Five years ago, Meg Lanning sat in a press conference in the media centre at Derby, barely able to hold back the tears after Australia’s elimination from the 2017 World Cup at the hands of the Harman Monster.

They seemed not to be tears of sadness so much as of disbelief: a woman for whom everything had always gone so right, could barely understand where it had gone so wrong.

A thousand journalist have written a thousand pieces about how Lanning and Australia used that moment to pivot to another level, but it wasn’t clear until today just how high that level was.

Australia’s 356-5 is not the highest total ever made – not by a long stretch – but of the 15 games above it in the all-time list, almost all are horrendous mismatches between a top side and a minnow – England’s own 373-5, against South Africa in the group stages of the 2017 World Cup, being the most glaring exception to prove that particular rule.

But to have made that total in a final, with all the weight of expectation and history upon them, was the pinnacle of all this side has achieved since that day in 2017, including two T20 World Cup wins, and two Ashes triumphs.

No one doubted going into this World Cup that Australia were the best team on the planet, but others had ambition to match them, at least on their day, as India had done when they broke their record 26-match winning streak last September, or New Zealand did in the warm-ups.

But once the competition-proper started, Australia never looked even remotely vulnerable. Their victory against India was a fascinating case-study in how in cricket there can be lies, damned lies, and scorecards. It looks close in the book – Australia winning by 6 wickets with 3 balls remaining – but in reality it was a cakewalk. They might have cut it a little fine, but the end result was never in doubt. Then in the semi-final, they carved up the West Indies – lest we forget, the team that beat them in the World T20 final as recently as 2016.

But still there was hope for England, after they steamrollered South Africa in their semi-final. Their Ashes defeat was ancient history, and they were on a roll with 5 wins on the bounce. It was a long shot… but it was, at least, a shot.

Winning the toss was a bonus for England – they were in control, and they chose to insert Australia. It was a brave decision, but it won’t have been a spur-of-the-moment one – Heather Knight, Lisa Keightley, and the rest of the management team will have given it careful thought and concluded that bowling Australia out and then chasing maybe 250 represented their best chance of winning the game.

It was a gamble, but it didn’t come off as England’s opening bowlers went wicketless in the powerplay once again. Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole have been such a formidable opening partnership for so long now, pulling so may rabbits from so many hats, that it’s hard to remember there was ever any alternative; but the Australians know them too well now. The rabbits have fled the hat, and Alyssa Healy and Rachael Haynes navigated the remaining empty hats with ease. Nat Sciver, who has taken Healy’s wicket 5 times since the last World Cup, was brought on, then Charlie Dean and Sophie Ecclestone had a go… but none could break the opening partnership until very-nearly the 30-over mark, when Haynes finally played a rash shot off Ecclestone and was caught by Tammy Beaumont.

It was a chink of light for England – Australia were only 160, and England could still have wrapped them up for 250 and gone on to win the game. It was the next partnership that killed them. Employing the “left-right-left” tactic, they sent in Beth Mooney ahead of Meg Lanning, and her and Healy proceeded to put on another 156, while England were reduced to the roll of mourners at their own funeral.

Healy’s dismissal with 5 overs remaining was largely academic, as were the 3 additional wickets that fell – Australia could have declared* on 316-2 and England still wouldn’t have won.

And though I’ve been quick to criticise England in the recent past, it wasn’t because they batted particularly badly – they came out and gave it a go. Tammy Beaumont, who has been starting out quite circumspectly of late, hit the gas from the off, as did Heather Knight. Five of England’s top 6 finished with Strike Rates of 100 or more. England were ahead of the worm for almost their entire innings, and the 285 runs they made would have won every other World Cup final in the competition’s history by a country-mile.

On any other day, against any other team, Nat Sciver’s century would have resulted in a winners medal and the Player of the Match award.

Just not on this day, against this Australian team, in this mood.

Because today wasn’t really about England – it was about Australia.

