England won a very rain-affected match in Hove by 12 runs – a margin that sounds much closer than it actually was, as the Sri Lankans thrashed 17 runs off Kate Cross’s final over in what was by that point a hopeless cause.

With heavy rain having fallen for much of the afternoon, it was a miracle they got on at all, initially losing just 3 overs per innings from the delayed start, as the ground staff worked the super-sopper harder than Sophie Ecclestone’s shoulder in a Test match.

In her new opening role, Maia Bouchier looked slightly subdued, but still contributed a healthy 22 off 18; whilst at the other end Danni Wyatt perhaps read the conditions a bit better, choosing to stroke and guide the ball, rather than trying to hammer the leather off it – even her huge 6 into the parking lot behind the Sharks stand was more of a lift than a smash.

Between them, Wyatt and Bouchier took an undefeated 11-an-0ver 55 off the foreshortened 5-over powerplay to put England in a very healthy position, though both were lost shortly after – Bouch run out by a decent bit of fielding and Wyatt smartly bowled by Inoka Ranaweera with a slightly late-career Jenny Gunn-ish whiff of a delivery.

This set the stage for England’s young guns to… in the immortal words of George Michael… “go for it” with Freya Kemp and Alice Capsey (combined age… younger than me!) both impressing – Kemp returning a strike rate of 200 for her 20, and Capsey not far behind – a strike rate of 189 as she passed 50 for the third time in an England shirt.

21 of Capsey’s 51 runs came in a single over, as Ranaweera felt the full force of Capsey’s bat, with members of the crowd being forced to take evasive action on no less than 3 occasions as for a brief while it rained sixes rather than rain!

186 is a pretty massive total. Adjusted for the lost overs, a score of 117 is typical in T20s between the ICC Championship teams – so we are talking about something like 70 runs over par; and there was absolutely no chance of Sri Lanka chasing it. The required rate was already almost 12 an over when further heavy rain threatened to deny England victory, with the game 11 balls short of a result. We were ready to give up, and a fair few members of the crowd actually did; but the weather softened just enough to get the players back on, though the groundsmen were doubtless looking on in horror at the potential for damage to the square.

It wasn’t an easy bowling situation for England. Mahika Gaur had to complete her 2nd over, though that did allow her to pick up a maiden wicket of Chamari Athapaththu – not a bad scalp for your first on debut. It is difficult to pass judgement on such a truncated opportunity for the 17-year-old, but she showed why she has potential – great action, good pace, and a fantastic appeal – and England will certainly want to see more of her in this series.

Charlie Dean was tasked with a tricky penultimate over with a wet ball, with half an eye on the skies as rain threatened again, but she delivered with her customary reliability – conceding just 6, to basically ensure that England would win the game and take a 1-0 lead in the series to a sold-out Fortress Chelmsford at the weekend.

Southern Brave won The Hundred at the third time of asking, as Rhianna Southby capped-off a dream August with another brilliant performance behind the stumps as Superchargers slumped to 105 all out in the showpiece final at Lord’s.

It seems barely plausible now that Southby was dropped by Southern Vipers (coached by… er… Brave coach Charlotte Edwards) earlier in the summer for the entirety of the Lottie Cup – she didn’t play a single game in the regional T20 comp, with Vipers continuing to prefer Aussie import Nicole Faltum.

And to be fair, there was some logic to the decision – Vipers were struggling for runs in the early part of the season, and Southby is not a batter – she was carded to come in at 10 today, and was only that high Lauren Bell’s reputation precedes her as a ‘Genuine No. 11’. Southby had also arrived at Vipers over the winter with something of a rap sheet for making a lot of basic errors due to lapses in concentration – a reputation she didn’t quite dispel playing in the RHF Trophy at the dawn of the summer.

So it is probably safe to say that she wasn’t top of the list in many people’s fantasy picks when it came to selecting a wicket keeper for The Hundred.

But the one thing Southby has always had in spades however is moxie – even in her early days at Surrey, she was always the one person she could depend on to believe in herself – so whilst back at the start of August no one else might have imagined she would be lifting that big ‘H’ today, you can bet your life that she did.

Brave v Superchargers was the key turning-point – not the game today, but the one that took place back at the start of the comp, on August 6th at the Ageas Bowl. Southby took 2 catches and 2 stumpings, dismissing 4 of Superchargers top 5, earning herself a Match Hero medal – a rare feat for a wicket-keeping performance. Suddenly people were looking at her differently – talking about her as a possible successor to Amy Jones.

