In the end, the first ever Vitality Blast Finals Day weekend was the story of the haves and the have-nots of women’s cricket.

Let’s start with Saturday. The disaster of Tier 2 Finals Day at Northampton has been well documented by Polly Starkie: a chaotic affair where there was no indoor seating for written press, one coffee truck which closed as the final was just getting underway, players apparently being randomly ejected from dressing rooms, and a lack of effort made to properly cover the square when rain fell during the first semi-final.

This was Finals Day done on the cheap, with no thought given to the player or the spectator experience. Here’s Polly and I talking about in on this week’s CRICKETher Weekly:

Contrast that with Sunday at The Oval, where the Tier 1 event was a roaring success. 5,761 fans showed up (a record for a women’s domestic T20 game), many sporting pink Vitality bucket hats, on a day of fireworks, face-painting and a twist on the traditional Mascots Race: a Mascots Hungry Hippo competition.

Kirstie Gordon, whose Blaze side lost the semi-final against Bears after winning the last Lottie Cup at Derby a year ago, was well-placed to contrast 2025 with 2024:

“[Derby] was a bit of a shambles wasn’t it? There was no food van. Fair play to everyone at The Oval and the ECB for today’s event. We’ve had a really good crowd in, it looks like there’s loads of activations going on round the venue for the kids and all sorts. That’s awesome. You look at the success that The Hundred’s had and it does all these things – that’s how we can start pushing that into days like this.”

In typical Kirstie fashion, she also found the time to express support for her Tier 2 counterparts, who hadn’t been quite so lucky:

“It’s a bit sad to hear that the Tier 2 final yesterday had a bit of a non-event with similar things [to Derby] – we need to start filtering that [The Oval event] down and make it a showcase event.”

Issy Wong was Player of the Match in that first semi-final, but hot on her heels was Sterre Kalis, who struck 45 from 33 balls after becoming perhaps the first player ever to feature in back-to-back Finals Days for two different sides.

Kalis explained after the semi-final that she had hot-footed it down from Northampton to London in an Uber on Saturday night: “I’m still Yorkshire’s player, but at the same time I want to try and win this with the Bears as well.”

There has been much debate about whether Kalis’s back-and-forth this season between Bears (where she is on loan) and Yorkshire (where she is a contracted player) is exploiting an unfortunate loophole in the loans system, which was actually designed to allow fringe Tier 1 players the chance to get some cricket instead of sitting on the sidelines.

But one thing you can’t dispute is Kalis’s commitment – to Yorkshire, to Warwickshire, and to women’s cricket. The Dutch-born Kalis doesn’t have the chance to make big bucks by representing her home nation in World Cups, so she takes her chances where she can get them, even when that means paying an exorbitant amount to take a taxi 70 miles down the road in order to play four matches in two days.

It’s difficult not to contrast that with the notable absence of England players Nat Sciver-Brunt and Amy Jones from what was designed to be a showpiece event in the new women’s calendar.

I’ll quote Kirstie Gordon again here: “That was their choice not to play today.” And when pressed on exactly whose choice (the ECB’s or Amy and Nat’s), she clarified: “The players’ choice.”

The ECB’s hastily-issued statement 10 minutes later explaining that both players had been “rested… to manage schedules and workload” was too little, too late: Kirstie’s responses, in a tone which conveyed her disdain about the decision, told the real story.

Surrey, of course, were the real winners this weekend, romping home in the final against Bears by 5 wickets with 20 balls to spare, in front of a raucous home crowd. If you want to talk about haves and have-nots, it’s worth a look at a recent report into the financial health of domestic cricket in England & Wales, which puts Surrey right at the top of a new Financial Performance Index. This season, they funded three bonus contracts for their women’s team, in addition to the funding provided by the ECB.

So where are we with women’s cricket, after the first big test of the ECB’s decision to rejig the domestic system in order to align with the men’s counties? Yet again, it seems that taking a big leap forward for one group of players hasn’t yet permeated downwards throughout the rest of the game.

It’s up to all of us, even as we celebrate the big, glorious steps forward, to continue to hold power to account on behalf of the ones who are still being left behind.

