Hampshire’s first home game of the new era – played out in front of a crowd of 600-odd on a sunny day at the Utilita Bowl – ended in a surprise 50-run win against trophy-favourites Surrey.
On a good batting track, with new England coach Charlotte Edwards looking on from the top of the Rod Bramsgrove Pavilion, this was the ideal chance for any number of England squaddies / hopefuls to stick up a hand.
But while Em Arlott hit a match-winning century over in Chelmsford, and Eve Jones struck 97 for Lancs down in the West Country, none of the half-centurions at Southampton managed to make quite such a definitive contribution.
Maia Bouchier’s gorgeous lofted drives and well-placed pulls will have pleased Edwards, and Bouchier herself labelled her 69-ball 61 as “really important” after a difficult Ashes series.
“All I can do is learn and grow from that, and try and improve in every possible way,” Bouchier said. “We [the England players] have got six games, and we’ll make the most of those six games. It’s really competitive at the moment and that’s what we want.”
But Bouchier was eventually lured into a well-signalled trap by ADR, who followed up her first bouncer by immediately bowling a second; Bouchier tried to hook this one, and only succeeded in edging to Kira Chathli behind the stumps.
Alice Capsey – presumably also desperate to impress Edwards – picked up a couple of cheap wickets with her off-spin, and then scratched out her own 81-ball fifty.
But Capsey was also involved in the unfortunate run-out of Paige Scholfield, who came three-quarters of the way down the track despite Capsey never leaving her ground, as Surrey collapsed to 93 for five.
To be fair, Surrey had earlier had to contend with a major disruption to their bowling plans: their opening bowler Phoebe Franklin left the field nursing an injury after just 10 balls, leaving Bryony Smith to step into the breach.
Hampshire initially made hay while the sun shone (literally), as openers Bouchier and Ella McCaughan put on a century stand in just 20 overs.
That should have laid the foundation for a 300+ total. Instead, a middle-over collapse of 3 for 11 saw the run-rate plummet, although some timely cameos from Abi Norgrove and Nancy Harman eventually pushed the total above 250.
Surrey boast the most England experience of any Tier 1 top order, so a target of 260 should have been well within their grasp. But some reckless slogging from Smith and Danni Wyatt-Hodge against Hampshire’s new-ball pair Lauren Bell and Freya Davies cost them two early wickets.
Sophia Dunkley then made a mess of trying to defend a fuller, straighter ball from Bell and was bowled, leaving Surrey three down at the end of the powerplay.
Two weeks ago, Surrey convincingly defeated Hampshire on this same ground in their pre-season warm-up after Alice Monaghan smashed a quickfire 71. But in the real thing, Monaghan’s deft, run-a-ball 40 – despite being struck with a fluency which put the top order to shame – couldn’t quite make up for the disastrous start.
Hampshire clearly felt the pressure as Monaghan’s 64-run partnership with Capsey progressed, dropping several catches and botching a couple of run-out chances. But the reintroduction of Linsey Smith in the 32nd over eventually did the trick, her sharp c&b seeing off Monaghan before fellow left-armer Bex Tyson wrapped things up with the final two Surrey wickets.
There’s still a long way to go, but for now, a Surrey team which everyone predicted would dominate this new competition are (alongside Essex) bringing up the rear of the Tier 1 points table.
After all the kerfuffle of last year’s domestic restructure, we’re about to find out what it is all going to look like in practice. There has been a reasonable amount of player movement in the off-season (Durham, after all, had to build an entire team from scratch!) so for some teams, it will also be a chance to see how these new squads are hanging together… or not, as the case may be.
Our Big Plan here at CRICKETher Towers is to try to attend at least one home game of each of the eight Tier 1 counties this season, partly to try to get a genuine sense of how well teams are being supported behind the scenes. So watch out for a more even geographical spread of match reports than usual!
In the meantime, here are some predictions for the season (full squads at the bottom of the page):
Who’s going to win the One-Day Cup?
Raf: Counties were told by the ECB that they had to offer contracts to a minimum of 15 players. The deep pockets at Surrey decided that wasn’t good enough and have offered out 17 full contracts – that’s in addition to the 4 contracted England players in their squad, who as we now know will be available for the first 6 rounds of the One-Day Cup. There could be a lot of thumb-twiddling going on, but it’s also hard to look past such a well-stocked team (which is almost identical to last year’s Stars squad) for silverware.
Syd: Don’t ask me… ask the data! I carved-up the impact stats (full data here and here) from the regional era and added up the scores for the best 11 players in each squad.
That brought a clear winner to the surface: The Blaze. With their England players likely to be available for the key fixtures at the start of the season, I’m backing them to build up a sufficient head of steam to power them through the group stages. There will still be the knockouts to come in September of course, but assuming the Bryces are not off to the World Cup (which unfortunately looks unlikely at the time of writing) I think they can still do it.
Who’s going to win the T20 Blast?
