which takes wickets and has the edge in Strike Rates:

The $64,000 question is why?

Here’s a theory:

At junior, club, and even at county level in the women’s game, pace can be intimidating, so it is an effective weapon by itself; but by the time you get to international level, the players are used to facing bowling machines which hurl it down, so international batsmen aren’t intimidated any more, leaving the pace bowler with two options.

One option, increasingly common in the men’s game, is to bowl it fast enough that actually seeing the ball becomes a problem, due to the limitations of the human eye; but to do this, you need to be touching close to 90mph, and no one in the women’s game is anywhere near close to this.

The other option is to add “something else” to the pace armoury – swing (e.g. Anya Shrubsole) or control of movement off the pitch (e.g. Katherine Brunt) – but that isn’t easy to do, especially if you are only suddenly confronted by this need when you reach the pinnacle of the system.

Add to this conditions around the world which often seem to favour the tweakers over the twerkers, and it is Spin City in the women’s game, as the spinners take the glory, whilst the pacers increasingly struggle to make an impact.