This week:

• Polly Starkie on the shambles of Tier 2 Blast Finals Day
• Surrey triumph in the Tier 1 Blast – but a good day for Issy Wong
• Sophie Ecclestone’s odd interview with Sky
• England v India Test at Lord’s… but it’s only 4 days

In the end, it was too much to ask the Bears to do it twice – after winning their semi-final, they were well beaten by Surrey in the final of the T20 Blast, in front of a very partisan crowd of home fans at the Oval. The scoreboard repeatedly flashed-up demands to “Cheer for Surrey” and an official crowd of over 5,000 did. Entreaties for Bears fans to do the same fell somewhat flatter.

Despite the return of umpteen England stars, this was a poorer match than the “Zombie Rubber” between these two sides 10 days ago, when Surrey hit 204 and Bears 179 in reply. That day, Kira Chathli was the star, smashing 65 off 31 balls. Relegated to No. 7 below the big England names, she did at least have the satisfaction of striking the winning runs.

But the real star was Grace Harris, who showed why she is the Harris with 50-odd international caps for Australia to sister Laura’s none. Her 63 off 33 balls may have been at a lower Strike Rate (190) than Laura’s 25 off 11 (SR 227) but by going deep Grace ensured that she earned every pretty penny that Surrey paid for her services in this campaign.

Batting first, Bears made the best possible start off the first delivery of the match from Alexa Stonehouse, with Meg Austin showcasing the finest Austin drive to come out of Birmingham since the Austin Allegro. (Don’t @ me – my dad bought one in ’79 – I know it was possibly the worst car of all time!) It was a gorgeous stroke – probably the shot of the day. But Austin was bowled by Stonehouse the very next ball, and from that point you felt the writing was on the wall.

Issy Wong top-scored for Bears for the second time on the day. The difference between her scores versus Blaze (59) and Surrey (31) was basically the difference between the teams, but that isn’t to hold her in any way responsible for the defeat – she did her job across both games, and had arguably the best day of her career.

Laura Harris did plunder Stonehouse for the most expensive over of the day – the 18-run 13th – but although it helped get Bears past the 150 mark which is the… bear minimum these days, it wasn’t enough to trouble Surrey, who have been the team to beat throughout this competition – losing just once in the group stages – and proved the same today.

Every time Bears grabbed a wicket, it must have felt like battling the hydra – cut off a Wyatt-Hodge and a Capsey comes in her stead; cut off a Capsey and a Harris comes in her place. With Surrey batting right down to Alexa Stonehouse at 10, Bears’ only hope was to bowl them out; but on this pitch, that was too much of an ask.

As the final 4 crossed the rope, there was applause from the crowd, and a scramble to get around to the one small part of the ground from which you could see the presentation – the fans who had paid money to come through the gate seemingly ignored in terms of witnessing the raising of the trophy.

But it perhaps tells us something more that by far the biggest cheer of the day came almost an hour later, from the fans that had stayed behind to watch the conclusion of the football on the big screens below the stands, as Chloe Kelly kicked home the winning penalty in the Women’s Euros. The final score: football 1, cricket 0.

There are three sides to being a top cricketer – talent, mentality, and graft – and there have been times in Issy Wong’s career when it has felt like she was all talent, but almost disdainful of mentality, let alone graft.

That was not the Issy Wong we saw in today’s T20 Blast semi-final, as Birmingham Bears beat the Blaze by 2o runs.

Perhaps the most revealing moment was not Wong’s 59 runs at a Strike Rate of 155, or her 4 wickets at an Economy Rate of 4.4, but a chase around the boundary that culminated in a dive to deny what looked like a certain 4. It didn’t take talent or mentality – just graft, to make the yards and cut off the runs. This was a new Issy Wong – one who has perhaps realised that graft might be the boring one, but it is the one you can most easily change – the one that can turn a good cricketer into a history-maker. Just ask Heather Knight.

Wong’s game began early, after Grace Ballinger had bowled Davina Perrin in the second over – Perrin again seeming slightly overawed by the big occasion, giving her wicket away to a skyer on the ring. Wong coming in at 3 always feels more in hope than expectation, though she generally doesn’t hang around either – she’ll swing until she misses, scoring runs until she gets out. But you could sense that there was something slightly different about her demeanor here – a bit more circumspect, but a bit more determined.