That may or may not come to be – it is a big call for an international side to consider picking a specialist keeper who can’t bat in the top 6 – but if there was any doubt that in terms of pure keeping, that Southby is the best we have right now below England, that was dispelled this afternoon.

During yesterday’s abandoned semi-final eliminator, we had lightning in the skies over The Oval; but here we had lightning behind the sticks at Lord’s, as Southby pulled off 3 smart stumpings to break the back of the Superchargers’ middle order, including the wicket of rival “Future England Keeper” Bess Heath, who landed on her behind both literally and metaphorically trying to beat Soutby’s glovework.

The other crucial role today for Brave was played once again by Danni Wyatt, as it had been in Viper’s Lottie Cup win earlier in the season. After a start which definitely wasn’t what they’d have wanted – losing both Smriti Mandhana and Maia Bouchier cheaply, there were just echoes of Brave’s collapses in the two previous Hundred finals.

It left Wyatt with a lot of responsibility on her shoulders, and she had to rein in her game just a little during the front half of the innings, but in the late middle phase she opened up and it was the period that decisively  turned the game in Brave’s favour as the strike rate hit its highest heights at a ground where big scores have proved somewhat elusive.

One can only wonder what the final score would have been if Wyatt hadn’t been taken out by one of the unluckier dismissals we’ve seen of late – run out at the non-strikers end after a Georgia Adams drive rebounded off Wyatt’s glove and straight to Kate Cross who took the gift presented, thank you very much!

Some late hitting from Freya Kemp, which wasn’t pretty but was pretty effective, got Brave up to 139, and left Superchargers with work to do, but it wasn’t an insurmountable total. At least… it wasn’t until Southby got involved.

The South-West region might be known as Welsh Fire in The Hundred, but the Women’s Eliminator was sadly curtailed by a Western Storm on Saturday at The Oval, after lightning and then torrential rain forced the players from the field with just 75 balls having been bowled.

Fire had won the toss and chosen to bat first, and somehow endeavoured not to lose a wicket for 45 balls, though Sophia Dunkley and Tammy Beaumont got enough chips over the infield to constitute a McDonalds super-sized meal.

But with a soggy outfield slowing up the ball enough to prevent most of those chips going over the boundary rope, they had only 59 on the board by the time Dunkley was caught slogging to deep midwicket.

Hayley Matthews looked like she was competing for the prize of most-inelegant-innings-in-the-competition, managing just one boundary from her 12-ball stay at the crease – an ugly edge over short third – and there was a certain amount of relief all round when she finally sent up a soft catch straight to Phoebe Litchfield at mid-off.

And yet by the time the players were sent off the field Fire were actually in a commanding position, thanks to a 5-ball 14 from Laura Harris. Harris ain’t pretty, but she knows how to get a job done when it’s needed; here, she did her usual bull-in-a-china-shop thing, reverse swivel-pulling her third ball to the boundary before smashing one for six over square leg two balls later. Even better, Tammy Beaumont (going along sedately enough at a run-a-ball 28*) then caught the bug from Harris, and smashed a six of her own.

At 104 for 2 after 75 balls, Fire were approaching the top of the typical “Ghost” score in The Hundred (adjusting for the reduction in balls available).

But with a storm rolling over South London, sadly that was that for Fire’s run in this year’s competition.

It wasn’t the way anyone wanted this team’s run to end, but let’s hope there isn’t too much disappointment in the dressing room tonight: Welsh Fire have done plenty to hold their heads up high. From being the team which nobody wanted to play for, who took the wooden spoon in the 2022 tournament, to a team which handed Southern Brave their first defeat on home soil and hit the highest team AND individual totals in three seasons of the competition… that’s a record to be proud of.

Spare a thought for Alex Hartley, who missed out on selection in what turned out to be her final chance at playing in a professional match – with Matthews now able to bowl again, coach Gareth Breese apparently preferred to go with Emily Windsor as an additional batting option. (Although arguably, it’s perhaps exactly that lack of sentimentality which brought the Fire within touching distance of their first Hundred trophy.)

No one can help the weather, of course… but as I write this, the sun is shining over The Oval, and the men are about to play out a full, 200-ball match in their own Eliminator. One can’t help but feel that there might be a fairer way to allocate the available match time in future years?

For now, the overriding feeling is simple: Welsh Fire Woz Robbed.

Invincibles wrapped up a disappointing 2023 campaign with a thrilling 3-run win against Trent Rockets at The Oval on Monday, after racking up the highest total so far made at the ground in the Women’s Hundred – 155.

