England doubled-down on their supremacy over the West Indies at home with another big win in Derby, thanks to a half-century from Amy Jones. England haven’t lost to the Windies at home now since they got Dottined at Arundel in 2012, and that winning streak looks unlikely to be broken this year unless Dottin can pull an ace out of the pack again on Wednesday.

Whilst Dottin has been ploughing a lonely furrow for the West Indies with the bat, scoring 42% of their runs thus far, England have shared things around. Tammy Beaumont, Nat Sciver, and now Amy Jones have all made one significant score, whilst Heather Knight has been the most consistent. It is Knight who leads England’s run-scorers (just!) with 19%, but Beaumont and Jones are only a whisker behind on 18%, whilst Sciver has 17%.

The only batters not to have made a significant contribution are Danni Wyatt (7%) and Fran Wilson (4%) and it was Wilson who missed out on selection yesterday to make room for Sophia Dunkley, pulling on an England shirt for the first time in 18 months.

Batting in the late middle-order is one of the toughest roles mentally for a young player in Twenty20 cricket – you either come in with your side in horrible trouble, or with only a handful of balls remaining; so yesterday’s opportunity for Dunkley – coming in at 6, with 6 overs left and with England having already established a good platform of 111 runs – was probably as good as it gets. But is there a sport crueller than this? You get one chance as a batter, and if you thump your first (legal) delivery straight back to the bowler… that’s it – Game Over! Dunks will get another go on Wednesday you’d imagine, so hopefully she can make that count and England will take her to New Zealand in February, which is looking like the next cricket they’ll play.

It is tough for Dunkley, but it has been even tougher for Freya Davies, Katie George and Kate Cross, none of whom have played at all. Will this change on Wednesday? Davies might get a game… maybe… because she has a clear role going forwards as Katherine Brunt’s replacement; but as for the other two, it seems unlikely. They’d be sentimental selections, and Heather Knight is just not a sentimental person on the cricket field – she wants to win – that’s her job, and England’s… and to be fair, they’re doing it.

Yorkshire Diamonds, as they were known then (and probably will be known again, along with Surrey Stars and Lancashire Thunder, as soon as they think the ECB’s backs are turned) didn’t have too much luck in the Kia Super League – they never qualified for Finals Day, and their best finish was 4th in 2019.

This always felt slightly incongruous, as Yorkshire had traditionally been one of the stronger sides in the Women’s County Championship, and indeed finished runners up 3 times during the KSL years, in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

So it was difficult to know how the “Northern” Diamonds would go in regionals this year – would we see Yorkshire CCC in the County Championship or Yorkshire Diamonds in the KSL?

The first two rounds of the RHF Trophy saw the Diamonds thump the Sparks by 9 wickets, with Katherine Brunt taking a 5fer and Lauren Winfield hitting 72 off 71 balls. The following day, they beat the Lightning by 9 runs, thanks to a century from Nat Sciver. This put the Diamonds firmly out on top of the North Group.

But there was a problem – all their big performances had come from England players, who were about to go back into their COVID-secure bubble and would play no further part in the group stages. As we wrote after that opening weekend, take out the England players and they were bottom of the table, not top. This wasn’t “southern bias” – it was just the numbers – and they didn’t look good for the Diamonds.

But the Diamonds defied those numbers, as other players stood up in the stead of the England stars – Jenny Gunn dug them out of a hole against Lightning; Sterre Kalis made 87 against the Sparks; Alex MacDonald hit 92 and Katie Levick took 3-22 versus the Thunder; while Beth Langston took 3-18 and Kalis again made runs in the final match, also against the Thunder. They finished the group stages with just 1 loss, to the Sparks, and 5 wins, to qualify for the final at Edgbaston.

In front of the TV cameras at Edgbaston, with Lauren Winfield opting to come back to play in the final ahead of the off-chance of a late-order knock against the Windies in Derby, they chose to bowl first, and put in a fantastic performance. It was normal in the old County Championship for a batting team to look to see off the opening bowlers and then make hay later; but the Diamonds gave no quarter – the Vipers saw off Beth Langston and Linsey Smith, but they were only replaced by the perfectly nagging lines and lengths of Phoebe Graham and the dangerous legspin of the leading wicket taker of all time in the County Championship, Katie Levick… and even when they’d seen them off, they had to contend with all the years of experience of Jenny Gunn!

The Diamonds were also fabulous in the field, keeping a tight circle and letting absolutely nothing through. Georgia Adams’ knock of 80 would surely have been a century against any other team in regionals this season, but she just couldn’t get it through the ring. Fielding is usually the biggest difference between the professional sides and the amateurs, even up to international level, but this Diamonds side of still mostly amateurs look every bit the pros in the field.