With Bears having lost two wickets in the powerplay, Wong led the fightback in a partnership with Sterre Kalis worth 64 runs which gave Bears the platform they needed to push on to a winning score. The job still needed finishing, but the platform largely built by Wong, which took Bears to 98-2 after 12 overs, meant they could afford to lose 6 wickets in the rest of the innings without any change in their momentum.

Having continued to score at 8+ an over, Bears finished on 163-8. It wasn’t a huge score – bearing in mind especially that their final opponents, Surrey, scored over 200 at this ground last week. But it was a few more than the 156 which has been a typical score in the Blast this season; and it gave them something to defend if they bowled well.

Blaze’s batting order is pretty stacked down to Sarah Bryce at 6; but the real threat felt like Tammy Beaumont – if Bears could get Beaumont early, they were in with a shout. Enter (again) Issy Wong. Having started with a wide (her only one of the match) she bowled Beaumont with a beauty through the gate with her third legal delivery. Beaumont had that slightly perplexed look that Mike Gatting made famous after being bowled by Shane Warne’s Ball of the Century; and Bears were pumped.

Wong wasn’t finished though – the very next ball was a fierce bouncer to Scotland captain Kathryn Bryce, which Bryce couldn’t quite sway out of the way of in time, gloving a catch to Nat Wraith behind the stumps.

As with Wong’s contribution with the bat, the job wasn’t done in those two balls – Blaze maintained parity and were even ahead for a period in the early middle phase. Bears still had to work for the win. The key remaining wicket was Georgia Elwiss, who is at her best with her back against the wall grinding down a grindable total. And she could have been the match-winner for Blaze, until a slightly un-Georgia Elwiss moment of madness – trying to force the pace, she charged Georgia Davis and was stumped for 53.

Millie Taylor, whose career has reached escape velocity with Warwickshire this season following her move from Vipers, did more than her share with 3 wickets and a catch, including a lovely off break (turning the other way from her stock ball) to bowl Sarah Glenn through her legs. And then… who else but Issy Wong came back to finish it off at the end – a fine rolling catch from Amu Surenkumar on the boundary giving Bears the win and the chance to face Surrey in the final.

Batting Rankings

Bowling Rankings

Batting Rankings

Bowling Rankings

This week was the 8th anniversary of the Harman Monster – Harmanpreet Kaur’s 171 not out against Australia in the 2017 World Cup semifinal at Derby.

So how do you top the greatest individual performance of all time? Especially coming off a run of 12 ODIs when you’ve failed to pass 50? The answer is that you don’t. You can’t. The headline lied to you. Sorry. This was not Harman Harder.

But it was still brutal; and it was still brilliant.

On her last visit to Chester-le-Street three years ago, Harmanpreet scored just 20 and ended up literally raging against the dying of the light – fuming about the conditions as India were thrashed on a freezing cold September evening. Today, the weather gods looked more kindly upon cricket’s most northerly stadium. The forecast threatened rain; but by the end of India’s innings rays of sunshine were breaking through the clouds and England batted under blue skies framed in fluffy white.

So India had the worst of the conditions, such as they were – not awful, but not the ones you’d choose, all things being equal. (That they did choose them, with England having lost the toss for the first time this tour, was doubtless based on the assumption that the gloomy forecast was correct!)

England brought back their big gun – Lauren Filer – in place of Em Arlott; and perhaps more interestingly Alice Davidson-Richards for Maia Bouchier. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between these selections. Yin: ADR, the steady hand who won’t let you down; and Yang: Filer, the loose cannon who might roll the opposition… or blow up in your face.

The concern with Filer is not that she isn’t capable of a game-changing spell; but that she is more Laura Harris than Grace. Laura is the bigger threat on her day; but there is a reason why Grace is the one that has fifty caps for Australia whilst Laura has none, and it is that Laura’s day doesn’t come around very often.

Today was not Filer’s day; and nor was it Lauren Bell’s. Neither were awful; but they failed to make a breakthrough in the powerplay, and India accumulated efficiently enough, reaching 46-0 after 8 overs via Smriti and Pratika Rawal. With the quicks looking ineffective, England turned to Sophie Ecclestone and Charlie Dean for the last two overs of the powerplay, with the pair bowling 12 overs in tandem through the Early Middle phase. It pegged India back as they lost both openers, but crucially Harmanpreet in particular didn’t panic when she arrived at the crease, playing out 10 dots before scoring her first runs off Linsey Smith, having seen off Ecclestone and Dean.

