I made two predictions during England’s innings today – that they would get over 400, and that Sophia Dunkley was going to break Charlotte Edwards’ nearly 30-year-old record score for England in an ODI – 173* against Ireland during the 1997 World Cup in India. Like a man attempting to mow 4 gardens in one day, they were four-lawn hopes; as England somewhat squandered what felt like a real opportunity to go huge.

England lost 8 wickets caught, and the other two run out, as they were bowled out with 7 balls still in the bucket. Capsey was unlucky to see Kia McCartney get a finger onto a Dunkley drive which then went on to hit the stumps; while Charlie Dean got a good ball from Cara Murray which took an edge to Amy Hunter behind the stumps. The other 8 wickets to fall though were batter error – mostly attempts to hoik it out of the ground by players who apparently thought they’d gone back in time to 2016 when Mark Robinson’s England whacked Pakistan for 378 here on boundaries the size of a new penny!

Is Sophia Dunkley excused being caught on the rope because she got 119 off 119 balls… or all the more guilty because she’s been out there for 35 overs which should have been enough to work out that the rope was quite a long way away? Answers on a postcard to “Sophia Dunkley Competition, PO Box 119, London W1A 1AA” – the winner will receive a Magnum*.

(*The ice cream, not the champagne!)

From 242-4 at the 40 over mark, England will have been eyeing up a strong Death Phase to push past 300; instead they lost 6 wickets and gave Ireland the squeak of a chance as they finished on 291 all out.

It was only a squeak of course – 292 is a lot of runs, and while Ireland do have plenty of players that can strike at the sort of rates required on their day, the operative words here are “on their day”. Alice Tector played out a soporific 38 dots as she clawed her way to 29 off 59 balls – a Strike Rate of 43 when Ireland needed to be going at 100+. If you are scratching around for the positives, you might want to argue that Ireland weren’t going to win the match anyway, so it was a valuable hour (and a quarter!) out in the middle building up experience for the 18-year-old. At the other end, Amy Hunter looked to be working her way towards a third consecutive half century, before a Charge of the Light Brigade moment saw her ride headlong into the valley of death and get stumped off Mady Villiers.

It seems to be a dilemma faced by a lot of emerging sides that against the top teams they have plenty of players good enough not to get out, but many of those players can’t score quickly enough to have any chance of winning the game. This problem is compounded for Ireland by the fact that their best player (Orla Prendergast) is coming in at 4, so she isn’t getting time in the middle at a point where Ireland could realistically build a winning position. Today she came in with 20 overs (all but) gone and the game already a distant speck on the horizon. If Prendergast is going to be this team’s Hayley Matthews or Chamari Athapaththu she probably needs to move to the top of the order, even if that isn’t the “right” place for her to be.

Ireland made it to 40 overs with 5 wickets in hand, but lost their final 5 wickets for 10 runs, as England completed a better bowling performance, with Lauren Filer looking more threatening and Tilly Corteen-Coleman finding some turn (though she is still a liability in the field!)

England might not have hit 400; and Sophia Dunkley did not break Charlotte Edwards’ record, though she did pick up Player of the Match, Player of the Series and ODI Player of the Summer – the latter apparently being decided by the PCA’s computer, despite her not having played any of the ODIs v New Zealand. But England did the job they needed to do – there was no repeat of the slip-ups we saw in Ireland in 2024, when the hosts won two of the 5 matches. It hasn’t been a perfect summer for England by any stretch – we spoke to Charlotte Edwards after the game today, and she is clearly stung in particular by the way England performed in the Test against India, telling us that she will be arguing for some domestic red ball cricket to find a space in  the calendar going forwards, even if it is just 2-or-3 games per team rather than a complete “championship”. Next summer’s Ashes suddenly loom large, and that will be the real Test/test.

This week:

• ⁠England v Ireland: what have we learned?
• ⁠Champions Trophy moved to India
• ⁠Smriti Mandhana becomes all-time leading run-scorer
• ⁠A bonkers game between Somerset & Yorkshire in the One-Day Cup

It might be coming up to the end of the season here in England, but in a match that had “mid-season filler” written all over it, Ireland reverted to the mean (“the centre of a list of numbers”) while England reverted to the mean (“threatening and dangerous”), the latter winning so easily that this so-called “day-night” fixture was over before the night bit even really began.