Keeping the best batting line-up in the RHF to 231, on one of the best pitches these players will ever get to play on, was an achievement that deserved a medal; but unfortunately it wasn’t to be for the Diamonds.

Despite a fielding performance from the Vipers that was as inexplicably inept as the Diamonds had been brilliant, their batters couldn’t keep their heads against Charlotte Taylor’s arm balls, and like the wives of Henry VIII they fell one by one.

But that’s professional sport – for someone to win, someone else has to lose. To return to our opening theme, it was the County Championship Yorkshire that turned up in the RHF… and they turned up so precisely that for the 4th year running they found themselves pipped at the post into second place.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride? No – not never – these Diamonds will be back next year, and I for one won’t be betting against them.

In a week in which England’s young trio of Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn and Mady Villiers dominated the headlines, for one sunny September afternoon in Birmingham it was a 26-year-old  “unknown” spinner from Hampshire who stole the limelight, turning the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy final on its head.

In a spell which utterly baffled the BBC and Sky commentators, who were scarcely aware of her name before today’s final, off-spinner Charlotte Taylor took six wickets for 34 runs across her 10 overs – the best return by any bowler across the entire competition.

Despite the early loss of Lauren Winfield-Hill, Northern Diamonds looked to be well in control of their chase at 74-1 after 14 overs, before Taylor’s decisive intervention knocked the stuffing right out of them – Holly Armitage, Alex MacDonald, Jenny Gunn and Bess Heath all deceived by her stock delivery (the arm-ball), with Diamonds reduced to 96-6.

MacDonald’s dismissal in particular will be one she won’t be keen to watch back on the Sky highlights reel – Taylor forced her back so late that she hit the top of off-stump with her own bat, and was out hit wicket for a golden duck: not something you see much at this level of cricket.

Then, with Diamonds threatening a last-ditch late surge, captain Georgia Adams brought Taylor back on in the 35th over and she worked her magic yet again, trapping Beth Langston LBW (21) attempting the sweep, and dislodging half-centurion Sterre Kalis, who sent a catch up to Adams at mid-on.

In a matter of minutes Taylor became the unexpected hero of the hour, as Vipers romped home by 38 runs. Adams, whose 80 with the bat had earlier set things up nicely for the Vipers and who might on any other day have expected to be crowned Player of the Match, had the grace to step back and let Taylor lead the team off the pitch.

As we reported last week, Taylor’s role in this competition came as a surprise to herself as much as anyone – she had lined up a commentary gig with BBC Radio Solent for the Vipers game against the Stars at Hove, which she had to pull out of when she was selected to play in the match!

“About 3 or 4 weeks ago now I got the call from Lottie,” Taylor told us after the final. “I’d made 77 in a club game the week before, and I thought that might have done it, but actually they wanted me for my bowling.”

“It was an amazing feeling to get the call. Within a week I was training with the guys!”

Taylor made her senior domestic debut for Hampshire back in May 2010, when the county side were still languishing in the depths of Division 3, and the following season was regularly opening the batting for them. In September 2015, she hit a memorable 165* against Northants, helping Hampshire secure promotion to Division 2 at the end of the season. (They of course then went on to reach Division 1 and win the Women’s County Championship in back-to-back seasons in 2017 and 2018.)

Now, with today’s performance, she has fixed her name in the record books, but with the ball, not the bat – she finishes as leading overall wicket-taker in the RHF Trophy.

So how did the batter become a bowler?

“I was out for a while with an ACL injury,” Taylor explains. “That took me out of the game for 2 and a bit years. And then when I came back from that I just wanted a way to get in that Hampshire side, and I thought that they had a lot of good batting so I thought maybe working on my bowling might be a way to get in with something different. Lottie saw it and she was impressed, and I wouldn’t be here without her.”

“Now apparently I’m a bowling all-rounder who bats at 10!”

What is it about her bowling that has bamboozled so many? “I bowl genuine arm-balls,” she explains. “I turn one if the pitch is turning, but on a very good batting track like that I wouldn’t, I just get the ball to drift away. I back myself to bowl on a spot and it worked for me today.”

At age 26, Taylor exemplifies what the new regional structure is all about – she won’t be getting an England call-up any time soon; and she won’t ever earn her entire living from cricket. She works for an aerospace company, selling aeroplane parts, and is fortunate enough that her employers – Curtiss-Wright – allow her the flexibility to have time off to train and play cricket when she needs it.

But the opportunity to have access to a professional set-up, and train year-round, is nonetheless a transformative one for her. 