Two years ago at the MCG, in front of 80-thousand people, Alyssa Healy’s 75 off 39 balls blasted Australia into the stratosphere in the T20 World Cup final against India. How do you top that? By scoring 170 off 138 balls in a 50-over World Cup final – that’s how! If Healy’s innings was not the greatest of all time (and I don’t think it quite bettered the Harman Monster, played under more pressure given the match situation when Harmanpreet came in that day in 2017) then it was certainly a close second, and guaranteed her not only Player of the Match, but also Player of the Tournament, after also making a century in the semi-final.

Mooney we’ve already mentioned, but Megan Schutt with two early wickets, and Alana King who broke through Sophia Dunkley and Katherine Brunt to expose England’s tail, both played vital roles; as did Jess Jonassen who cleaned up the tail – catching Charlie Dean, and taking the wickets of Kate Cross and Anya Shrubsole to close-out the game. Australia’s bowling attack has perhaps partly surfed in the wake of their formidable batting line-up recently, but like Bob the Builder, working together they get the job done, and there is no better example of that than the 10 wickets they took today.

Meg Lanning has longed for her Australian team to be considered a “great” team, but there has always been a question mark. Because for all the winning streaks and Ashes and T20 World Cups, they hadn’t won a “proper” 50-over World Cup. Now they have, and no one can argue any more. Australia joined the greats today, and there wasn’t anything England, or anyone else, could have done about it.

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* Obviously they couldn’t “legally” have declared, despite what that dog on those ads keeps seeming to suggest! (I’ve no idea what the ads were for, but… cute dog!)

“Keep calm and carry on” I wrote after England’s tournament-opening loss to Australia, arguing that England were still “the best team in the world that aren’t called ‘Australia'”.

South Africa’s results in this World Cup, on the way to a second-placed finish in the group stages, might have made us doubt that, not least their Kapp-inspired win over England; but cometh the crunch, cometh the England juggernaut, and South Africa were the roadkill.

Remarkably, we are reliably informed by Hypocaust that only 4 centuries have ever been scored in the knockout stages of a Women’s World Cup* and half of them have been scored in the last two days. Yesterday it was Alyssa Healy; today it was Danni Wyatt’s turn to bask in the late-summer New Zealand sun.

Wyatt started watchfully in the first 5 overs, during which time she was joined by Heather Knight, playing her now customary role as “de facto opener” after Tammy Beaumont was dismissed early; but she picked up the pace to a run-a-ball at the back-end of the powerplay, and never looked back. Though Knight, Sciver and Jones came and went, she maintained her Strike Rate throughout her innings, powering through the “Nervous Nineties” with three 4s, and going on to make 129 off 125 balls. It wasn’t a flawless innings – she was dropped 5 times – but it did the business for England.

It wouldn’t have happened though without the support of Sophia Dunkley, who made a second consecutive under-pressure half-century. England were 126-4 when Dunkley came in, with 25 overs left to bat, and only the tail behind her. In a World Cup semi-final. Many have cracked under that kind of pressure; but Dunkley again defied her “Resting ‘Rabbit In The Headlights’ Expression” to calmly play the perfect supporting role, turning over the strike to Wyatt and hitting just 3 boundaries in a 116-run partnership.

It left England in a position where they could pursue the “Big Finish”, with Sophie Ecclestone popping the cherries on top with 3 consecutive 4s off Ismail in the final over.

If it wasn’t already won at that point (and history says that it was – no one has ever successfully chased 293 in a Women’s ODI) then it was within 5 overs, as Anya Shrubsole rolled back the years to take the early wickets of Wolvaardt and Lee – the number 1 ranked batter at this World Cup, and the leading ODI run-scorer in 2021. South Africa quickly started to fall behind the run-rate, which had climbed to well over 7 by the end of the 20th over.

With South Africa desperately chasing the game, Sophie Ecclestone came into the attack and began to hunt them down one by one: de Preez, bowled Ecclestone; Kapp, bowled Ecclestone; Tryon, caught Sciver bowled Ecclestone… and so it went on, until it felt like the entire scorecard could just be replaced with: South Africa, bowled Ecclestone.

