Phase-adjusting three seasons of WBBL batting shows how raw strike-rate rankings systematically mark down openers.

By Zalak Kansara

Tammy Beaumont’s recent WBBL strike rate looks ordinary if it is read as a single number. Across the 2023-24 to 2025-26 competitions she scored 530 runs from 439 balls, a strike rate of 120.7. Among the 50 batters who faced at least 200 deliveries, that placed her 25th.

But those batters did not face the same mix of overs.

The WBBL contains four meaningfully different scoring phases. In this three-season sample, batters scored at 105.2 in the mandatory Powerplay, 112.7 in ordinary middle overs, 139.1 in non-Surge death overs and 155.5 during the Power Surge. The Surge was the highest-scoring phase, yet it accounted for only 9.6% of balls faced.

That matters because access to those phases is uneven. Openers faced only 4.9% of their deliveries during the Surge. The corresponding figure was 10.2% for batters whose median position was three or four, and 13.4% for middle and lower-order batters.

Raw strike rate therefore mixes two things: how quickly a batter scored, and the scoring environments in which she happened to bat.

A phase-adjusted comparison

To separate those effects, each batter’s expected runs were calculated from her own distribution of deliveries across the four phases and the competition strike rate in each phase. Actual runs were then compared with those expected runs and rescaled to the competition’s overall strike rate of 119.8.

The calculation is:

Expected runs = sum of balls faced in each phase multiplied by that phase’s league strike rate, divided by 100

Phase-adjusted strike rate = actual runs divided by expected runs, multiplied by the overall league strike rate

This is not an attempt to produce a definitive measure of batting quality. It asks a narrower question: how would the ranking look if each player’s output were judged relative to the scoring rate of the phases she actually faced?

The answer changes the shape of the table. The 17 openers in the 200-ball sample rise by an average of 6.1 ranking places after adjustment. The other 33 batters fall by an average of 3.1 places.

The shift is not driven by one player. Katie Mack rises 15 places, Beaumont and Chamari Athapaththu each rise 14, and Sophia Dunkley rises 11. Individual movements should not be treated as verdicts, but the group pattern is difficult to dismiss as a Beaumont-only effect.

Beaumont as an illustration

Beaumont faced 253 balls in the mandatory Powerplay, 172 in ordinary middle overs, 14 in the Surge and none in non-Surge death overs. Applying the full-precision league phase rates to that distribution produces 481.75 expected runs.

Her adjusted calculation is therefore:

530 actual runs divided by 481.75 expected runs, multiplied by the 119.76 league strike rate, produces 131.76, reported as 131.8.

That moves her from 25th by raw strike rate to 11th by the phase-adjusted measure, a rise of 14 places.

The adjustment does not say that 131.8 is her “true” strike rate. Nor does it claim that Powerplay batting is harder in every match. It says that Beaumont scored materially more runs than the league phase rates would predict from the particular mix of overs she faced.

Her zero death-over deliveries make her an unusually clear example. The wider result, however, is that openers as a group are less exposed to the fastest-scoring phase in the competition.

Does the result survive different choices?

The direction remains the same under four alternative specifications.

At a 300-ball eligibility threshold, openers rise by 4.6 places on average and everyone else falls by 2.9. When phase benchmarks are calculated separately for each season, openers rise by 5.9 and everyone else falls by 3.1. When the Surge is folded back into the underlying middle or death phase, openers still rise by 4.9 and everyone else falls by 2.5.

There is also a potential issue with rain-affected matches, because a fixed death-over definition is less natural in a shortened innings. Excluding all 17 matches in the sample that carried a D/L result or a reduced target leaves 47 eligible batters. Openers still rise by 5.3 places on average, while everyone else falls by 3.0.

None of those tests reverses the finding.

What this does and does not show

Phase adjustment deals with one source of context, not all of them. It does not control for match situation, opposition quality, ground dimensions, wickets in hand or the tactical role assigned to a batter. The phase rates describe what happened across the competition; they are not proof that one phase is intrinsically easier or harder.

