Stars Innings

• The Stars innings never quite got going – Claire Nicholas was exceptionally economical in the powerplay – conceding just 5 runs in her first 3 overs (overs 1, 3 & 5). Admittedly, she conceded 9 in her final over (over 7), but by that point the pattern of the game had been set; and 100 didn’t feel like a par score at all.
• It was the Storm’s spin attack which controlled the game – their quicks went for 6-an-over on average; their spinners just 4.57.
• But… to be fair to them… the quicks were more than twice as likely to take wickets – taking a wicket every 2 overs bowled; compared with one every 4.5 overs for the spinners.

Storm Innings

• The Storm’s reply was a case-study in not panicking, despite losing wickets – they were always on-course with the rate but at 4-wickets down after 10 overs, with all-but-one of their “big” batsmen back in the dugout, they could so easily have hit The Big Red Button.
• The last “big” batsman was Stafanie Taylor; but she didn’t “bat big” – she batted at a Strike Rate of just over 80 – that’s absolutely not a big number, but it was enough of a number as long as she stayed in – and she did! She was there to guide the tail home and hit the winning runs with 7 balls to spare.

• They say slow and steady wins the race! Well, not always; but it did in this semi-final!
• In contrast to the Storm, the Stars spinners were more expensive – going at 6.4-an-over, compared to 4.5 for the quicks.

The Toss

Heather Knight described it as “a good toss to lose”, no doubt aware that – as Hypocaust pointed out before play began – Storm have only batted first twice in all KSL games, and both times they lost. It was a scrabble, but they retained that record today. Stars, who seem to be reasonably confident both chasing and setting a total, might therefore have been better off putting their opponents in.

Claire Nicholas

Stars might be able to rip through their opponents with an all-international bowling attack, but this tournament is also about discovering new talent, and there’s only one non-international who has opened the bowling for her side every single match this tournament: Claire Nicholas.* Today her captain, Heather Knight, showed the ultimate faith in giving her 4 straight powerplay overs, which went for just 14 runs. The Huddleston Experiment might not have worked – the Nicholas one certainly has.

Stafanie Taylor

Taylor had a miserable World Cup and that’s been followed by a fairly miserable Super League. Nonetheless, when her side needed her the most she did finally deliver, hitting 37* to take them over the line when at one stage they absolutely did look dead in the water. Even more impressively Taylor played in a way that isn’t her natural T20 game – acting as anchorwoman rather than bish bash boshing it around. Before today she had scores of 8, 34, 4 and 0 in the group games – all is now forgiven!

Batting Breadth

What we’ve seen in Super League is actually similar in some ways to what we see in the Women’s County Championship: once a side is 3 or 4 wickets down, they tend to struggle with the bat. That was true of both sides today, with the “big” stars dismissed early on – for Stars none of Tammy Beaumont, Lizelle Lee, Marizanne Kapp or Nat Sciver went on to make a big score; and Storm then found themselves 17-4 in the 4th over. It was just fortunate for Storm that Georgia Hennessy kept a calm head on her shoulders. Basically what this match proves is that a side that can – genuinely – bat deep will win most of their games, most of the time.

* To be fair to her, Linsey Smith did open the bowling for Vipers in 4 out of 5 group games, but missed the last match due to illness.