By Helen Maynard-Casely

We return to AB field with the conditions bright and with the heat building. Both Queensland Fire and South Australia put out unchanged teams from Tuesday’s match. South Australia won the toss, and captain Jemma Barsby decided to keep to the winning tactic from the previous match and put Queensland into bat.

South Australia would have been happy after 10 overs, chipping Queensland down by three wickets for only 40 runs. Opening bowlers Darcy Brown and Megan Schutt kept the batters pinned down, restricting them from finding the rope. Queensland struggled to steady the ship from the early wickets, as the innings progress to the middle overs Barsby came into bowl. In her first over she forced Sianna Ginger to send a shot uppish to backward point to a waiting Courtney Webb. Barsby continued in this vein, bowling very tightly and keeping the Queensland batters from getting the ball away.

In the 17^th over, Barsby executed a caught and bowled to remove left hander Bourke, bringing Laura Harris to the crease. Harris was not to be cowered by Barsby’s bowling, and in the remaining 4 balls of the over she muscled off 13 runs – forcing Barsby to finish her spell. But as it turned out Harris was only to be an entertaining cameo, and despite looking like she was about to put on a massive total, she was felled by what may be the catch of the season so far. Amanda-Jade Wellington had just had a catching opportunity put down at mid-on, and the next of her deliveries Harris lofted over her shoulder – it looked destined for the boundary except for a diving superwoman Courtney Webb catching in from over her shoulder in the air.

At this point Queensland were 6/82 but as SA looked to tighten the screws by bringing back the strike bowlers, O’Neill and Hancock worked Schutt’s balls around the field, so it was back to spin. After a steady passage of play it was Barsby again who bowled the dangerous looking O’Neill.

With Brown removing Hancock in the next over it looked nearly all over for the Queensland innings, but for Ruby Strange and Grace Parsons. Perhaps inspired by the gritty partnership put on by their rivals on Tuesday, they held steady being content to punt the odd badly bowled ball for 6. South Australia threw all of their bowlers (including adding in Madeline Penna to chance her arm at the pair) but they persevered to put on a 70 run 9^th wicket partnership. Though the resistance came to an end, when a returning Brown cleaned up Parsons and the 10^th wicket of Berry in the 42^nd over. Today it was Darcy Brown’s turn to lead her team off the field, finishing with 5 wickets off of 8 overs for 45 runs. Another tough day for Queensland batters, with Ruby Strange the top scorer on 39 not out, setting South Australia target of 195 to win.

South Australia batter Emma de Broughe contemplates the innings ahead.

Like Tuesday, with a relatively low total to defend, Queensland bowlers would have had the mindset that they needed the 10 wickets for victory. They got their dream start again, with Sianna Ginger removing Emma de Broughe for a duck with a LBW delivery. Bridget Patterson followed a few overs later courtesy of a two-fielder catch. Harris had got a hand to the ball, sending it up where Lucy Bourke was able to snatch it before it hit the ground.

South Australia’s thrilling chase from this point came down to a series of partnerships – each having to start afresh as batters seemed to fall in pairs. First was Webb and Penna, whose 70 run partnership formed the backbone of the innings. After surviving an attritional powerplay, they steadily accumulated even pinching the odd 6 off wayward deliveries. The partnership was brought to an end in the 21st over when Ruby Strange bowled Penna for 37, with Webb following her to the pavilion in the next over after just passing her 50. This left Tahlia McGrath and Holly Armitage at the crease as fresh batters, where they steadily built a useful smaller partnership over 5 overs until T-Mac chipped a delivery into Redmayne’s waiting gloves off of Ginger’s delivery. Ginger followed it up to get a hat trick ball in her next over, taking Armitage – and again a fresh pair of batters Wellington and Barsby were there to rebuild. Again this lasted a while before Barsby was bowled by Ginger.

At this point the momentum had swung away from SA, who needed 50 more runs compared to Queensland needing 3 more wickets. Nicola Hancock had a stunning over in the 34th to remove Wellington and Megan Schutt. SA innings was in disarray, 40 runs still to get with only one wicket left.

What followed was a tense 45 minutes as Elanor Larosa and Darcy Brown played their socks off to stay the course, putting on a record winning 10th wicket partnership in the WNCL. Helped by some strange bowling choices (including a further Laura Harris cameo!) towards the end of the innings, as Ginger, Parsons and Hancock were bowled out. South Australia clung on to reach the 195 run target.

