This week:

• A revolution in Ireland
• #CWC22 current standings
• Ash Gardner back with a vengeance
• Windies upset another apple cart
• What can & should England change from here

It was close… but not close enough for England, as they lost their second game in the World Cup to the surging West Indians, leaving them level on zero points from two games, at the bottom of the table with Bangladesh and Pakistan.

How much trouble are England in? Mathematically speaking, not that much: if they win all their remaining games, they still have a c. 99%* chance of qualifying. But that 1% is crucial – as things stand, their destiny is not in their own hands, so that even if they win all their remaining games, they could still find themselves missing out on a spot in the semi-finals.

More significantly, they’ve lost their “insurance policy” – with 3 of the big 5 still left to play (New Zealand, South Africa and India) if they lose again, they really are in a much more precarious situation. They would then very-much be dependent on other results, with only a 57% chance of qualifying even if they finished with 4 wins and 3 losses.

How did we get here? The general consensus against Australia was that England played pretty well – certainly their best ODI performance of the winter… though arguably that isn’t saying much after their Ashes drubbing!

But there were a few warning signs against Australia – they bowled 9 wide deliveries, conceding 21 runs (more than Australia’s margin of victory) in the process and the front-line seamers (Brunt, Shrubsole and Cross) took only 1 wicket, with Nat Sciver chipping in two more.

Against the Windies, the wides got worse – 13 wide deliveries, conceding 23 runs – and again the seam attack struggled to take wickets. After these two matches, the combined figures for the front-line seamers are 1-292.

The runs conceded to wides are a little bit of an occupational hazard of Amy Jones standing up to the stumps, which comes with some big advantages – not just the obvious one of more stumping opportunities, but because it forces the batters to be constantly worrying about being stumped, restricting their shot options coming out of the crease.

Nonetheless, 22 wide deliveries in two games is too many – Australia bowled just two versus England, and that should be the benchmark.

The inability to take wickets though is more worrying, because it has been “A Thing” since at least last summer – remember the last day of the Test v India? Yes, there were dropped catches; but they were mainly tough chances. (Nasser Hussein is very good – he is really leading this commentary team from the front, as he did so often when he captained England – but he was a little harsh on Lauren Winfield-Hill’s first-ball drop of Dottin – she had a long way to move, and only got anywhere near it because she was so sharp.)

Kate Cross can point to a spinner-like Economy Rate of 3.6 from 10 overs in mitigation; but the justification for playing her as well as Brunt, Shrubsole and Sciver – meaning England have a very samey, right-arm, medium paced, seam attack – is that she has been taking wickets in ODIs, not her economy.

Surely something has to change now, especially after Lauren Winfield-Hill failed again? As I’ve said before, LWH one of the BEST people in the game, but she’s not scoring runs in a spot that could be given-over to allowing England more bowling options, which they clearly need because Heather Knight was reduced to bowling herself for 7 overs, while clearly looking physically uncomfortable.

Here’s what I’d do for the next match, from the players available. (Remember, Lauren Bell is not available – she can’t be subbed into the squad unless someone gets COVID.):

1. Beaumont
2. Wyatt
3. Knight
4. Sciver
5. Jones
6. Dunkley
7. Brunt
8. Ecclestone
9. Cross
10. Dean
11. Davies

Yes Davies is another right-arm medium, and Farrant’s left-arm would add a bit of Salt’N’Vinegar to the variety pack; but Davies does give you more control, which England also need.

England’s World Cup isn’t over by any means, and the result against Australia shows that they can mix it with the best on their day, but the current bowling line-up is looking stale. It’s probably unfair to single out Anya Shrubsole… but I’m going to do it anyway: she was getting a lot of swing, but it was the same swing every delivery, even the slower balls, and the batters know it’s coming, so it didn’t trouble them.

And now it’s England who are in trouble.

——

* The exact maths employed here assumes no games are rained off (because there are still too many scenarios remaining (about 10.5 billion!) to do the numbers including rain on my little laptop!) but the percentages will be broadly correct.

England once again proved they are the best team in the world that aren’t called “Australia”, coming within a wallaby’s whisker of victory after the Southern Stars posted a huge 310-3. England’s 298-8 is the second-highest total ever made chasing in a women’s ODI; and would likely have won them the game against any other team in the world.

In terms of the tournament, this result is far from a disaster – this was a match that England could afford to lose; and the important thing is that they have done so with minimal damage to their Net Run Rate, which could be crucial in 3 weeks time, if semi-final qualification gets squeaky.

Australia aren’t fliers in ODIs at the best of times, but they started particularly slowly. England bowled well, making Healy look scratchy again, while Rachael Haynes dug in like a wintering wombat. Healy’s dismissal brought Meg Lanning to the crease, who joined Haynes in the wombat warren – at the 20-over mark, England had Lanning on 19 off 38 (a Strike Rate of 50) and Haynes on 22 off 47 (SR 47). But the important thing from an Australian perspective was that they were still there, and slowly but surely they began to rebuild towards that big total, and recover those strike rates up towards 100.

Haynes was the one to go big on this occasion, for just her second international century (it feels like she should have more!). But it wasn’t just that she went big – she accelerated too. Haynes wasn’t immune to the ‘Nervous Nineties’ but once she passed the milestone she absolutely smashed the death overs to put Australia just out of reach. Given the eventual margin of victory – 12 runs –  that was basically the difference between the sides.

England got off to pretty-much the worst possible start, with Heather Knight having to de-facto open the batting after Lauren Winfield-Hill was dismissed 3rd ball. Winfield-Hill was preferred to Emma Lamb up-top today – Lamb’s “run” in the side lasting just one match; but it is difficult to see how that can be justified going forwards – Lamb could hardly be doing any worse.

Knight and Tammy Beaumont played positively – as on the final day of the recent Ashes Test – and they obviously believed they could win the game. They got ahead of Australia early on the worm, and stayed there for the best-part of 40 overs.

Even at the very death – needing 16 off 6 – England obviously believed; but in an interesting parallel with yesterday’s match between South Africa and the West Indies, Jess Jonassen, who had been knocked out of the attack earlier after conceding 16 to Knight and Beaumont in 2 overs, played the role of Deandra Dottin (who hadn’t bowled at all in that game, but defended 6 off the final over) and broke up the party by taking the wickets of Brunt and then Ecclestone off the final ball.

Will there be changes for the game against the West Indies on Tuesday? None of England’s bowlers disgraced themselves by any means, and it would feel mighty unfair to drop any of them, but Heather Knight could perhaps have done with having a bit more variety up her sleeve – Ecclestone aside, all her options were right arm medium-fast; and while it is true that Anya Shrubsole is a different kettle of fish to Katherine Brunt, they perhaps aren’t different enough, especially once players like Rachael Haynes have got their eye in. Australia had 7 bowling options to choose from, and made use of them all; England had 5, and no joker to play when they needed a trick.

If you need an extra bowler, the place to find it is Winfield-Hill’s spot in the XI, which means moving Wyatt up to open with Beaumont and bringing in Dean or Farrant. But it feels like very-much the wrong time to be making drastic surgery to the batting line-up, so I’m not sure I’d actually do it; and Heather Knight is generally much more conservative than I am, so I wouldn’t expect it.

And besides, we shouldn’t lose sight of what we said just 8 short paragraphs ago – this was not a catastrophe for England’s chances of winning this World Cup. If anything, it should have given them hope that if they meet Australia again in the semi-final or final, they can match them. And if they play like this for the rest of the tournament, they will make that final – they just need to keep calm and carry on doing pretty-much what they did today.