The battle Harmanpreet was fighting wasn’t really against England, it was against herself – staying focused; staying in the zone. After every 4 – even the ones that were 4 right off the bat – she trotted down to the other end and touched her bat in, before returning to face the next delivery. It was completely pointless, but if it kept her centred, and kept her in the game, that’s what mattered.

At the 40-over mark, it still could have been an ordinary game. Harman was on 57 off 60 balls (ie. a Strike Rate of 95) and India were heading for 250. 275 if they executed well in the last 10.

Then Harman pressed the DRS button. No – not that DRS, but the one from F1 – Drag Reduction System which allows the driver a momentary power-boost. She used hers to score a further 45 runs from 24 balls, rocketing India past 300 with her 7th ODI century. That it wasn’t as good as the 3rd is splitting hairs.

How do you go about chasing over 300? As with chasing 200 in a T20, it has now been done – by Sri Lanka to South Africa last year – who did it by getting ahead of the rate early on, and staying there, thanks to an innings of 195* from Chamari Athapaththu.

England’s approach was closer to that which India had taken to put 300 on the board in the first place – accumulate steadily through the middle overs, keep wickets in hand, and hope to capitalise at the death. And there were moments when it felt… plausible. With Nat Sciver-Brunt and Emma Lamb going well, at the 30 over mark England were 168-2 – 21 runs ahead of where India had been at 147-2.

But once that pair were dismissed – NSB two runs short of what could have been a record 4th ODI century in a losing cause – it would have needed someone else to come in and do something spectacular. And spectacular is exactly what Alice Davidson-Richards, coming in at 6, was not picked for. She gave it a go – making 44 off 34 – and England did get over 300, thanks to a first ever international 6 from Lauren Bell, who was clearly as surprised as anyone with it!

But with two balls remaining, England’s No. 11 swung again only to find the hands of… who else… Harmanpreet Kaur at extra cover.

Ultimately, England had left themselves with just too much to do in that Death phase, with India taking the win and the series 2-1.

For India, 21-year-old Kranti Goud finished with 6-52 in just her 4th ODI – doing what England’s seamers could not – taking wickets, including a bit of a Magic Ball to dismiss Tammy Beaumont, which seemed to go straight through the England opener. Laurens Bell and Filer between them have played 43 ODIs between them, and not achieved that – their collective best being Lauren Bell’s 5-37 v New Zealand last summer. Prior to this tour, a lot of the talk was about how India’s fast bowling options would be limited, with Renuka Singh, Pooja Vastrakar and Titas Sadhu all injured. Now one or two of them might be worrying about getting their place back for the World Cup. That’s the depth that India are developing.

Charlotte Edwards said in the post-series press conference that getting to the final of the World Cup would be a good achievement for England. For India, with the form they are in, it should be the minimum.

This week:⁠

• England win at Lord’s after India struggle to figure out 29-over cricket
• ⁠Should Tammy Beaumont have been out obstructing the field?
• ⁠The case for abolishing bonus points

The Bonus Point Calculator:

https://crickether.github.io/Tools/Bonus-Point-Calculator.html

Here are some interesting facts (or possibly, just “facts”?) about the number 29:

• It is the sixth Sophie Germain prime
• It is 45% more than 20
• it is 42% less than 50

Beside the proven fact that prime numbers play havoc with my charts, I’m not sure the first has much significance for a game of cricket; but when that game is 29 overs long, the other two certainly do. How do you approach batting for 29 overs? Is it a long short game, or a short long one?

The dilemma is double when you are batting first. Are you playing One Day cricket or T20? Is 25 runs off the powerplay a decent start? Who knows? You have no reference point; and nothing to aim at.

Certainly India didn’t seem entirely sure, posting 143-8 in this rain-reduced game – 10-15 short of a “typical” score based on ODI scoring rates; and probably 20-30 short of what they’d have hoped to have scored if this had actually been a T20. In fact, they’d almost certainly have got more if they’d just played this as a T20 and treated the extra 9 overs as a bonus.

England were better in the field today, partly simply because they had Linsey Smith and Maia Bouchier back in the XI. There was a great moment where they worked in tandem on the boundary – Smith sliding in for the pick-up and popping it up to Bouchier in a single movement for the relay throw in to the keeper. Maybe we need to consider that if we want to see a world class fielding performance, we need to pick the world class fielders we have in England?