Having let this win allude them, Queensland have suffered a sizable snag in their chase to the top of the leaderboard, and are now behind NSW who have games in hand to boot. South Australia will be sizing up their next opponents, they will be hosting Victoria at Karen Rolton Oval, with a hope to further climb the ladder.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country, and here is writing about a game played on Ngunnawal country. She acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.

By Helen Maynard-Casely

With a number of international players returning to the fold, round 4 of the WNCL kicked off with two games. Down in Canberra, NSW emboldened with Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry in the squad for the first time since 2019 took on ACT. Though the stage for our theatre today was the other match – taking place at Allan Border Field in the city of Meanjin (Brisbane) an unbeaten Queensland Fire met a visiting South Australian side. So far in this competition Queensland have been ferocious, like last year, marching towards a finals place – having not only been unbeaten, but also picking up bonus points in half of the matches they have played in rounds one to three.

Allan Border field sits on the floodplain of the Brisbane river, so it is nestled between higher ground on one side and the Albion raceway to the other. The home of Queensland Cricket, it is a hive of activity, surrounded by outside and inside nets, and with two looming pavilions – built ‘Queenslander’ style. A very pleasant place to watch a very tense game of cricket – 5 star rating in the category of small grounds of Australia.

South Australia captain Jemma Barsby won the toss, and decided to have a bowl. Both teams were unchanged from their previous matches, which could not have been more different in outcome – South Australia coming off two losses away to WA, and Queensland having got the double win over Tasmania in Hobart.

The losses in Perth for SA were perhaps all the more surprising given the international-class of the bowling line up, retained for the visit to Queensland. Tahlia McGrath, having opted out of the WPL was joined by Megan Schutt and Darcy Brown all taking advantage of games before the India series. This trio joined by the ever-present Amanda-Jade Wellington certainly would have had the Queensland batters perhaps struggling to sleep last night. And so it proved the case – with the SA bowlers working their way through the Queensland batters without turning a hair. Lauren Winfield-Hill offered the most resistance, a stoic 33 runs put on for 58 balls – but she was trapped LBW by Barsby bowling right arm in the 24th over. Barsby had threaded in overs with the opening quicks to keep Queensland to just over 100 runs at this near half-way stage, but with 5 wickets still remaining the Fire would have still hoped for a good total.

But then they got Wello-ed. Not sure if there’s a better way to put it. Wellington had started her bowling spell the over before Winfield-Hill’s wicket, and the end of her spell was also the end of Queensland’s innings. Her deliveries forced three catches, including a particularly speccy low catch by Barsby at mid-off to remove Nicola Hancock. In her next over Wellington went one better and had Ruby Strange caught and bowled via a skied return. She finished off her fifer and the Queensland innings by bowling Grace Parsons, taking the top of her middle stump and barely even celebrating. A hush had fallen on the (reasonable) crowd at AB Field, Queensland bowled out in the 39th over for 180 runs.

AJ Wellington leads the SA team off the field after finishing the Queensland innings by bringing up her 5-wicket haul.

With 181 needed for victory South Australia got off to a terrible start, with Bridget Patterson stumped for a duck by lightning quick glove work from captain/keeper Georgia Redmayne in the first over. Patterson questioned the call, but the umpires sent her back to the pavilion. In fact, following on from the excellent day out for the South Australian bowlers – the Queensland opening bowlers Sianna Ginger and Bonnie Berry got the upper hand during the powerplay, both picking up 2 wickets each. McGrath being the last of these in the 10th over bowled by an inswinger delivered by Berry. After 10 over SA were 4/51 – whereas Queensland had been 2/51 at the same stage, and the Fire looked on track to take ten wickets to keep their season burning bright. The dangerous Courtney Webb was removed only two overs later, caught at gulley by Grace Parsons, her second catch at the position in the innings.

At this stage South Australian opener Emma de Broughe was probably thinking she was going to run out of partners before the total was reached. But joined at the crease by Barsby they set about digging in and accumulating a steady partnership. For 23 overs they toiled away, slowly stomping on the embers of the Queensland Fire’s bowling attack to wrestle the game away from them. The partnership ended at 103 runs when de Broughe was bowled by Hancock 71 runs off of 104 deliveries. In a day for bowlers it was AJ Wellington who brought up the target four overs later when she cracked a boundary to long on. South Australia crucially brought up the target before 40 overs, giving them an all-important bonus point as they make their bid to climb up the table. We’ll all convene again on Thursday for the second match up to see if Queensland can re-ignite to winning ways.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country, and here is writing about a game played in Meanjin. She acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.

