A typical score in a normal, 50-over ODI between the ICC Championship sides is 245. Crudely adjusted for a 31-over game, a par score today would have been 152. England had more than that after 17 overs, and finished on 273-8, which would have been a decent outing in a full 50-over game.
In truth, 31 overs is more like an extended T20 than a shortened ODI, and England treated it as such. Nat Sciver-Brunt hit the fastest hundred ever by an English woman in an ODI, and Maia Bouchier played admirably fearlessly for her 95. I’m normally a paid-up member of the No One “Deserves” a Hundred club, but I’m temporarily resigning my membership here to say that today The Mighty Bouch Deserved a Hundred!
England got off to a shaky start, scoring just 28-2 in the 6-over powerplay, but then Sciver-Brunt and Bouchier exploded, rocketing along at nearly 12 runs per over during the Early Middle and Middle phases. Sri Lanka’s bowlers had no answers. We talk about players “milking” singles sometimes in long-form cricket; but here NSB and Bouch were basically milking boundaries, finding the rope 33 times between them.
At one stage 300 was a possibility, but the run rate fell off a bit in the late middle phase, and it was actually only after NSB and Bouch were dismissed that it went up again, as England’s late middle order continued in T20 fashion – sacrificing 6 wickets in the final phase but getting the run rate back over 8 again.
Bess Heath had license to have a bit of a bash, and grabbed 21 off 14 balls on debut, though there was a certain inevitability about her being caught off a slog-sweep on the boundary out towards cow corner – Sri Lanka had planted not one but two catchers there for a reason! It would be unfair to say that Heath is one-dimensional – she brought out a couple of other shots today, including a reverse slog-sweep – but she needs to watch how Nat Sciver-Brunt plays to take her game forwards into 3 dimensions over the next couple of years.
Now… having just spent several paragraphs raving about England’s batting, I’m about to say something controversial. NSB shouldn’t have been Player of the Match. Hundreds might not quite be two-a-penny, but they are pretty common these days – there have been 15 tons scored for England in the past 5 years. In that time there have been just four 5fers. With bowlers only permitted to bowl a maximum of 20% of an innings, grabbing a 5fer is a much more impressive, and consequently rarer, achievement.
So… yes… I’m saying it: Charlie Dean should have been Player of the Match for her 5fer.
They were proper Off-Spinner’s Wickets too – Dean doesn’t get a lot of turn, but she does get some, and she showed today that you don’t need a lot if you land the ball consistently in the right spot. In life generally, if you keep asking the same question over and over, you’ll not only annoy people, but you’ll likely get the same answer. But spin bowling is a bit of an exception to that rule – you ask the question… then you ask it again… then you ask it again… then you get the answer you want, as a catch is nicked to the keeper or back into your own leaping hands, or the ball shimmies through the gate and onto off stump.
Lauren Filer also picked up another 3fer and a Player of the Series award of a bottle of “I Definitely Can Believe It’s Not Champagne But They Sponsor Us, So… Yer”. Player of the Series was nominated by the Sky Sports comms team, and I can see why Charles Dagnall likes Filer – he doubtless sees something of himself in her – tall and quick and “a bit ‘ard”. But the jury is still out for me. How she fares in India will be a key test, if England are trying to build a team to have a shot at the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh next October. And if she does well and proves me wrong, I’ll be the first to stand up and say it.
And with that, another international summer ends. England have had their ups and downs; but they finish it on a positive note – with 5 more ICC Championship points in the bag, and only denied a 6th by the weather in Northampton, when it would have taken a miracle of saintly proportions for Sri Lanka to have salvaged the game if the rain hadn’t intervened to do so for them.
Perhaps even more importantly, England have started to rebuild for the future. They haven’t found all the combinations yet, and the captaincy succession remains an issue in the shorter term, though it becomes increasingly clear that Grace Scrivens is the answer a little further down the line. But under Jon Lewis they have taken steps they didn’t take under Lisa Keightley, and that is really the story of this summer – the one which would be keeping me awake at night if I was an Australian looking at the next ten years.
CRICKETher 
Brilliant end to the summer from England, I thought. “The Mighty Bouch Deserved a Hundred!” Indeed, and it was a real shame she didn’t quite make it, because that was a brilliant, composed and powerful innings which almost kept up with NSB’s special knock, which must go down as one of her smoothest, most clinical and fault-free. Barely a foot was put wrong between the pair of them, as they both crashed the ball around to all parts, until Bouchier just seemed to get a little nervous as she reached the 90s. It was entirely understandable given the situation.
Heath played nicely too, and did the job she was asked to. Sri Lanka’s bowling was pretty ordinary though and Athapaththu missed a trick in persisting with her expensive line up of spinners, when it was pace that seemed to slow England down. Indeed when pace eventually came back on that was what happened, but it had been left far too late and England had already racked up a score beyond SL’s reach.
“Charlie Dean should have been Player of the Match for her 5fer.” Maybe. It certainly could have been the case that SL decided to dig in and bat out the 31 overs. But Dean didn’t let that happen with her very streetwise bowling. SL tried to target her with aggressive strokes and got a few away. But Dean had the last laugh – she invariably seems to be able to change the game for England and that’s why she’s such a special player.
“Lauren Filer also picked up another 3fer and a Player of the Series award … But the jury is still out for me”. Harsh, Syd. You seem to need a lot of evidence to be convinced, but everything so far points toward Filer being the “real deal” so to speak. She’s had limited opportunities but has grabbed almost every one, unsettled a lot of batters and splattered a lot of stumps, returning some excellent figures in the process. Not sure that T20 is her best suit but in the other 2 formats she has a lot of potential.
The turnaround between the T20 and ODI legs of the tour was huge – England were as excellent in all the ODIs as they were disappointing in the last 2 T20s. That just goes to show the difference it makes actually fielding in-form players at their full capabilities. We can afford to rest a player or 2, and try a newbie or 2, but the rest of the squad has to be right to allow that to work.
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