“It’s fantastic,” she says. “When I was growing up, playing professional cricket was such a long way off, and now to think that I’m actually playing professional cricket while I’m holding down a full time job elsewhere – it’s a struggle, but it’s a fantastic opportunity and long may it continue for a good few more years.”

A few weeks ago, after the first round of matches, I wrote that the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy had thrown up a dilemma which was never quite resolved in the KSL: “are we trying to develop the next generation of England players, or are we trying to put on the best display possible?… As the matches in the RHF unfold over the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see what answers – if any – emerge.”

Taylor’s performance today – done in front of the Sky cameras, for all to see – is that answer: this competition, and indeed this new regional structure, is about opportunities for all, regardless of age, and regardless of whether anyone has even ever heard your name before.

At the end of a strange and difficult season, that feels like something to celebrate.

ECB Chief Executive Tom Harrison has pledged his support for women’s Test cricket, stating that he sees it as “a key part of Ashes series” and that the ECB are keen to work to fit the multi-day format “into something that builds a narrative for the women’s game internationally”.

Speaking to promote the ECB’s Women’s Big Cricket Month, Harrison said:

“At the moment [women’s Test cricket] is a key part of Ashes series, and we’re trying to work out what is the right balance for international women’s Test cricket.”

“I think if you asked that question now you wouldn’t have too many international teams putting up their hands and saying ‘this makes sense for us’.”

“It certainly does for us, it certainly does for Australia. Outside of that, we’ve got to do a lot of work to work out how that fits into something that builds a narrative for the women’s game internationally.”

With Acting Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley having expressed his own support for more women’s Test cricket, Harrison said he would shortly be having a conversation with Hockley about the possibility of extending the next Women’s Ashes series – due to be played in Australia in 2022 – to incorporate two Test matches.

“If it’s something that both boards and both sets of fans want and demand, then it’s something we can look at,” he said. “I’m sure it will come up in our next conversation.”

Harrison was also keen to emphasise that discussions around Test cricket should be player-led, saying that the current group of England players “feel very passionately about playing Test cricket”. “We need to do a lot of work on listening to players,” he said.

However, he acknowledged that Test cricket represents a commercial challenge, saying that “it will be difficult to find the commercial support for [more] Test cricket”.

More broadly with regard to the future commercial direction of women’s cricket, he said that it was important to “enable women’s events to stand on their own” and to generate separate revenue for the women’s game:

“The next important staging post from an ICC perspective is all about the next media rights process, where we will need to generate revenue for the women’s game from the women’s events. instead of it just being part of a global set of events that are sold for a couple of billion dollars globally,” he said.

“We need to absolutely ringfence at ICC level the ability for that revenue to go into generating excitement around the women’s game specifically. And I think that starts to send the expectation to investors that what we want to see is proper investment into creating conditions under which the women’s game can grow.”

The West Indies produced their best performance of the tour, but it still wasn’t enough as England won the 3rd T20 by 20 runs to seal the series with 2 games to play.

It was the epitome of a “professional” performance from England – even Player of the Match Nat Sciver didn’t do anything spectacular for her 82 off 61 balls – she played the shots when they were they to be played, and otherwise she just ran hard. Tellingly, Deandra Dottin’s 63 contained exactly the same boundary counts as Sciver’s 82 – nine 4s and one 6 – so the difference between them was 19 “run” runs in Sciv’s favour – i.e. pretty-much all the margin of victory!

It was penultimate over of England’s innings was so costly for the West Indies – Stafanie Taylor, whose other 3 overs had gone at exactly her career Economy Rate of 5.6, gave up 17 runs to Nat Sciver.

Had that over gone for (say) 6, it could have all been a very different story – chasing 143 in that alternative reality, the West Indies might have had the self belief to smash those last 3 overs for 27 – win the game and get themselves back in the series.

But again it was the professionalism of England that told – they bowled tightly; and although when they didn’t the West Indies did have the power to punish them – Chinelle Henry walloping a Katherine Brunt full toss square for 6 towards the end – these gifts were few and far enough between to ensure that England’s worst over conceded just 11.

So with the series won… what now? Surely England have to give Freya Davies and Sophia Dunkley a chance? They are the future, and they need to be playing cricket, not running drinks. Personally, I’d rest Katherine Brunt and Nat Sciver to bring them in, rather than “dropping” anyone else, because they are the like for likes, so you’d keep the balance of the team.

There is not much point in bringing Dunkley in and then her batting at 8 or 9, or Davies and having her only bowl a couple of the middle overs – they need to play “properly” which means a couple of the bigger names stepping aside, for just a couple of matches, in the interests of the team going forwards.