Many have been asking what has gone wrong for reigning champions Invincibles this season: despite retaining their core squad from the past two seasons, they had managed just two wins from seven matches prior to this game. The loss of Dane van Niekerk early on certainly hasn’t helped matters.

But on Monday it was her injury replacement Nadine de Klerk who took her chance to shine, striking 51* from 25 balls – the second fastest fifty in the Women’s Hundred (thanks Hypocaust for the stat) – in her first ever match at The Oval.

She was backed up by some beautifully clean six-hitting from Cordelia Griffith (23 off 16), and there was redemption, too, for Sophia Smale, who after a breakthrough season in 2022 has struggled somewhat with “second album syndrome”, but put on an excellent display, taking two for 26 and assisting in the run-out of Fran Wilson as Rockets failed to launch.

Invincibles’ innings was bookended by contrasting spells from left-arm seamer Alexa Stonehouse. Her first two sets reduced the home side to 30 for 2: she swung the ball through the defences of Lauren Winfield-Hill for a duck, before bowling Suzie Bates with a straight one in her next set. Marizanne Kapp then treated her with due respect, playing out three dots.

But at the death, with Stonehouse tasked with sending down balls 91 to 95, de Klerk had no such qualms. “It was hard to play spin and I knew I had to take someone down,” she said afterwards. And so she did. The set of “five” (actually a set of seven, containing two no-balls) began with a head-high full toss which de Klerk slammed for six over deep midwicket, and got worse from there, eventually costing 27 runs.

Not only is it the most expensive set ever bowled in three seasons of the Women’s Hundred, it almost broke Syd’s strike-rate chart!

Stonehouse is considered a future England prospect, but is only 18 years old and could have done with a bit of moral support. It was therefore slightly disappointing to see that none of her teammates (including her captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt) approached her for a quiet “shall-we-think-about-this” word until there were just two balls left in the set (and it was arguably too late to make much difference).

In reply, Lizelle Lee hefted her way to 61 from 33 balls, but Rockets’ chase was almost derailed by the lack of support at the other end. That included a very unconvincing 12-ball 9 from Harmanpreet Kaur, to top off what has been a poor tournament for her (72 runs in six innings). Has she been more affected by her impending two-match suspension in the wake of Bangladesh-Gate than she is letting on?

The match looked to be effectively over when Lee was run out off the 71st ball coming back for a second run by a brilliant direct hit-throwdown of the stumps from bowler Paige Scholfield, who broke out of her follow-through and dashed over to midwicket to retrieve the ball. Being brutally honest, though, it was also a poor call from Jo Gardner. “Maybe at the beginning of my innings that would have been two, but I was a little bit tired,” Lee said ruefully after the match.

There was very nearly a redemption arc for Stonehouse, who – with 18 needed off the final set – struck three boundaries in a row against Scholfield to get the equation down to five needed off the final ball. Finally, though, a good yorker from Scholfield sealed the deal for Invincibles.

De Klerk said after the match that despite spending three months in the UK this summer playing for The Blaze, she had actually been back home in South Africa when the phone call came (midway through a match!) asking if she would consider flying back to play in The Hundred.

“We had a cricket camp for South Africa so it was a bit of chaos to get over here,” she said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Perhaps… although it’s also possible that her innings on Monday will see her snapped up as an overseas star in next year’s competition.

Freya Kemp says that her crucial innings of 41 not out from 21 balls, which took Southern Brave to a 7-wicket win against Oval Invincibles at the Ageas Bowl on Saturday, was inspired by her call-up to the England squad the previous day.

The 18-year-old Kemp featured for England against both South Africa and India last summer, but was ruled out of the T20 World Cup after suffering a stress fracture in her back. She has been unable to bowl in a match this season for either Southern Vipers or Southern Brave.

However, England coach Jon Lewis has shown enough faith in her abilities with the bat to call her up to play purely as a batter in England’s forthcoming internationals against Sri Lanka.

“He [Lewis] called me a few days ago,” Kemp told CRICKETher on Saturday. “It’s good to know that they’re backing me as a batter.”

“[It inspired me] subconsciously – I went out there and was clear about my plans, and that helped me.”

Kemp added that there was no fixed date for her return with the ball, but said her comeback was progressing smoothly:

“I’m just working on my action and building up my overs. It’s a slow build-up but it’s going really well.”

Southern Brave knocked Oval Invincibles out of The Hundred with a 4-ball win at the Ageas Bowl.

The result means that only Trent Rockets retain a theoretical hope of pipping Welsh Fire to the final knockout qualification spot – Rockets need to win their final match well, and hope that Fire lose both their remaining games badly, to snatch 3rd place in the ladder.