Syd: The data above shows the squads with their England players included, but of course they aren’t going to be available for a chunk of the season, which particularly affects the Blast. So I took the England players out and re-ran the numbers:
This paints a very different picture, with Surrey and serial-underperformers Lancashire at the front; so I’m backing Surrey’s power-batting lineup, led by Bryony Smith, to knock the Blast out of the park.
Raf: The Blaze are the reigning champions [Ed: are you still reigning champions when the competition changes its name?] and I can see them pulling it off again this year. Similarly to Surrey, they have the same core squad as 2024 – and this time they will have both Bryces available for the whole season. The only question is whether the trophy will be emblazoned (gettit??!) with the name “Blaze”, or whether Notts might put their foot down at that point!
Who will get the wooden spoon?
Raf: Rumour has it that negotiations were a bit tricky behind the scenes at Central Sparks / Warwickshire last year, with the upshot that the squad they’ve ended up with isn’t necessarily the one they thought they would get. That’s always a difficult dynamic to negotiate – players may feel aggrieved or anxious to prove themselves – so while they’ve got some brilliantly talented young players (I’m excited to see what Dav Perrin does this season), I think they might struggle overall.
Syd: The numbers don’t look good for Warwickshire, but they look a lot worse for Somerset especially without their England players. A lot depends though on what Charlotte Edwards decides to do with a certain Heather Knight – I think she’s likely to continue playing ODIs, but if she gets dropped from the T20 format she’ll play a lot more domestic cricket and could single-handedly haul Somerset to something like respectability.
Who’s our one to watch?
Raf: I’m intrigued to see how Rhianna Southby gets on for Hampshire. We got a sneaky peek at her in their warm-up against Surrey at the Utilita Bowl last week (she hit a run-a-ball 42) and her batting looks to have come on leaps and bounds over the winter. Her keeping has always been top-notch; it’s been her batting which has kept her out of contention as a possible Amy Jones successor – could this be the season where she defies those expectations?
Syd: The wicket-keeping succession battle is certainly an interesting one, and I’ll be keeping a close watch on two of the other contenders – Seren Smale and Bess Heath. Heath’s move to Durham is a sensible one, ensuring she is their first-choice with the gloves for the first time in her professional career, having played second-fiddle (second-glove?) to Lauren Winfield-Hill at Diamonds previously. Smale, though, still has that problem with Ellie Threlkeld playing first-glove at Lancashire, so will really need to kick on with the bat to nudge the eyes of England’s soon-to-be-appointed new selector.
Who’s our golden oldie?
Raf: Hilariously, Sophie Luff was already considered a “golden oldie” by Syd last time we wrote one of these previews in 2021. To be fair, she does seem to have been a mainstay of women’s domestic cricket for eons (despite only being 31), and has been the face of most of the “revolutions” we’ve seen in the past decade (the KSL, regionals, The Hundred… phew!) Even after the ECB tried to abolish county cricket via the back door in 2019, Luff continued to spearhead Somerset, so it seems only fitting that she now leads them into the professional era.
Syd: Let’s go back all the way to 2010 – Berkshire are playing in the final of the T20 Cup against mighty Yorkshire. The top scorer for Yorkshire is one Dani Hazell (you might have heard of her) but Yorkshire can’t overhaul Berkshire’s 1st innings total of 173, of which 61 (off 46 balls) were scored by an exciting young player called “Alice” Macleod. Arguably, Lissy (she’s a mononym these days, like Elvis with a cricket bat!) didn’t quite fulfill her potential. She never played for England, but she went on to win the KSL with two different teams, and when Sunrisers won the RHF Trophy last season, she was a big part of that too. Now in her 30s, she’ll be wearing an Essex shirt this season, and playing a valuable role there as the “senior pro” as well as skippering the side if / when Grace Scrivens gets her England call-up.
Who’ll be the overall MVP?
Syd: Possibly my most left-field cricket take (yes… even more left-field than that Grace Scrivens one!) is that Katie George could still end up with 50 England caps… but as a batter rather than a bowler! I agree with Raf that Warwickshire are likely to struggle this season, but if they don’t then George will have been a big part of why they didn’t. She has been much more in control of her bowling in the last couple of years, both in terms of consistency and looking less like a lower-back injury waiting to happen; and her batting is starting to develop from “late-middle-order” to “proper middle-order”. If she can fulfil that promise, it will make her a very valuable asset indeed as she enters her peak years between 26 and 30.
Raf: From a marketing perspective, you’d have to say Ellyse Perry! As the most high-profile signing ever in the history of women’s county cricket, she’s certainly going to get the punters flocking to the Utilita during July, which is why Hampshire are (we assume) paying her the big bucks…
And what about Tier 2?
Raf: Well, it’s going to be quite embarrassing for Yorkshire if they don’t manage to finish on top, given that they are meant to be joining Tier 1 in a year’s time! They are also the only Tier 2 county who are actually handing out paid contracts to their players this year (thanks to the, ahem, largesse of Colin Graves).