This series is in the bag now, so let’s start thinking about all the series to come – next year… the year after that… and the year after that.

England inflicted another heavy defeat on the West Indies in Derby, with a 47 run win – Sarah Glenn top-scoring with 26 off 19 balls, and then picking up 2-24 with the ball, to take home the Player of the Match champagne.

Having won the toss, Stafanie Taylor chose to put England in to bat and then chase – an “interesting” decision, after what happened last time out! Was it confidence? Or hubris? She’d say the former, of course, but the gods had other ideas!

To be fair, England didn’t get things entirely their own way with the bat – they lost 8 wickets (again!) and looked on course to make only around 130, until Glenn and Katherine Brunt pumped up the volume to give them a big fillip at the end.

Every team says they “bat long” – it’s a cliché well on the way to losing all meaning! But England definitely batted long today, with numbers 7, 8 and 9 combining for 53 off 37 balls at a Strike Rate of 143, that saw England finish on 151 – 20 runs ahead of where they’d looked like being.

Dottin was always going to be the key to the West Indies chase, and while she was Dott-in they stayed in with a shout.

As the worms show, they were slightly off the pace in the powerplay, but they built a platform that saw them come within touching-distance of England at the half-way mark, with only 1 wicket down, and both Dottin and Taylor set and going at a run a ball. They were still going to need a couple of big overs from somewhere, but that’s something we know both of those players are more than capable of.

However, it wasn’t to be – as soon as Dott-in became Dott-out, the strike rate fell away almost instantly, and a slow march of death ensued, as the game slumped towards its then inevitable conclusion.

Heather Knight finally gave Mady Villiers the chance to send down a couple of overs, and she didn’t disappoint, taking 2-10.

Meanwhile Sophie Ecclestone returned 2-19, though such are the standards that she sets herself these days, that she didn’t look at all happy with it, interestingly, which is probably the mark of a truly great player in the making – never quite satisfied and constantly striving to be better. (If you’re a young left-arm orthodox spinner, with ambitions to play for England in the next 10 years… have you considered hockey or netball? Because you’re not going to displace Ecclestone from this team in a hurry!)

So, on to The Big One on Saturday – the Free To Air showcase, live on the BBC, which the England players are obviously pretty hyped for, with the Beeb having done their best to turn it into an “Event” with a capital “E”.

But a good game of cricket really needs both sides to turn up. We know this West Indies side can turn up – we saw it on a hot night in front of a raucous crowd in St Lucia at the World Cup in 2018.

Now we just need them to do it behind closed doors on a cold day in Derby in 2020.

No? Me neither! But we live in hope!

2020 was a good year to be a Bryce in English domestic cricket, with Sarah placing second in the Batting Rankings and sister Kathryn going one better, finishing as the number one bowler, and the leading wicket-taker in the group stages of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy. As with Sarah, an England future is definitely a possibility for Kathryn, though the cupboard at Loughborough marked “Young Bowlers” is currently significantly better stocked than the one marked “Young Batters” so it may be a longer shot, assuming of course that is actually what she even wants, which it may well not be.

Thunder captain Alex Hartley is ranked second, and returned the best Economy Rate of those who bowled in every game, at 3.14. An honourable mention should go to her teammate Hannah Jones, who also bowled in every match and was only just behind Hartley, with an Economy Rate of 3.16, but ranked outside the top 20 because she didn’t take many wickets.

(We’ve previously discussed tweaking the calculation to give more weight to economy – a formula of Economy^-2 * Wickets would have (just) pushed Jones and Danielle Gregory into the top 20 – ironically at the expense of the other Hannah Jones (Stars) and Charlie Dean – but the differences overall are marginal, so we’ve decided to stick with the traditional calculation for the time being.)

This season’s highest new entry, at number 5, is Vipers’ Charlotte Taylor, who didn’t even expect to be playing in the RHF and had lined up a commentary gig with BBC Radio Solent for the game against the Stars at Hove, which she had to pull out of when she was selected to play in the match! After taking 2-13 that day, she kept her spot and justified Charlotte Edwards’ faith in her by taking a 4fer versus the Storm at The Ageas Bowl, finishing the group stages with 9 wickets at 3.47.

Taylor’s emergence is reminiscent of another spinner – Linsey Smith – who wasn’t even a squad selection for the Vipers in KSL01, but came in as an injury replacement, did well, and has since gone on to win several England caps.

Bowling Ranking = Wickets / Economy

The T20 series between England and the West Indies at Derby kicked off with a 47 run victory for England; and for once “kicked off” feels like the right phrase, because like a football match, this was a game of two halves – the first “half”, a half century from Tammy Beaumont; the second, a half-ars*d batting performance from the Windies.