At a packed-out Ageas Bowl (official attendance, measured at the innings break in the women’s game, was over 10,000) Brave got off to the perfect start, with Lauren Bell and Anya Shrubsole removing openers Lauren Winfield-Hill and Alice Capsey within the first 10 balls.

It was left to Suzie Bates and Marizanne Kapp to try to rebuild, and they leveraged all the experience of their collective 512 international caps to take Invincibles to 51 without further loss at the half-way stage.

51-2 at the half-way mark is still some way short of a good score, but it was a platform that allowed Invincibles to subsequently accelerate, with Paige Scholfield hitting a rapid 30 off 17 balls, driving a big late-middle phase which begat 43 runs.

Brave’s bowlers pulled things back a little bit at the death, but Invincibles 130-6 was nonetheless a decent total, slightly in excess of a typical score in this competition, and especially impressive in the light of where they had been.

Brave’s formidable top-order all struggled today – Maia Bouchier laboured to 22 off 25 balls, as if shackled down by the weight of expectations after both Danni Wyatt and Smriti Mandhana had been dismissed cheaply. Brave reached the 50-ball mark neck-and-neck with where Invincibles had been, on 52-2 where Invincibles had been 51-2; and they proceeded to slip further behind, going at little more than a run a ball through to the 70th ball.

It needed something special to get Brave over the line, and it was provided by Freya Kemp, who had made just 7 runs in the tournament before today, and had been dismissed for consecutive ducks in her last two visits to the middle. Kemp defied that form, smashing a commanding 41 off just 21 balls, finishing it off with a 6 off the 96th delivery. With Georgia Adams also hitting her best score of the comp – an unbeaten 50 – at the other end, Brave were home and dry.

With the announcement by England this week that they are planning to play Kemp as a pure batter against Sri Lanka next month, there could hardly have been a better time for her to recover her mojo with the blade, leading her side to a win which puts them in the driving seat now to qualify directly for their third Hundred final, and perhaps this time actually win the thing!

Imagine for a second how it feels to be Dane van Niekerk right now.

After a difficult few months in which you were prevented from playing in a home World Cup due to an arbitrary fitness target, you’re finally ready to burst back onto the scene by leading Oval Invincibles’ title defence.

Then, in your team’s match against Manchester Originals, you suffer a nasty blow to your thumb. On Sunday, you are ruled out of the rest of The Hundred after scans reveal that the thumb injury will require surgery to fix.

On Monday, you discover (via ESPNCricinfo) that Cricket South Africa have decided to abolish the fitness standard which brought about your premature retirement from international cricket.

There is one silver lining: you can stay with Invincibles for the duration of the tournament. Tuesday comes around, and it’s time for their match v London Spirit – a local derby which Invincibles have never lost. You participate in the team talk pre-match, imparting some of that famous tactical wisdom which you are known for.

Something you AREN’T known for is being a good watcher of cricket. But that’s OK, because your replacement skipper Suzie Bates has decided that your wife, Marizanne Kapp, should bowl all her deliveries in the opening 35 balls of the match.

You watch her take two wickets for 13 runs in her allotted 20 balls, including bowling poor Niamh Holland in her opening set, with a beauty which the 18-year-old had no idea what to do with.

You are left pondering about Heather Knight’s bizarre decision to promote Holland to face your wife at the top of the order, while omitting Grace Scrivens from the XI – despite the fact that Scrivens regularly opens for her region (you are well aware of this, being her captain at Sunrisers), and Holland does not.

Minutes later, two Spirit players are “having words” with each other mid-pitch after a dopey run-out, while your wife does the nearest thing she ever does on the pitch to smiling. Eventually, London Spirit sink to 87 for 9 after 78 balls. You nod to yourself, satisfied. Invincibles have this in the bag.

Except, two hours later – after a 10th-wicket partnership of 31 in 22 balls between Lauren Filer and Tara Norris; and a powerplay in which Invincibles manage to put just 23 runs on the board – it turns out they didn’t.

It’s Tuesday evening, and you could, should, have been celebrating. Instead, your side’s title defence is slipping through your fingers (Invincibles sit fourth in the table but have only a 3% chance of qualifying for the knockouts) – and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

After Oval Invincibles lost to London Spirit on a balmy Tuesday afternoon at The Oval by 22 runs, I asked Sophia Smale what van Niekerk would be saying to her teammates in the post-match dressing-room review. “How did we lose it, probably!” came the reply.

Dane van Niekerk has undoubtedly had better weeks.