Syd: Tier 2 is going to be… interesting. Which, as the apocryphal proverb about “interesting times” implies, isn’t always a good thing. Yorkshire aside, the standards are not going to be anywhere near professional, because these aren’t professional cricket teams. That doesn’t mean it can’t be competitive and exciting, and huge for the players involved; but I worry that fans that come to watch Tier 2 expecting the kind of women’s cricket they’ve seen on TV at the WPL or the World Cup are going to experience a reality-check that could leave them with a bitter aftertaste on the way home.
Raf: One thing which is still very much TBC is how the dynamic will work between Tier 1 and Tier 2 counties. Will “benched” Tier 1 players be permitted by their counties to go out on loan? Even if they are, will Tier 2 counties get parochial and promote their own players ahead of loaned-pros? Hopefully the counties can find a way to work together to present the best face of the women’s game to “new” spectators lending their support from men’s teams.
1. Charlotte Edwards will be stepping down from her other coaching roles and focusing solely on England
Hampshire, Sydney and Mumbai’s loss is our gain!
2. Edwards already knows who the next England captain will be – and the rest of us will find out soon
Obviously, she didn’t tell us who she has in mind (partly because it sounds like she hasn’t spoken to the players yet – she’s properly starting off at Loughborough next week). There was maybe a bit of a hint later in the presser when she was assessing England’s current player pool and mentioned 4 senior players by name – Heather Knight (already ruled out!), Amy Jones (doesn’t want the job), Nat Sciver-Brunt, and Tammy Beaumont. We might be reading too much into that though…
Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough – she intends to appoint someone within the next couple of weeks. (It seems that Raf was completely wrong on this week’s episode of The CRICKETher Weekly – on all counts!)
3. Edwards isn’t a continuity candidate
Firstly, she’s about as anti-Jon-Ball as it’s possible to be. “They’ve had this mantra of entertaining and inspiring… [my role] is changing their focus. For me it’s about their game smarts and their game awareness,” she said. “It’s about winning. I just want to create some intelligent players who win games of cricket for England.”
Secondly, Lottie’s input into the Ashes review seems to have been pretty critical in convincing Clare Connor that there WAS an issue with the England team culture – Connor denied that this was a problem in her initial press conference the day after the Ashes whitewash, but now seems to have accepted that she was wrong, saying: “The review told us that we did need a significant reset in terms of… the environment.”
And lastly, while obviously being diplomatic enough not to name any names, Edwards also said that she would be ensuring professional standards around fitness were fully upheld throughout the England squad. “I will make the players more accountable for fitness,” she said.
4. County cricket is really going to matter
All England players will be available for the first seven rounds of the new 50-over One-Day Cup – Edwards has already decreed it, and she made it pretty clear that she will be enforcing this. “I want us to pick on performances,” she said. “You only learn that by playing. We’ve got a lot of young players who haven’t played enough cricket.”
She also effectively said that from now on, selection for England would depend on putting in good performances in county cricket. “I want England players to dominate county cricket,” she said.
5. The England head coach role was not advertised and the Rooney Rule was not adopted
Connor was pretty clear: she and Jonathan Finch did the review and concluded that Edwards was the candidate they wanted, based on 3 set criteria:
Proven track record as a head coach
The ability to create a winning culture
A forensic understanding of the women’s game
If you ask us, the final point is essentially an admission that they got it wrong with Lewis, although when pressed on that (by Raf), Connor refused to concede this.
Anyhow, Connor did also say that the Rooney Rule had been adopted for the two previous appointments – Jon Lewis in 2022 and Lisa Keightley in 2019 – and that she remains committed to using it in future.
6. Some outsiders were involved in the Ashes review, but we may never know who they were
We found out tantalisingly little about the actual process of the review: Connor said that “some notable figures in the world game” had contributed, including several Australians, but apparently all contributions were made on condition of anonymity. So, unless those involved want to out themselves, that seems as close as we’re going to get to knowing who exactly they were.
7. The ECB will be recruiting a new national selector
A sponsorship snafu could mean that England A coach Jon Lewis is promoted to the main England role as soon as next week, after it emerged that department store John Lewis had already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on a new advertising campaign centred around the name of the former head coach Jon Lewis.
Lewis has been flown home from Australia, where England A are currently playing Australia A, for emergency talks as the ECB scramble to save their sponsorship deal with the department store.
The advertising campaign centres around a new line of Bondi-2-Coogee budgie smugglers modelled by the England Men’s cricket team, but hit a snag last week when it emerged that the OG Jon Lewis had been fired from his role following the 16-0 Ashes whitewash.
Clare Connor said: “In England, we pride ourselves on our excellent talent pipeline of coaches with the name Jon Lewis, so we feel confident this is just a temporary hitch.“
“Our synergies with the John Lewis brand couldn’t be stronger – after all, here at the ECB we never knowingly undersell ourselves.”
CRICKETher 