The role labels are analytical rather than official. A batter is classified from her median batting position across her innings in the sample: positions one and two are openers, three and four are top order, and five or lower are middle or lower order.

The measure is therefore most useful as a check on raw tables. A ranking that relies heavily on strike rate risks marking down players who repeatedly bat in lower-scoring phases and rewarding those with greater access to high-scoring ones. In the WBBL, the Power Surge makes that distortion especially visible.

Beaumont’s rise from 25th to 11th is the clearest illustration. The more important finding is the group result behind it: across three seasons, openers systematically move upward once their phase exposure is taken into account.

Biggest rises (10 of 50 eligible batters)

Biggest falls (10 of 50 eligible batters)

Full ranking by movement (50)

Reading the table: A smaller rank number is better; ↑ means a higher position after phase adjustment. Adjusted SR compares a batter’s actual runs to the expected runs for the phases she faced and rescales the ratio by the overall competition strike rate. The adjustment describes phase exposure and performance in this sample; it does not predict future performance. Tied movements are ordered by adjusted rank.

By Richard Starkie*

Kent (309/8) beat Middlesex (306/7) by 2 wickets with 8 balls to spare

• Middlesex set a challenging 306/7, but innings tails off in final 5 overs
• Artemis Downer scores 67, one of three half-centurions
• Sydney Gorham (1/45) is the pick of Kent’s bowlers
• On loan Rachel King scores a century for Kent
• Wayward Middlesex bowling sees the total chased down in penultimate over

26 July is a good day for Middlesex. It was on this day last year in Northampton that they won the Vitality Blast in the most comprehensive way imaginable – batting through their semi-final against Leicestershire and the final against Yorkshire without losing a wicket. On that occasion Issy Routledge and Finty Trussler scored all the runs for a team who went through the whole season unbeaten until their final game: the One Day Cup semi-final, which they lost to Yorkshire.

This season has not been such plain sailing for the county from the north side of the Thames. Three defeats in the Blast and failure to win their final game with a bonus point meant that they did not even make it to Finals Day in the T20 competition.

Their early season form in the One Day Cup, however, was imperious: Derbyshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were comprehensively defeated in April and May, leaving Middlesex the clear favourites at the top of the table, alongside tier-one bound Glamorgan.

If this season has been a mixed bag so far for Middlesex, Kent exceeded expectations by reaching T20 Blast Finals Day. On top of that, their One Day Cup form was promising early in the season, mainly thanks to the phenomenal batting of Coco Streets, who scored 78, 108, 104 and 89 across the four games they played, although they only managed to win two of those (against Sussex and Derbyshire).

So today was always going to be an interesting match-up. Could Kent take encouragement from their Blast performance and transfer that energy to the One Day Cup?  Was the Blast a blip for Middlesex or have they really lost their winning mojo?

Middlesex won the toss and decided to bat. Despite not using the loan market to bolster their team, Middlesex have some seriously good batters right down to number 8 (who today was Routledge), so with plenty of strength in depth, they can bat with freedom.

Pippa Sproul and Scarlett Hughes had to be cautious early on, as the pace of Hannah Hardwick and the loop and swing of Sydney Gorham demanded patience and solid defence. Having nudged, nurdled and defended parsimoniously to accumulate 41 runs through the powerplay, a very avoidable mix-up meant that Sproul, in not so spritely fashion, ended up sprawled, spread-eagled on the pitch as she dived for safety when attempting a run. The Scot was dismissed for 21 and almost immediately, her opening partner Hughes followed her, caught by a remarkable cart-wheeling catch by Streets at mid-wicket.

