Author: Syd Egan

OPINION: England Women Lose Two Year Central Contracts

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I should perhaps begin by stating two things for the record:

  1. I think the central contracts for England women have outlived their usefulness, and should be abolished.
  2. Issuing two year contracts to players coming towards the end of their careers, as the ECB did last year, was difficult to justify.

Nonetheless, the ECB clearly do believe in the central contracts system, and last year they issued seven two year contracts alongside 10 standard one year deals. The accompanying press release included a quote from England Women’s Player Partnership Management Board Member, Emma Reid, who said:

“EWPP and the PCA are really encouraged at the progression of standards within the Women’s Central Contracts, achieved through strong collaboration between the ECB and player representatives. It is positive to see multi-year agreements.“ [Emphasis mine.]

Just a few weeks ago, the ECB effectively restated their commitment to the principle of two year contracts by issuing 14 of them to the men.

So it was something of a surprise when this year’s contracts were announced to see that the two year deals awarded to Amy Jones, Heather Knight etc. have not been extended, and have now de-facto become one year deals again. (The press release is a bit vague, but we’ve had it confirmed that none of the two year deals were “rolled” and everyone’s contract now expires in October 2026.)

So one minute, two year deals are encouraging, positive progress, not to mention being thrown around like confetti for the men; the next they are literally last year’s news.

I’m wondering what has changed… and I’m guessing players like Lauren Bell and Sophie Ecclestone are too!

The CRICKETher Weekly – Episode 297

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This week:

  • Heat crash out of WBBL
  • Why England players haven’t fared too well in the WPL auction
  • 2026 English domestic fixtures announced
  • Erin Osborne to shake things up at Somerset
  • FairBreak’s questionable decision to set up in Saudi Arabia

 

PLAYER RANKINGS: World Cup

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Batting Rankings

Batting Rankings Matches Runs Dot % Single % Boundary % Strike Rate
1. L Wolvaardt 9 571 48 35 14 99
2. A Gardner 5 328 34 43 18 131
3. S Mandhana 9 434 49 35 14 99
4. AJ Healy 5 299 43 33 21 125
5. P Litchfield 7 304 51 29 19 112
6. RM Ghosh 8 235 44 31 20 134
7. JI Rodrigues 7 292 42 41 13 102
8. N de Klerk 7 208 46 31 21 133
9. HC Knight 7 288 52 33 11 86
10. SFM Devine 5 289 48 40 9 85
11. Pratika Rawal 6 308 56 31 10 78
12. H Kaur 8 260 49 36 11 89
13. NR Sciver-Brunt 6 262 50 35 9 85
14. M Kapp 8 208 44 40 12 103
15. T Brits 9 235 57 26 13 89
16. DB Sharma 7 215 34 56 7 90
17. NND de Silva 5 168 39 41 13 112
18. BL Mooney 6 211 45 40 9 89
19. BM Halliday 5 227 49 40 9 82
20. AE Jones 8 220 57 27 12 84
Ranking = Runs * Strike Rate ©CRICKETher/cricsheet.org

Bowling Rankings

Bowling Rankings Matches Wickets Dot % Boundary % Wide % Economy
1. DB Sharma 9 22 48 11 2 5.52
2. S Ecclestone 7 16 61 7 2 4.06
3. A Sutherland 7 17 60 10 4 4.54
4. A King 7 13 61 8 1 4.04
5. LCN Smith 8 12 61 8 0 4.14
6. M Kapp 9 12 68 10 3 4.19
7. N Shree Charani 9 14 52 9 1 4.96
8. N Mlaba 9 13 56 9 2 4.84
9. LMM Tahuhu 6 10 66 10 10 4.62
10. Fatima Sana 5 10 62 11 3 5.07
11. Sadia Iqbal 5 8 62 10 2 4.47
12. N de Klerk 7 9 52 9 3 5.30
13. CE Dean 8 8 55 9 3 4.87
14. Rabeya Khan 7 7 62 9 1 4.32
15. K Goud 8 9 59 15 2 5.73
16. I Ranaweera 4 7 49 5 2 4.53
17. Nashra Sandhu 5 7 58 10 0 4.53
18. NR Sciver-Brunt 8 9 51 13 4 5.87
19. Nahida Akter 6 6 64 9 0 3.93
20. JM Kerr 7 8 54 10 7 5.43
Ranking = Wickets / Economy ©CRICKETher/cricsheet.org

WORLD CUP SEMI-FINAL: England v South Africa – The End

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If you score a century in Women’s ODIs, you will almost certainly win the game: a whopping 86% of the 348 centuries scored in Women’s ODIs before today resulted in a win. (Intriguingly, this is far higher than in the men’s game where it is only 73%.)