Ecclestone looked jaded at the tail-end of the English summer last year. Whether she was injured or just tired, we won’t ever know… at least not until her autobiography comes out in 15 years time… but she had a poor Hundred and against New Zealand there was just a hint that she might be slipping from the pedestal. But in probably the biggest game of her career (at least until the one on Saturday) she brought home the best figures of her career, and you can’t ask any more than that.

Wyatt set ’em up, Ecclestone knocked ’em down… and now England are in the final.

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* Enid Bakewell scored one in the final game of the 1973 tournament but that wasn’t technically a knockout match – there was no “final” in the initial tournaments.

Laura Wolvaardt wouldn’t be a professional cricketer if she was English. Instead, she’d be in her final year at medical school, having been told aged 18 that talk of playing for England was premature, and she needed to graft away in domestic cricket for a few years first – the same things people are currently saying about Alice Capsey.

But she isn’t English, and aged 22 – a year younger than Sophia Dunkley – with over 100 caps on her head, she’s topping the batting rankings at a World Cup for South Africa.

Wolvaardt is not one of the 9 batters to have made a century in New Zealand this month, but she has been remarkably consistent, with 5 half-centuries in 7 matches at an average of 62. (The only player with a better average is Beth Mooney, who has been not out 5 times for an average of 113.)

Meg Lanning at number 2 has been less consistent, with 3 big scores, including a tournament-best 135* against South Africa, but 3 single-figure scores, including two ducks; proving that you get Meg Lanning early… or you don’t get her at all!

England’s highest-ranked batter is Nat Sciver, who has had a slightly odd few months. She’s making runs by the hatful, but she’s not converting those runs into wins for England. If you want to rule the world as a middle-order batter, you need to be there at the end – hence all those Not Outs by Beth Mooney’s name – but Sciver’s one Not Out score at this World Cup came when she wasn’t able to quite drag England over the line in the game against Australia; and otherwise she’s been dismissed with the job half done a little too often for a player of her class. (To be fair… effectively batting at “3” so much recently, due to the repeated failures of first Winfield-Hill and then Wyatt when opening, probably hasn’t helped.)

As alluded to earlier, Sophia Dunkley – who falls just outside the top 10 – is “what might have been” vis-à-vis the way South Africa handled Wolvaardt. She was given a brief chance in the T20 format aged 20, but quickly discarded when she didn’t instantly turn into the next Meg Lanning, and then didn’t make her ODI debut until she was older than Wolvaardt is today. It’s only now that she’s really starting to find her feet, aged 23, with her 67 against Pakistan being perhaps the first time she has looked like she genuinely believes she belongs at this level.

One interesting more general phenomena is that Strike Rates are slightly down on 2017. The top 20 leading run-scorers in 2017 averaged a Strike Rate of 83; but in 2022 that’s down to 80 – lower than it was in 2013, when it averaged 81. It’s a bit marginal to suggest there’s a trend down here, but what’s striking (or… not striking!!) is that there isn’t a trend up either, despite this being the most professional tournament yet.

England’s odds-defying recovery at the World Cup, from the cusp of elimination to the semi-finals, was driven by their new spin-twins: Sophie Ecclestone and Charlie Dean; with England’s four seamers notably absent from this “Top 20” (and all bar one from the Top 30).

Ecclestone we know all about by now – she’s the world number one for a reason! But Dean’s rise has been absolutely meteoric, and her 4th placed ranking here is all the more remarkable given that she played just 4 of England’s 7 games.

There’s been a lot of talk about how Dean was picked for England at the tail-end of last summer off her “form” in The Hundred, but in fact that’s not really true – if you were picking on form, you’d have picked Kirstie Gordon or Alice Capsey, both of whom ranked much higher than Dean. Dean is actually much better seen as an example of an old favourite we don’t see too often in cricket any more, in the days of spreadsheets and analysts: “The Hunch”. Heather Knight – Dean’s captain at London Spirit – had a feeling that she saw something in Charlie Dean beyond her numbers, and she was selected off the back of it – that’s “The Hunch”… and it was a good one!