With the score at 43/2, Middlesex needed a re-set. Riva Pindoria and Saskia Horley began slowly enough, but soon were moving through the gears, both regularly going onto the back foot to muscle the ball to the boundary through an arc from extra cover to midwicket. Together they added 130 runs in 20 overs, but then both got out: Pindoria caught at cover and then next ball, Horley going for an overthrow that was never there, was easily run out.

Another re-set was required, with two new batters. Trussler soon departed, edging behind, but it was Artemis Downer and Abbie Whybrow who added the extra oomph that was need in the late middle overs, regularly finding the boundary. Whybrow at one point knocked over her own stumps after hitting a four. The umpires discussed it at length, before concluding, much to Kent’s chagrin, that the ball had already crossed the rope at the point the stumps were broken, therefore she was not out.

It was a good total for Middlesex as they closed on 306/7, Whybrow dismissed for 48, but Downer unbeaten on 67. However, there was a sense that they had possibly left a few runs out there. Nevertheless, it was a very challenging total for Kent to chase, but having scored 314 earlier this season at Beckenham, it was a total they knew they had within them.

The key to success for Middlesex was surely to get Streets out early. And sure enough, in the sixth over, Kent’s prodigious run scorer was gone. Layla Judge, bowling fast and not always accurate left arm seam, was occasionally getting it right. As the ball was swinging a lot for her, she managed to send down at least one wide per over, but in her third and fourth overs, she got the ball to swing viciously back in to the right handers, removing Streets’ middle stump, then repeating the trick to Kelly Castle.

Maddie Blinkhorn-Jones and wicket-keeper Rachel King, on loan from Surrey, then combined for an exciting and productive 10-over spell in which they took the game to Middlesex and started to make the Londoners feel a little nervous and uncomfortable. It seemed that Kent, after all, could actually bat well without a major contribution from Streets. Blinkhorn-Jones eventually edged behind for a run a ball 44, but Elsa Barnfather came in and carried on in exactly the same aggressive vein. Alongside her, King was still there, muscling her way ever closer to a century, which she duly achieved as she joyously smashed the ball back over Siya Nanavati’s head.

Suddenly, with 10 overs to go, Kent needed 61 with six wickets in hand and a set batter with a century to her name. The pendulum had swung. This game was Kent’s to lose.

Horley, desperate for a breakthrough as the game slipped away, brought herself back on. Almost immediately, she dismissed the centurion King, who dragged herself from the field distraught at a job unfinished. As the target got closer, first Hardwick, then Hollie Young were dismissed. Kent were seven wickets down with 30 runs still needed.

It was the unlikely combination of Genevieve Jeer and Izzy James who brought Kent to the edge of victory, needing just 10 from the final 3 overs. A four and a two from the first two balls of the 47th over meant that Kent were within one strike of a win. However, Izzy James skied a catch to Saskia Horley at extra cover. 8 wickets down. 4 runs needed. Were Kent about to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory?

It was the second ball of the penultimate over. Saskia Horley to Genevieve Jeer. The ball was sent tantalisingly outside off-stump. Jeer reached for it and delicately played a late cut down to the backward point boundary. Kent had won by two wickets. Middlesex had lost their second ever One Day Cup game.

Post-script: So why did Kent win and why did Middlesex lose?

This is the third time I have seen Middlesex in this season’s One Day Cup. The impression that they gave me in their wins over Derbyshire and Gloucestershire was of an energetic, chirpy and well-organised team. Their stand-out ability was their fielding. They had this way of denying the oxygen of runs to the opposition which added pressure and brought about mistakes. They were particularly adept at catches and run-outs. Their batting line up, as previously mentioned, has a depth unusual in Tier Two.

All of this was missing today. Any chirp out there seemed to have little effect on the opposition. Their fielding was poor. King, who scored 106, was dropped four times during her innings. Any of those fairly regulation catches would have changed the course of the game. Their poor running between the wickets cost them two of their most important batters at a crucial time – Horley’s dismissal was the most bizarre. She ambled through for an overthrow as if she didn’t care and watched the bails being removed from a distance without much of an attempt to get home.