Back at the top of the order, Beaumont underlined her status as England’s premier batsman. The numbers in T20 don’t quite back up this claim – Danni Wyatt and Nat Sciver have both scored a few more runs. However, that was partly because Beaumont spent most of last winter coming in down the order, not because anyone really thought it was the best place for her to be batting, but in order to try to find a position for Amy Jones where Jones might score more consistent runs.

Having ditched that experiment in what turned out to be the last game of the World Cup in Australia, England seem to have accepted now that those consistent runs probably aren’t going to come from Jones, so allowing TB to return to the opening role she clearly prefers.

It wasn’t quite a text-book performance from Beaumont – she played and missed a few times early on, and was dropped in single-figures – but she took her breaks where they came, and made it count on the scorecard, with 62 off 49 balls.

The positive for the West Indies going forwards was that they did take 8 wickets – no other England batter made more than Heather Knight’s 25, and if Beaumont’s early luck had gone the Windies’ way instead, it could have been a very different story.

As it was, we quickly saw the now-familiar sight of a West Indies team which clearly didn’t believe they could chase 163. They really are The Little Engine That Couldn’t at times like these, repeating over and over the traditional mantra: “I think I can’t; I think I can’t!”

England’s fielding was very good, and Amy Jones was excellent behind the stumps. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Player of the Match given to a wicket keeper just for their keeping, but there was a case for it in this match, exemplified by her spin on ice-skates to execute the run out of Lee-Ann Kirby. Kirby’s wicket has gone down in the scorebook as “Run Out (Knight)” but it was a hospital pass of a throw from the England captain, with Jones doing all the work to make it count!

Mady Villiers was also brilliant in the outfield – we thought Wyatt was good out there, but Villiers really has taken it to a new level… and a good job too because she wasn’t given any other opportunity to contribute – coming in to bat at 10, and then not bowling. England seem to have always been confused about her role – Mark Robinson talked about her batting, but played her as a bowler; and now Lisa Keightley seems to be playing her as a specialist deep extra cover?

The big question now is whether the West Indies can turn things around. Dottin’s innings should give them some confidence that this series isn’t a lost cause yet, although if you’re being glass-half-empty you might observe that she didn’t actually really get going until the game was already gone – at the half way mark she was 22 off 26 balls, with them needing an improbable 12 an over through the last 10. For the sake of the game of cricket, you’d hope they can step things up on Wednesday and keep the series interesting; but you wouldn’t put money on it.

As for England, I’d be very surprised if they made any changes for Wednesday – as much as I’d like to see Sophia Dunkley and Freya Davies getting a proper run in the team, I don’t think we’ll see them now until at least the 4th match; so it will be more of the same… probably with the same result.

The Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy has provided an unprecedented opportunity for the non-England players to showcase their skills on decent pitches; and playing at First Class grounds really has been a sea change, as Emily Windsor told us after making 47* for the Vipers at The Oval:

“Playing on First Class pitches makes a massive difference. You can trust your shots more and you can play more creative shots, because you know the ball’s going to come onto your bat nicely. And then obviously the outfield – you know as soon as it beats that inner ring that it’s going for four. It’s different and that’s why you’re seeing some fantastic scores, like at the Ageas Bowl last week that innings by Georgia Adams – she’s a quality player and she was able to really show what she can do and what people can do in the women’s game.”

Hence we’ve seen 6 hundreds this year – many more than you’d have expected in the old County Championship, which was played mostly on club grounds, and where only 10 centuries were scored in Div 1 in the past 5 seasons.

Georgia Adams’ 154* for the Vipers versus the Storm was the highest score ever made by an uncapped player in top-level domestic cricket in England, and Adams tops the overall rankings with 420 runs in the competition, and the potential to add further to that in Sunday’s final.

Lightning (and Scotland’s) Sarah Bryce was only just behind Adams in the end, after scoring a big hundred of her own – 136* in Lightning’s final game against the Sparks. Aged only 20, she has set the foundations this season to push for an England career in the future if that’s what she wants, especially as she also comes with a pair of wicket-keeper’s gloves, bearing in mind that England’s only current backup option for Amy Jones is to press gang Tammy Beaumont into the role – something that she’d obviously do, but isn’t really her preference.

Looking at Strike Rates, the standout performance was from the Storm’s Alex Griffiths (ranked 6th), who was the only player in the top 50 run-scorers to record an overall Strike Rate of more than 100 – an impressive return which should surely see her bumped up from the Training Squad to the full England Academy over the winter.

Batting Ranking = Runs * Strike Rate