There were still dropped catches, which Kate Cross bizarrely tried to blame on the media in her latest No Balls Podcast, seeming to argue that we (the media) are somehow causing the drops by “putting extra pressure on, because that’s the narrative now”. You’ll be amazed to know… I’m not buying it! Top level cricket is all about dealing with moments of extreme pressure, and if you can’t handle that, you might want to consider another sport?

Perhaps the bigger concern here is that England under Charlotte Edwards already seem to be slipping back into the siege mentality that marred the last few months of Jon Lewis’s tenure. Can’t catch? Blame the media! You’ll lose the game, but at least you’ll go to bed with the warm, fuzzy feeling that it was all Raf & Syd’s fault!

England’s approach, at least initially, was to treat this as much more of a long T20 than a short ODI. Tammy Beaumont is one of the most experienced ODI players in the history of the sport, and she came out very much not in ODI mode – battering Kranti Gaud for three 4s in the second over, including a couple of big booming drives of the kind India had failed to produce in their innings.

However, having got ahead of the rate, England too seemed to then struggle to gauge the pace of the game. Keeping wickets intact meant they remained ahead on DLS, even as rain threatened to deny them a win with a minimum of 20 overs required; but at one stage their run rate had fallen back sufficiently that a couple of wickets could have turned things in India’s favour.

India nearly found one of the those wickets with an appeal against Beaumont for obstructing the field. There is no doubt Beaumont was home; and that the ball was not hitting the stumps; but neither is technically relevant. The significant thing is that she did appear to kick out at the ball as it passed, and it made contact with her pad; and therefore she should probably have been given out, according to the letter of the laws.

But what this incident really shows is that the laws as they currently stand are unworkable, because the penalty doesn’t fit the crime here. Because the batter would not have otherwise been out, it would have been massively controversial to give her; so it looks like the Third Umpire in practice applied the principle of “No Harm; No Foul” and she survived despite the laws.

Consequently, England jogged on – making just enough progress to stay ahead of the rate, and ensuring that when another rain interruption reduced the game still further, the revised target was just a stroll in the park.

So a sub-par performance from India has ensured that the series remains alive as the circus moves on to Durham on Tuesday. The challenge for the visitors will be to put today behind them and get back to their best, even if they come face-to-face with another rain-reduced game, which the forecast suggests is a distinct possibility. Meanwhile England have the opportunity to burgle a series win they don’t especially deserve on the basis of what we’ve seen so far. But here’s a thought: if the losses are Raf & Syd’s fault… perhaps the wins are too? Will it, in the end, be Raf & Syd wot won it?

It was a dead-rubber, of course, with both Surrey and Bears already knowing exactly what their situation was in terms of qualification for next weekend’s Finals Day. Surrey, as group winners, will be going straight through to the final, whilst third-placed Bears will contest the semi-final against the Blaze; and nothing that either team did today was going to change that.

But as dead-rubbers go, it was also quite un-dead. A “Zombie Rubber”, if you will. Not only was it a warm up for Finals Day, at the very ground – the Oval – where they’ll be walking out next Sunday; but with England players likely to be available for the showpiece, there was a big incentive for anyone on the field today to impress their coaches with a “Pick Me” performance.

Not that the South London public saw it that way, unfortunately – the “crowd” was more reminiscent of a midweek Men’s County Championship game in April, than a lovely summer’s evening in July.

Their loss. They missed a typically electric start from Bryony Smith, pulling her way to an aggressive 20 off 12 balls before being bowled by a neat slower ball from Amu Surenkumar. Grace Harris and Kira Chathli pushed on to plunder 59 off the powerplay at a run rate of almost 10 an over – Chathli taking a few risks, but calculated ones with the fielding restrictions in place.

Chathli in particular took the end of the powerplay as an invitation to go after the bowling with a bludgeon – bringing up her 50 off 24 balls with consecutive 6s off Phoebe Brett. Bears captain and former police officer Georgia Davis must have been wondering if she could still issue an arrest warrant for GBH – Grievous Bowling Harm – as Surrey reached 115-1 at the halfway mark.