I came away from the game feeling that Middlesex are a much better collection of players than Kent, but showed little hunger to win and demonstrated the sort of complacency which often brings about unnecessary defeat. They clearly felt that 306 was enough, whereas 320 or more surely would have been. Middlesex, when batting, scored only 32 runs from their last five overs – and it feels that this was the turning point of the game. Kent were pleased to have restricted Middlesex to a gettable total, whilst Middlesex believed that they already had enough runs.

The influence of loan players is also a key factor. Middlesex don’t have any, Kent have two. Hardwick was surplus to requirement at Warwickshire, but picked up a contract with Hampshire last summer. She still looks like a bowler who sits between Tier One and Tier Two, but her 1/52 today was a better economy than all but one of her Middlesex counterparts.

King’s innings was ultimately the difference between the two sides. The 21 year old, on loan from Surrey, comes from the agricultural school of batting – safe to say she’s no Smriti Mandhana – but she was highly effective today, without being faultless and secure at any point.

Middlesex’s bowling was poor. 19 year old Siya Nanavati was their opening strike bowler, delivering right arm medium pace. She had a bad day, conceding 10 boundaries in her nine overs. The spin of Routledge and Hannah Davis was similarly punished. However, Middlesex didn’t have or were unwilling to use a sixth bowler to mix things up.

On the positive side, Judge was a really interesting left arm pace bowler. The 23 year old caused genuine discomfort to the batters, but was not quite consistent and accurate enough to deliver a match-winning performance for her side. Her figures of 2/51 were by far the most economical in her team, but included seven wides, as she struggled to control the swing of the ball. Her dismissals of Streets and Castle were spectacular and if she could do that more regularly, she would be playing in Tier One.

The most effective bowler on show today, however, was Kent’s Sydney Gorham. Her seemingly innocuous and slightly loopy medium pace proved difficult for the Middlesex batters to get away and her 37 dot balls caused immense frustration – the sort of bowling that buys wickets for other bowlers, as batters try to compensate for Gorham’s over with more risky shots against others.

Middlesex’s next game is against Sussex at Arundel on Sunday 2 August. Kent travel to Redditch to play Worcestershire on the same day.

*No we haven’t poached him. The editor of Noughtie Child is on holiday.

By Jack Oastler

I came to Loughborough for the first time two years ago, and fell in love for a very specific reason. The mound in front of Haslegrave cricket pitch. That day, my local team Sunrisers were playing a friendly against The Blaze, and I saw my future – sat underneath the flag poles, with a picnic and friends, watching professional sport like I belonged.

About six months ago, they put a picket fence at the bottom of that mound. Hardly insurmountable – I think I could jump over it, and I’ve seen several people do exactly that this year – but it seemed to send a message. For whatever reason, somebody didn’t want us to sit and watch.

Still, when the ICC announced Loughborough would be hosting four warm-up matches for the Women’s T20 World Cup, I was excited. The tournament was in danger of overlooking the East Midlands, with Nottingham, Derby and Leicester all ignored in the main schedule, so this was much needed exposure for a region normally full of cricket.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere, well over an hour from my closest first-class county. I once got excited when Chris Woakes went to a pub 45 minutes from my house. So the idea of Laura Wolvaardt, Marizanne Kapp and Shabnim Ismail limbering up for a World Cup, a three minute walk from my University flat? Awesome.

Unfortunately, my flat was practically as close as I’d get. The weather was hardly great, but after Ireland did an admirable job of restricting the South Africans to 135-8, I decided to pop over to watch the chase. But when I eventually arrived at Haslegrave, I saw a line of people standing behind purple barriers. Behind the fence. Security guards dotted around. You could see the middle, but there was a mound-shaped blockage covering about a third of the outfield.