There was perhaps one moment of almost-jeopardy towards the end, with England down to the last of their “proper” batters, before you get down to their long tail of “bowlers who bat a bit” with Charlie Dean next in. But given that by that stage England only needed 40-odd off almost 35 overs you’d think the likes of Dean and Mady Villiers would have had the nous to nurdle it around for the remaining runs, even if it had taken a bit longer.

In the end though they were not required to even pick up their bats, as the “Finish Fam” of Freya Kemp and Dani Gibson romped home, scoring just one run fewer in the Middle Phase than Ireland had done – the difference being that Ireland’s Middle Phase lasted 10 overs, while England’s lasted 3!

Of course, they were only in that position because Maia Bouchier had got them off to another smashing start, though in very on-brand fashion she managed to do so in such a way as to raise again all the old doubts about her ability to concentrate. First she ran out Sophia Dunkley by calling her through for what Cricinfo’s ball-by-ball correspondent nicely referred to as a “psychedelic single”, as in… “Are you on drugs?!?!”

It feels like this happens a lot, so I ran the numbers and they are pretty bad – she has now run out 9 partners in 72 matches, at a rate of 12% – a rate rivalled in the professional era (since 2014, counting players who have played more than 10 internationals for England across formats) by only Fran Wilson (7 in 54 matches, at 13%) and a certain Charlotte Edwards (4 in 31 matches, also at 13%). (And honestly, I think we can let Lottie off for this one, as the professional era was right at the end of her career, when her knees were shot!)

As if this wasn’t enough silliness, after pushing on towards a half-century Bouchier then managed to not only chase a ball she should have left well alone half way back to Leicester, but then plant it straight into the hands of short fine leg. She must have known the fielder was there, so we can only assume she had a total brain-fade, and her reaction – almost impaling herself with her own bat as she slumped to the floor – suggested she knew it too. Is there any other player in England that gets themselves out this often? (Yes – I know what you are going to say – it’s Grace Scrivens; but… any other player?)

Fortunately, England’s job with the bat had already been made easy, thanks to an Irish batting performance that was a bit of an ordeal for all concerned. Amy Hunter probably actually played a little bit better than 64 off 96 balls might suggest – she tried to play shots, but England’s fielding was pretty sharp and with big boundaries and an outfield that was slower than my 5k time up New Walk in Leicester this morning, the runs didn’t quite reflect the adventure! Hunter is one of those who would massively benefit from being able to play county cricket as a domestic player, and as a British citizen born in Belfast it is a travesty that she is unable to do that. (Honestly, she should sue the ECB; but it probably feels like a big scary thing to do, so I understand if she doesn’t want to be the one to make that move.)

Issy Wong was the key beneficiary of Ireland’s slump, picking up a first international 5fer largely by sticking to the basics. Less variations; no trying to bowl away-swingers; just honing-in on the stumps and waiting for the batters to make the mistake, which you can do in longer-form cricket. It is never going to get her picked ahead of Bell; but unless Lauren Filer suddenly actually does start regularly pushing 80mph, rather than just talking about it, it might be enough for Wong to get the nod as the second quick going forwards – it isn’t dissimilar to the Marizanne Kapp approach, and that hasn’t done her too badly!

Tilly Corteen-Coleman had a better outing with the ball than she did in Leicester, and picked up a couple of wickets; but she also stood out as England’s weak link in the field. I remember Lydia Greenway once saying that you need two of the three skills – batting, bowling and fielding – to play international cricket these days, so it has to be a concern that she is another “Genuine No. 11” but without the basic fielding skills that at least the likes of Bell and Filer offer. Of course, she is only just 19; but maybe international cricket isn’t the best place to be learning the basics of boundary-riding?

With the series wrapped-up, England could make changes for the 3rd ODI on Sunday, but I hope that Grewcock gets one more chance and is not swapped straight out for Pavely; though that would probably mean a rest for Villiers, who certainly doesn’t deserve to miss out either. (My guess however is that it will be Pavely for Grewcock.) I’d also like to see England bat first if they have the chance; though obviously that might not be their decision to make, and if you’re Ireland winning the toss you are probably batting again, I’d imagine. Ireland will doubtless be with me in hoping for a more interesting game; but England won’t care – if they win again, it will be job done.