Chathli was eventually caught at long on by Laura Harris for 65 at a Strike Rate of over 200 – quite a statement from a player whose spot at the top of the order is very much at risk with Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Alice Capsey and Sophia Dunkley all due back from England duty next weekend – though as the wicket-keeper she will obviously be in the XI.

The runs continued to flow for Surrey, with Alice Monaghan getting the better of fellow ex-Viper Millie Taylor, hitting her for 12 of the 14 the left-handed-leg-spinner* conceded off the 12th over.

(*Yup – she’s a left handed bowler with a leg-spinner’s action, whose stock ball is a wrong-un – ie. breaking away from leg for the right-hander – making her a left-handed leg-spinner rather than a classic left-arm unorthodox!)

Grace Harris holed-out in the deep for 37; and Taylor got a degree of revenge on Monaghan, holding on to a steepler that seemed to hang forever in the London sky to dismiss her caught and bowled for 24.

With Surenkumar picking up the wicket of Paige Scholfield (15) the very next ball, things did then slow down a little. Emma Jones and Kalea Moore continued to look to score off every ball; but the boundary suddenly seemed harder to find, as if the rope had been moved out an extra 10 yards. Nonetheless, a 4 pumped through cow corner by Moore off the penultimate delivery brought up the magic 200, with another 4 making it 204-5.

Surrey made something of an art of losing high-scoring games earlier in the season in the 50-over comp at Beckenham; but they had lost just once in the Blast coming into this fixture. Bears were going to need a big start, but they didn’t get one.

Kalea Moore dropped a very difficult chance to catch Davina Perrin diving forwards at deep extra cover on 1, but made up for it by holding on to a much more straightforward chance the next ball to send Meg Austin back to the dugout for 5; and whist Perrin did finally find the boundary driving down the ground off the 5th delivery she faced, her attempt to repeat the trick next ball saw her caught at long on for 7.

If Bears wanted to actually win this game, they probably should have sent in Laura Harris at that point, and prayed for a “Harris Special” to save them; but presumably given that the result was a) a foregone conclusion already by that stage and b) didn’t actually matter, they chose to stick to the game-plan, sending Sterre Kalis out to join Issy Wong in the middle. It made little difference either way. After Kalis nicked one to Chathli, Harris was soon out there causing chaos in the way only she can, with both batters ending up at the same end from the last ball of the 6th over, but somehow Surrey failing to execute the runout, as Bears finished the powerplay 39-3.

That soon became 39-4 as Issy Wong got underneath a pull and was caught for 16; leaving Nat Wraith and Harris as Bears’ last line of defence. A “Harris Special” did still threaten – she struck seven 4s and two 6s on her way to 42 off 14 balls – but she was caught in two minds coming down the pitch to Alice Monaghan and ended up bowled trying to squeeze-out a cut.

At the turn, Bears were 91-5 – not a million miles behind the rate – but having lost 5 wickets, the Win Predictor put them at just 13%.

And if we’re honest… that was probably optimistic. We knew the result; Surrey knew the result; and Bears knew the result. The one thing that did offer Wraith and Amu Surenkumar was the opportunity to play with a bit of freedom – spend some time in the middle and find their ranges at a ground where neither has played much before, but where both will need to be at their best next weekend if Bears are to win their semi-final versus the Blaze and have the chance to meet Surrey again in the final.

Surrey also took their foot off the gas somewhat. There was little urgency to their fielding, epitomised by Bryony Smith declining to dive on the boundary to let through a 4 that she definitely could have stopped at the price of getting her knees a bit dusty.

Wraith and Surenkumar’s extended net session ended up being Bears’ highest partnership of the match – 60 off 38 balls – runs which could come in very handy if they can score them again next Sunday. Both ended up caught by Alice Monaghan in the deep – Wraith for 32 and Surenkumar for 36; though only after more Surrey sloppiness had given Surenkumar a life – Paige Scholfield dropping a sitter at deep midwicket.

Bears finished 179-9, with Millie Taylor bowled by Moore off the final delivery for 21. It was a loss for the Bears, but having made a total that would have won a lot of matches in this competition, they’ll feel optimistic about their impending semi-final. As for Surrey, a near-perfect performance with the bat wasn’t quite matched in the field. If their opponents in the final – whether it be Bears or the Blaze – can keep them to a few less than the 204 they made today, they’ll know they have a shout.