The 2017 Women’s World Cup Qualifying tournament moves into the Super Sixes stage out in Sri Lanka tomorrow.
With the initial rounds going pretty-much to form, India and South Africa won all their games to top their respective groups, followed by Sri Lanka and Pakistan in second place, then Ireland and Bangladesh taking the last two Super Sixes slots in third.
The final 3 rounds, in which each team play the Super Sixes teams not in their group – i.e. the ones they haven’t played yet – will determine which four sides will travel to England in the summer for the World Cup.
Ireland are certainly still in with a shout, but they will rue their defeat to Sri Lanka earlier in the tournament, which was probably their most winnable match against the teams ranked above them. Realistically, they now have to beat Bangladesh tomorrow, and Pakistan too later in the week, if they are to make it to England.
On their way home are Zimbabwe and Scotland, with one win apiece, and Thailand and Papua New Guinea, who will be “taking the positives”.
For Scotland it truly is the end of an era, with the announcement that Kari Carswell (née Anderson) is to retire. The 34-year-old is without a doubt the greatest player in Scotland’s (admittedly short) history; and at one point held the roles of captain, coach and director of women’s cricket, before gradually relinquishing them over the past few years. Having recently taken a coaching job in New Zealand, her departure from the international scene was not entirely unexpected; but Scotland will miss her – she was their leading run-scorer in this tournament, and also chipped-in with 3 wickets – and to say she is irreplaceable would, for once, perhaps not be hyperbole.
CRICKETher 
Not been many surprises so far but still some interesting action nonetheless.
While South Africa look very highly motivated and impressive India have IMO opted for an overly cautious approach that won’t serve as useful preparation for tougher challenges at the World Cup.
Mansi Joshi though looks an excellent find for India.
Kim Garth continues to impress. She’s the 2nd highest run scorer in the tournament (predictably, crickets ludicrous status criteria mean only 6 of these runs will count towards her ODI record).
It was also good to see Shaila Sharmin’s ambidextrous bowling get coverage from quite a number of outlets.
The quality of the live-streaming feed of matches from P. Sara Oval has been very good with one notable exception.
I don’t normally harp on much about commentators but I think Roshan Abeysinghe’s performance has been really poor, a throwback to the sort coverage women’s cricket seemed to have moved beyond.
He’s clearly done minimal preparation for the tournament, let alone individual matches so doesn’t know who any of the players are and often mispronounces names (but still questions whether his co-commentators are getting them right).
-“What’s her name?”
-“Nie-kerk. Da-ne van Nie-kerk”
-“So it’s HARmanpreet, not HERmanpreet?”
As well as the predicable “that’s almost good enough for men’s cricket” style comments he also veers into even more chauvinistic remarks about talkative women or oblique references to appearance/weight etc (including on at least one occasion about the umpire). He also has a strange fascination with African women’s hair (brought up in both the SA and Zimbabwe matches). See his comments after the 11th over (about 1hr 15m in) of the India v Zimbabwe match.
To end on a positive note, by contrast I think Karunya Keshav’s (@kuks on Twitter) coverage of the tournament has been excellent. Well worth catching up with her illuminating articles for Wisden India.
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It is a shame that these countries have had to suffer the truly crap Super 6 system for this event (something the ‘big’ one later in the year has ditched thank goodness). Given its obvious and serious issues it is amazing that anyone at the ICC still thinks it is a worthy system (or perhaps the choice of system merely reflects the talent in the ICC).
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