Another name you probably wouldn’t have expected to see here if we’d been having this conversation a couple of years ago is that of Frankie Mackay. Having made her debut in 2011, the now-31-year-old appeared to have won her final cap in 2014. There was a one-off appearance in 2019, but Mackay was already making quite an effective slide into a post-playing career in commentary when she was recalled properly in 2021. Mackay ended up essentially taking Leigh Kasperek’s place in the World Cup squad, to no little controversy among fans, but it proved to be a good call, with Mackay returning 10 wickets at 4.02 in 6 games.

The Indian names on this list are also not the ones we might have expected: no Jhulan, no Deepti, no Poonam Yadav, the #2 ranked bowler at the last T20 World Cup – instead, it’s Pooja Vastrakar (who has also been handy with the bat), Sneh Rana, and in particular number two ranked Rajeshwari Gayakwad with 11 wickets at 3.88, who have stepped up for India, perhaps attesting that there is more depth than we sometimes think in Indian domestic cricket.

And finally, a very honourable mention for our 9th-ranked bowler. Ayabonga Khaka has played her entire 10 year career largely as a support act to two all-time greats – Shabnim Ismail and Marizanne Kapp – but what a support act she has been, with over 100 caps and more than 130 international wickets – a vital cog inside the machine that has seen South Africa progress to the point where they are now officially a “Big Team”, qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals ahead of the likes of India and New Zealand.

Sophia Dunkley produced the most significant performance of her England career, soaking up the pressure after coming in at 96-4 to deliver 67 critical runs and put the match well beyond Bangladesh’s limited batting.

England then bowled Bangladesh out for 134 to win by exactly 100 runs, bumping their Net Run Rate up sufficiently to ensure that whatever happened in the other match between South Africa and India, England finished the group stages in 3rd place, avoiding Australia and setting up a repeat of their 2017 semi-final against South Africa.

Batting at the bottom of the middle-order is so often the hardest gig in the game. If you come in at all, it is either with only a few overs left with no chance to “build” an innings, or with your team in horrendous trouble, knowing you have to guard your wicket all the more carefully as you try to shepherd the tail.

Put like that, it is actually quite odd that it’s a job England seem to invariably give to their most junior batter, but it is what they seem to do. (And no doubt will do to Alice Capsey if she comes into the T20 team next summer… though they shouldn’t!)

“Junior” is relative of course – Dunkley has over 40 caps now, across all 3 formats, so she’s no newbie, and she’s been consistent in this World Cup – she’s got starts every time she’s come to the crease, but hasn’t been able to convert that into a bigger score until today.

The impression I have is that, for whatever reasons, Dunkley has been limiting her game when pulling on an England shirt in this format. It is really interesting that the commentators working on this World Cup have never seen Dunkley play domestic 50-over cricket, so they see her primarily as a paddle-sweeper.

But when we looked back at Raf’s notes from one of her big innings for Stars a couple of years ago (her 90-odd at Beckenham v Sunrisers), it was full of cuts and pulls and drives; and though she started sweeping here, as she grew in confidence the drives started to come out of the box, and they were coming out of the middle of the bat too.

That’s the Sophia Dunkley England need going forwards; and it was the reason England were in a position to finish strongly today.

If they were realistic, Bangladesh’s aim at this World Cup would have been to win a game and hopefully not finish last. They’ve done that, and they should be proud of what they’ve achieved. They are a good bowling side, but their batting is still stuck in the amateur era and it was quickly apparent that they weren’t going to chase 234 – England had the game won at the break, and it was just a question of whether England could take the wickets quickly enough to get the Net Run Rate advantage they’d need to avoid Australia if India beat South Africa.

England’s pace attack has been blunted this World Cup and they’ve struggled to take wickets, while continuing to believe they’ve got the selections right. Freya Davies came in today, but it was made clear that Anya Shrubsole was only being rested, and Davies’ place in the pecking order was established as Nat Sciver opened with Katherine Brunt.