A relatively inexperienced England side sailed to victory in the 1st ODI against Ireland at Leicester. Although there were no ODI debuts for England today, the 203 caps they fielded was less than half the 541 they had in their previous ODI against New Zealand earlier in the summer, even without Nat Sciver-Brunt (129 caps) playing in that match.

Having opted to bowl, it was far from the perfect performance with the ball from England. Particularly worryingly, England conceded 33 extras – the second most they have conceded in an ODI in the professional era, though to be fair the only time they conceded more – 40 against Pakistan in 2024 – they did also win the match.

It would be easy to point to England’s inexperienced wicket-keeper, playing her very first professional match with the gloves on; but the bowlers have to shoulder the brunt of the responsibility for 20 runs conceded in wides, with Issy Wong sending down 4 in a row in the 5th over, right after having given Capsey her first professional dismissal – a diving catch to her right to see off Alice Tector.

It wasn’t just the extras though – England’s bowling attack looked woefully short of ideas once Gaby Lewis and Amy Hunter had settled into a rhythm, going the best part of 25 overs without a wicket.  Lauren Filer at her best is intimidating and aggressive but she is perhaps learning, as Issy Wong did before her, that you can talk of 80mph until you are red in the face, but unless you can actually bowl it you need something else, and right now she doesn’t seem to have it; whilst England’s third seamer today, Dani Gibson, continues to look like a second-string county trundler because (for all her still largely unfulfilled batting talent) that’s what she is with the ball.

Even with Lauren Bell and Sophie Ecclestone, we’ve seen England struggle to take wickets against the top sides. Without them, they are struggling to take wickets against Ireland, the babyccinos on the ICC Championship’s barista board.

England let the game get away from them to such an extent that by the innings break they were facing a record run chase to get the series off to a winning start – they have scored more than 281 three times chasing before today, but they didn’t win any of those matches, so history was not in their favour. This was a friendly surface to bat on, but it was also a big boundary compared to some we’ve seen, thinking back in particular to Heather Knight’s first games as captain back in 2016, where England thrashed Pakistan on a series of pool tables!

So credit to England’s batters that they executed in a way the bowlers hadn’t, especially Maia Bouchier making her second ODI hundred. If you were going to pick nits, you’d point again at her inability to sustain her concentration – although she did make it to the hundred mark, she then got herself out immediately afterwards, and it was very much her getting herself out, rather than anything anyone in green did!

At one stage it looked like Bouchier and Sophia Dunkley were going to take it all the way, putting on 143 for the first wicket, by which time Ireland looked punch-drunk with England’s win probability already at 99% – a position they did not relinquish for the remainder of the match. Capsey did the job she was here to do – score the runs a better keeper would not have – whilst Freya Kemp literally drove the Irish to distraction. (Comparing the wagon-wheels of Kemp and Capsey is interesting – almost all of Capsey’s runs are in the top half of the clock-face, between 9 and 3; whereas the bulk of Kemp’s are in the bottom half between 3 and 9.)

The only disappointment for England with the bat will be Jodi Grewcock, who made just 9 before being bowled by Cara Murray. To a certain extent she was unfortunate to get probably the ball of the day turning around her; but she was culpable perhaps for playing it that bit too indecisively. It will be interesting to see whether Charlotte Edwards sticks with her, or swaps her out for Charis Pavely in the next match – it’s a tough one, because Pavely deserves the opportunity to show what she can do, but dropping Grewcock after one failure isn’t the way to build a player for the future.

If Charlotte Edwards is really brave, what she will actually do now is rest Bouchier, but I’m struggling to see it, especially with Bouchier being one of her long term projects, with the now-England coach having rescued her career at Hampshire when she was on the brink of giving up – a move that looks now to have been perhaps the greatest long-term triumph yet of her remarkable coaching career.

Batting

Bowling

This week:

• Rockets win The Hundred… but which player has played in the most Hundred finals?
• Attendances down? We crunch the numbers!
• Has the comp been dominated by overseas stars?
• Who will play in the England v Ireland series?

The first movie in the rebooted “Hundred” franchise ended with rockets being fired into the rising sun, which probably sounded a lot more exciting in the initial pitch-meeting than it eventually looked on-screen.