So the writing was on the wall for England when Laura Wolvaardt went past 100 in the 40th over; but to ensure that South Africa reached their first 50-over World Cup final, there was still work to do. With 10 overs remaining, Wolvaardt was on 102 and South Africa were 202-5, 80-100 runs short of where they needed to be. England were still in the game, especially a ball later when Annerie Dercksen tried to reverse sweep Sophie Ecclestone and played-on. South Africa had the platform, and the long middle order right down to Nadine de Klerk – a very handy player to have coming in at 9 – but Wolvaardt’s job was still to turn a good innings into a great one.

South Africa 319-7 v England 194 #CWC25 🏏

— CRICKETher (@crickether.com) 2025-10-29T16:23:02.898Z

The “Milwaukee” (so-called because unlike the Manhattan, it has just a few towers on its skyline) says it all. In those last 10 overs, South Africa built an Empire State Building – 117 runs, at a Strike Rate of almost 200. Wolvaardt herself scored a further 68 runs off just 27 balls, at a Strike Rate of 252, as South Africa posted 319. Australia might have chased that; India could possibly have on their day; England were never going to.

Charlotte Edwards said after the game that she felt like England could have chased 280; and I accept there’s a certain logic there, that when faced with a chase of 320 you have to take risks and are more likely to get bowled out. But given that England were 1-3 after losing Amy Jones, Heather Knight and Tammy Beaumont, all for nought before a single run had been scored off the bat, Edwards’s assertion feels like a “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve” too far.

Notwithstanding that England’s assassin was 35-year-old Marizanne Kapp – who took 5-20 in one of the great performances of her long career – there’s a certain irony in the fact that the real problem here is age. At 32 (Jones) and 34 (Knight and Beaumont) the years are starting to take their toll, and while experience can counterbalance that to a certain extent, no one is immune to the march of time on the eyes in particular – you just aren’t seeing the ball as well as you were when you were 25. Yes, Jones and Beaumont got good balls (I’m not so sure Knight did); but good balls is what you get at this level – cook ’em, or get out of the kitchen!

Although I tipped England to win this World Cup just a couple of days ago (with the caveat that they didn’t deserve to!) I’ve been pretty consistent in saying this was the wrong team to take to this tournament. They had already proved during the Ashes that they weren’t good enough, and this is the same team – the only new player in this squad, Em Arlott, barely got a look-in – playing just one match when Lauren Bell was unwell.

I’m not suggesting a side led by Grace Scrivens would have won the World Cup – far from it, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t have even made the semi-finals. But at least the rebuild would have begun for the World Cups in 2029 and 2033, by which time Scrivens will still be nearly 4 years younger than Nat Sciver-Brunt is today.

2029 and 2033 are where we need to be looking now, which means it is (or should be) the end of the road for Jones, Beaumont, Knight, Sciver-Brunt, Danni Wyatt-Hodge and probably Sophia Dunkley too. None of them will thank me for saying it – they are all desperate to continue long enough to play in a home T20 World Cup next summer, and the Olympics in the summer after that. And perhaps there is a case for giving them one more shot in the T20 format in 2026; but where the squad for this World Cup (particularly the batting) looked to the past, the next ODI team that England select needs to be looking towards the future.

As someone once said: Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. The beginning that begun in 2016 under Mark Robinson, has now ended under Charlotte Edwards – the very player he sacked to usher in his new era. Now it’s her turn to wield the knife.

You’d hope that some of these players will see the writing on the wall and go with dignity; but in her post-match presser, NSB said: “This will hurt but hopefully in time we’ll be able to take the learnings from it and move forward.” Sadly, that suggests that she doesn’t get it – this team wasn’t good enough to beat the best in January 2025; it wasn’t good enough to beat the best in October 2025; and it won’t ever be good enough. It’s time to hand over to a new group of players that one day might be.