But neither Brunt not Sciver could make the breakthrough, and nor could Kate Cross, with Davies finally being thrown the ball in the 24th over. Davies ended up bowling 10 overs after Brunt went off with a “tight back”, and taking 2-36 – a tidy performance in a spinner’s game (Ecclestone, Dean and Knight taking 7 of the 9 wickets to fall to bowlers), but probably not one that is going to stop Shrubsole coming back for the semi-final.

Because a semi-final is where England are now headed, to play South Africa who handed them one of the 3 losses they started off this tournament with. Do they deserve to be in the semis? The way things have turned out (at time of writing this sentence, South Africa have literally just hit the winning run off the last ball against India) is tough on India; but frankly it is West Indies who have lucked out with that crucial point from a washed-out match they would probably have lost against South Africa. England put themselves in a position where they effectively faced down 4 quarter-finals in a row, and they fought through them tooth-and-nail and came out the other side. It wasn’t pretty, but ultimately it was pretty effective. The table doesn’t lie – they pulled it off, and they deserve it.

“Full Coverage” it said, in large friendly letters, when I logged on to Sky’s YouTube channel at 1am this morning UK time. Although Sky have exclusive rights to this World Cup, the pay TV behemoth had promised that all England’s matches would be streamed free on via YouTube. What nice chaps! And so positive about women’s sport!

Except… someone, somewhere presumably forgot to push the button and fans were left “Waiting for Sky Sports Cricket” until the cows came home, 4½ hours later*.

Sky are a business, and I’d totally understand if they’d decided to keep the whole tournament behind a paywall; but to say you’ll show it free… and lap up the kudos for being oh-so supportive of women’s sport… and then not show it, is really poor form. The ICC should take these things into account when awarding the contracts next time. But they won’t. Because… money!

Anyways…

While I was watching a blank screen on YouTube, England were having fun down-under in New Zealand, winning by enough to take them into 4th place on Net Run Rate. If they can avoid defeat to Bangladesh in their final match, they will qualify for the semi-finals. Not only that, but their NRR gain today could help them avoid a semi-final with Australia, with the exact-same semi-finals as last time (England v South Africa & Australia v India) potentially on the cards.

Katherine Brunt and Danni Wyatt chose today to find the form that has been eluding them since their arrival in Aotearoa, Brunt taking 3-17 and Wyatt smacking 76 off 68 balls; and England won a game easily for the first time at this tournament, which wasn’t a given, having nearly stuffed-up an equally straightforward chase against India.

It feels like England’s management have gone all-in on Brunt this tournament, selecting her today despite her having taken just 1 wicket in 5 games, while dropping Charlie Dean (7 wickets) to bring in an extra batter. It’s hard to tell from the social media clips that are all I’ve seen, but the consensus seems to be that she was much improved today – more disciplined and less banging it in short like it’s still the glory days of 2005. There are ways to play this game into your late 30s, but trying to pretend you are still 20 ain’t one of them! Was this the day Katherine Brunt finally realised that?

Will England make any changes now for the final match v Bangladesh at the weekend? The logic of playing Lamb today was that England wanted to win quickly, and they’ll want to do the same again, to put some clear blue water between themselves and India in terms of Net Run Rate, and hopefully avoid Australia in the semis, so you can see them going with an unchanged batting line-up. As for the bowling, the temptation to rest people (Brunt in particular) will have to be weighed against the importance continuing the momentum they’ve built up here (again… Brunt in particular). My guess is that “England unchanged” will be the words we’ll be reading when we see the team on Saturday. And hopefully for England, the result will be unchanged too.

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* We had actually paid for Now TV, but various commitments meant we were in different cities for the night, and Raf had bagsies on the sub, because she was doing the Guardian. And yes – I could have paid for a last-minute upgrade to “multi-screen” but I felt like I was being bait-and-switched at that point, so… no!