Vipers bt. Storm by 9 wickets, with 66 balls remaining

Nobody Puts Lottie In The Corner

Down to bat at 7, before this game started it seemed likely Charlotte Edwards might well not get a look in. Not so. Not only did she take the catch to dismiss last year’s Player of the Tournament Stafanie Taylor, she followed that up the very next over by running out Sophie Luff with a direct hit from mid on. This might be her (probable) swan song but nobody puts England’s greatest in the corner.

Linsey Smith: Not Just A One KSL Wonder?

Was Linsey Smith’s performance in last year’s KSL just a one-off, based on the fact that she was a last-minute addition to the squad and nobody had quite yet got the measure of her? Not on the evidence of today. Just 9 runs conceded off her 4 overs – and the wicket of the England captain to boot. Knight was totally deceived: Smith, totally chuffed.

Famine vs Feast

Sometimes sides are bowled out for 70 because the other team bowl beautifully. It’s probably fair to say that Storm didn’t quite fall into that category today. If they’d left the wide ones alone and punished the mediocre balls, life would have been a lot rosier. As it was, Georgia Hennessy was the only player in the entire Storm line-up to hit a boundary.

Meanwhile Vipers knew they only needed to plod along at 4 an over but went for it hammer and tongs to finish things off with 11 overs still in the bank. “I wanted to be really aggressive,” Suzie Bates told us after close of play. “I’ve got the power and I’ve got to back myself to clear the boundary. When you see the men’s rope and then your rope, sometimes it is a little bit of a kick up the bum to prove that you can clear the men’s one.” The fact that she finished things off with a six really did epitomise the difference between the sides.

Storm Blown Over

Before the tournament Heather Knight explained Storm’s rationale for swapping Lizelle Lee with Holly Huddleston this time around: “We had too much batting – Sophie Luff and Fran Wilson both coming in too far down the order. With the overseas allocation we felt like we wanted an extra seam bowler.” After being bowled out for 70 in 18.5 overs today, with Huddleston’s second over of the day going for 34 runs, you sense they might yet come to rue that decision.