SunRisers Leeds had got close to Trent Rockets when they met in the group stages, taking it to the final set chasing 139 and falling just 5 short after Annabel Sutherland hit a somewhat academic 6 (with 12 still required) off the final ball.

But SunRisers failed to bring any of that game to Lord’s for today’s final, never recovering from losing 3 wickets in the powerplay, and setting Rockets just 92 to win, which they achieved at a canter.

https://bsky.app/profile/crickether.com/post/3mt7gxau3dc2l

Lord’s is the lowest-scoring of all the Hundred grounds, with an average 1st innings total of just 120 across the seasons, compared with Edgbaston at the other end of the scale, where a typical score is 134. But it’s hard to blame the pitch for today’s performance, given that Rockets chased down the target at a rate which would have seen them rack-up a massive 170 had they maintained it across 100 balls.

Bryony Smith’s role at the top of the order for SunRisers is obviously very much the same role she plays at Surrey, to go hard or go home – but this season in The Hundred has mostly been the latter, and Kim Garth clearly had her number – Smith had no clue what to do with a delivery speared in to her ankles, and gave up an easy catch to Nat Sciver-Brunt on the ring.

Lauren-Winfield Hill’s first delivery was a wide but that was as good as it got for her, as a “rocket” of a ball from Garth had her heading back to the pavilion for a golden (though perhaps that should be goldenish due to the wide?) duck. As she walked through the gate that leads up to the Long Room, Winfield-Hill took just a moment to look around her, in a manner which hinted that perhaps she might know something we don’t. I’m sure she will finish the season for Yorkshire, but perhaps she realises time is finally catching up with her in her 36th year?

Having therefore not got off to the accelerated start they’d have hoped for, it was all on Phoebe Litchfield and Annabel Sutherland to make the running for SunRisers. They have both had good Hundreds, with Sutherland being named Player of the Tournament after finishing as the leading run-scorer, with Litchfield just behind her in second place. But Litchfield, like Maia Bouchier, does seem particularly vulnerable to the odd brain-fade; and she was caught at short fine trying to ramp a ball from Charley Phillips that was never in a month of Sundays going to be travelling fast enough to play that shot.

And in many ways, that was… as our American friends (most of them still are our friends… I think!) say… “the ball game”. Sutherland obviously felt she needed to play a more conservative “anchor” innings and try to see it through; but with Deepti chewing up balls at the other end on her way to a pedestrian 12 off 16, it was leading them down a road there would be no coming back from.

Dani Gibson did eventually realise that risks needed to be taken, and took advantage of a run of leg-side deliveries to find the boundary 3 times in a row; but then went looking for the same shot again off a delivery on a very different line, and again was caught on the ring. The rest of the wickets fell like dominos, and 9 balls went unused as SunRisers were bowled out for 91.

It was another in a long list of under-par first innings scores in this comp, and they’ve generally been followed by the team batting second proceeding to drearily game-manage their way to the target in a fashion that calls to mind “that” Batman film – you know the one, starring George Clooney!

So we should at least be thankful that Trent Rockets responded by going out and playing positively. Sophia Dunkley led the way with a cracking 41, though it is a pity she didn’t finish the job – a mere 15 more would have put her at the top of the run tree ahead of Sutherland and Litchfield.

Nonetheless the start Dunks and Beth Mooney had given Rockets ensured that the result was so little in doubt that they spent the entire innings on 99% win probability, which the loss of those couple of wickets towards the end didn’t dent in the least.

It was, as Sutherland admitted afterwards, a win that Rockets deserved – they dominated the table and had the numbers to back that up, particularly with the bat. Dunkley was the standout, but beneath her it was very much a team effort with NSB, Sophie Luff, Beth Mooney and Ash Gardner all chipping in; whilst with the ball, Sam Bates (who, remarkably, has the same number of Australia caps that I do – ie. none!) finished as the joint leading wicket-taker, backed up by Ash Gardner, Kim Garth and Charley Phillips – the latter mixing it with the international stars in her first season in this (or any other) franchise competition.

Rockets had never made the final before this year, but assuming that teams will be able to retain most of their players for the next couple of seasons, following roughly the model of the IPL/WPL, they look like they will be the team to beat next season, and into the Hundred-Verse.