This week, we review WPL Week 1:

• Nadine de Klerk hits 20 off the last over for RCB
• Georgia Wareham brings her WBBL form to GG
• Has Nicola Carey earned herself a recall for Australia?
• Syd calls for a change in the LBW law

By Helen Maynard-Casely

Player of the match for the second time this week, Annie Wikman raises her bat as the Victorian team look on. She batted on to score 142 not out.

A hot day, even for a cricket match, spectators came with stocked eskies and grouped together in the smatterings of shade. Frozen zooper doopers were passed round to those less prepared (thanks Mr Flintoff ) as ACT and Victoria met at Phillip Oval for the second match-up in this year’s WNCL. This time Victoria won the toss, and put ACT into bat, seeking a reversal of their fortunes from Tuesday’s game.

A couple of changes to both teams from the game earlier in the week, ACT bringing in Angelina Genford and Shivani Mehta in place of Amy Hunter and Grace Digham, the latter presumably still nursing her hamstring after Tuesday. Victoria swapped out Olivia Henry for fast bowler Zoe Samuel.

Early wickets in the first innings has been the theme of this match up, and within four overs ACT were already three wickets down, two in Ella Hayward’s second over. ACT opener and captain Carly Leeson, who was looking to start to move up the gears in her run scoring, was caught by a leaping Hasrat Gil, while Georgia Elwiss came and went LBW, to be Haywood’s second wicket of the over. Tess Flintoff also started well, backing up on her long bowling performance from Tuesday by bowling opener Olivia Porter.

Then the heat started to bite, and the ACT batters got stuck in. Paris Bowdler and Annie Wikman built a strong 4^th Wicket partnership of 92 before Bowdler was stumped off of Molly Strano’s bowling. The Victorian bowlers squeezed the run rate, captain Sophie Molineux and Strano keeping excellent economy through their 10 overs. Hayward picked up three wickets in total off her nine overs, catching Zoe Cooke off her own bowling just as the batter was getting in her stride. Wikman defied the heat, using her reverse sweep to devastating effect – and brought up her first WNCL century in the 44^th over. Not out from Tuesday, she accumulated yet more runs at the back of the innings finishing on a humungous 142 not out, guiding ACT to 247 in total. Two days work has netted Wikman 204 runs, catapulting her to 3rd in the individual run table for the season so far.

In reply the Victorian batters started steadily – needing a run rate of just under 5 an over meant that they could look for the opportunities rather than have to dig them out. The plan was going well until towards the end of the powerplay where both openers, Nicole Faltum and Ella Hayward were dismissed in quick succession. Now 2/50, and with two new batters at the crease – the same plan had to be started over. The two left handed Sophie’s (Molineux and Reid) started to steady the ship, but Molineux was caught off Genford’s bowling on the boundary in the 17th over. Though the Victorians at this point in the innings had lost three wickets, they were very much on target with run accumulation, and it was starting to look like they could dig out a win.

Then enter Shivani Mehta. Her second over, the 19th of the innings, marked the turn with a double wicket maiden. First she bowled Reid, before Rhys McKenna wafted at a loopy delivery that caught an edge before finding the keeper’s gloves. Mehta’s next over also saw success, when Sasha Moloney sent the ball back for her to take a low catch. With 6 wickets down, it wasn’t the runs that Victoria were lacking so much, more having too many players back in the sheds. Georgia Prestwidge and Molly Strano were not going to let this daunt them though, and put together a nice partnership that looked to get the Victorians back on track. That was until Wikman, finishing an over for an injured Gabbi Sutcliffe, clean bowled Prestwidge for 24. A stubborn last-ditch batting effort from Molly Strano, who put on her WNCL best total of 60, was very entertaining to watch but ultimately in vain. Her wicket, and Victoria’s 10th fell 48 runs short, when she was caught in the deep by woman of the moment Wikman off Zoe Cooke’s bowling.

ACT Meteors backed up their home-win double over Victoria from last year, and will hope to roll this success forward to when they take on the NSW Breakers in a couple of weeks for the next WNCL round. Victoria will again be licking their wounds, and with a bye for the next round will have time to hatch yet another plan before they travel to Adelaide in early February to meet South Australia.

For those in the UK illustration of what a ‘Zooper Dooper’ is (flavoured ice block). These are such icons in Australia that, in 2019, the Royal Australian Mint released a $1 coin commemorating them.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country, and here is writing about a game played on Ngunnawal country. She acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.

This week:

• India prepping strongly for the T20 World Cup
• Who are the contenders for Wisden’s Leading Woman Cricketer of 2025?
• Grace Scrivens shines in the Super Smash