“No worries,” I thought. “I know my way around.” I confidently set off down the hill, only to see the road entrance to the pitch was also barricaded off. Back up the hill a bit, I found what seemed like a perfect spot, round the back of the computer science building which overlooks Haslegrave from one end.

For one glorious ball, everything was perfect – I had the best seat in the house as Ismail bowled Gaby Lewis. Immediately, though, a security guard – who sounded equally as confused as apologetic – told me he’d been asked to direct people back up to the hill. Where I was standing was practically a balcony – I don’t think I could have made it to the pitch if I’d tried. I’d like the job of the guy who gets to stand there, with a pretty perfect view, and tell people to move away.

My favourite spot to watch cricket on Haslegrave is a little mound outside the athletics centre, which lets you see over the hedge, just to the left of the wicket at the other end. That had been covered, too – by a sightscreen, but what I’d consider a comically large one.

Last week, I stood on top of that hill and watched from nearly behind the arm as Ben Stokes ran in to bowl. Maybe he thought I was an Australian spy. If I was a clever spy, though, I would have watched Ireland vs South Africa on Youtube with a cup of tea.

So it was back to the hill. Even right up against the barrier, as close as I could get, it was difficult to pick out who was who. And the obstructions directly impacted our experience of the game. Rebecca Stokell had made a promising start, and I was ready to cheer as she launched one out to the deep midwicket boundary. Tazmin Brits caught it. I couldn’t tell you how she caught it – maybe she juggled it three times, did ten keepy-uppies and did a somersault – because I didn’t even know she was there until she emerged from the shadow of the ECB Performance Centre.

Later on, Nadine de Klerk ended the game as a contest with a fantastic catch, diving forward at long-off, to see off Arlene Kelly for 15. I was on my tiptoes to see that, and had to describe what was happening to the family next to me. I would guess maybe seven or eight external supporters saw that – not only a piece of world-class cricket from a world-class player, but a pivotal moment in the match. Seven or eight. Women’s cricket deserves better than that, warm-up or not.

Dotted around the pitch were a few deckchairs. We had three on the mound in front of us; at no point were all three full. A bit annoying when your only option is to stand. The chairs seemed to be for the few who could mill around inside the ground – most of whom were wearing Loughborough Sport uniform, or ECB kit. I’m sure they all had a valid reason to be there, but these are not the people you need to get to watch the games. They already know about this. And as a fan, it felt a little frustrating to see that a uniform could get you inside, but a replica shirt wasn’t enough.

What strikes me about this situation is what a perfect opportunity these fixtures were to ramp up interest in this tournament. Four of the world’s best teams, right in the heart of Loughborough University campus. That’s a ready-made audience of thousands of young people – thousands of sporty young people, no less – who walk past this pitch every single day. They’ve seen the branding going up. Who else is that for? Of course there are students who saw the massive signs saying “World Cup” and found that intriguing. So why are you not enticing them to watch? Why are you hardly letting them watch?

Whether it likes it or not, the ECB’s mission statement with this tournament should be to transform the UK’s perspective on women’s cricket. Nat Sciver-Brunt has outwardly spoken about the hope that the England team can have its “Euros moment” – referencing the explosion of women’s football since the Lionesses won Euro 2022 on home soil – and parallels have also been drawn to the England women’s rugby team which won the World Cup here last year. But I don’t get the impression that the ECB are doing everything they can to engage people with this tournament. A Hello Kitty promotion campaign is all well and good, but why not try actually exposing people to cricket?

I have friends who are Irish, who are Bangladeshi, who are Kiwis – and who doesn’t love South Africa? There are three high-level women’s cricket squads in Loughborough, and five men’s. So many people who, if given the chance, would surely bring their friends along for a nice day watching world-class cricket up close.

I don’t think any of them were there this morning – no surprise, as no effort has been made to make people aware that these games are happening. Even if they had been, their friends were more likely to leave with severe neckache than a new love for the sport.

Here’s hoping the actual tournament does better.