* England Wasted A Good Toss

Though this was a good pitch, on an overcast morning bowling was the obvious choice; so it was a bit of a no-brainier for Charlotte Edwards to put the Aussies in and throw the ball to Brunt and Shrubsole. And although the Stars didn’t quite get off to a flyer, England nevertheless failed to make the inroads they must have been hoping for, allowing the Australian openers to build a solid platform which their middle order later exploited with aplomb. So the toss win was somewhat wasted, but…

* Australia Wasted Their Final Overs

With just two wickets down going into the last 10 overs of their innings, at 187/2 the Stars must have been eyeing up a score nearer to 280; so 259/6 represented something of a mini-victory for England at that that stage of the match; and from an England perspective 260 certainly felt “gettable” albeit it would have been close to a record chase.

* Edwards On Top of the World

Although Lanning got the big score (and the big Man of the Match champagne) it was Edwards that looked like the one player truly in command of the crease today; playing it like she had all the time in the world to pick her shots. In the end it wasn’t the Aussies but the drinks break that did for her, as an uncharacteristic lapse in concentration saw her bowled by a nothing delivery from Megan Schutt.

* England Batting Like… England

Edwards aside, England batted largely like… well… England! Knight looked scratchy and survived a couple of edges which really should have been caught by Healy. Taylor got a start but didn’t push on; and once the ‘keeper was dismissed, England collapsed, Gangnam Style. As Megan Schutt admitted afterwards, all Australia had to do was bowl straight and the wickets fell faster than the stock market on Black Wednesday.

* Cricket Was The Winner

Okay, if you are an England fan this is scratching around for consolation; but for the second match in a row we’ve had a crowd of well over 3,000 at a women’s international, which is just brilliant; and full credit to the ECB, Sky, the BBC and the counties who have all pulled together to market this series like no other series in “our” game has ever been marketed before.

It will be interesting though to see what the mainstream press make of things now they don’t have a victory to trumpet. Yesterday’s headlines were of the “Girls show the boys how it’s done!” ilk. Are we now showing them how it’s NOT done? 😉

* Australia Lost It Early

Speaking after the match, Ellyse Perry hit the nail on the head: “We didn’t get off to a great start with the bat.” And yes, that really was the difference.

Jess Jonassen (career ODI Strike Rate 87) made just 5 off 17 balls (SR 29); bringing to the crease Meg Lanning (career ODI SR 97) who then scored only 6 off 18 balls (SR 33).

In short, this was not the kind of start the Southern Stars are used to making; and they were playing mental catch-up with themselves ever after, leading to some risky running in the last 15 overs, and 4 of their last 5 wickets falling to Run Outs. 

* Villani Holding Back

Ellyse Villani’s Strike Rate was a more respectable 69; but she looked timid at the crease, as if she was consciously holding back her more natural attacking instincts; and her tame dismissal reflected that – caught at square leg, basically not even playing a shot.

* Blackwell Down The Pitch

Alex Blackwell had a couple of big LBW shouts against her, but they were never going to be given because she was coming a long, long way down the pitch to almost every ball. This was a definite tactic – she wasn’t doing it for Berkshire last month! England need to look at how they can counter this, maybe by bowling for the stumping?

* Sciver NOT Smashing It

Nat Sciver made a career-best 65 in her last match in New Zealand. Today she went one better – 66 off 75 balls, and a well-deserved Man of the Match medal to boot!

I think she looked more relaxed at the crease here than I’ve ever seen her before, and she was playing with a grace and elegance which she has sometimes lacked – not trying to smash it out of the ground, but pivoting and pirouetting into her shots.

Nat is a supremely fit individual – probably the most athletic of the current squad – but she seems to have realised that cricket is about more than being able to bench-press the ball into the stands; and it is a lesson that others, particularly some on the fringes of the team, could well learn!

* Elwiss To The Manor Born

Georgia Elwiss hasn’t had the best start to the season at county level, but pulling the England shirt on today (for the first time in over a year) she looked to the manor born from the first ball, and you get the sense that this could be her summer.

A (slight) surprise selection she may have been, but Elwiss has definitely NOT left the building! (If this form continues, expect to see her batting higher up the order too, by September!)

There might not have really been much actual substance in today’s WBBL announcement – just one player per team was unveiled, plus the dates and a (somewhat disappointing) TV schedule. But as a the marketing around the event gets serious, the Women’s Big Bash is already looking set to be the Women’s Big SPLASH!

Cricket Australia have form here – the Men’s Big Bash is a tightly coordinated exercise, run under close central control, under the American model of sports franchising, which emphasises the collective health of the competition as a whole, over and above that of individual teams.

And that is one advantage the WBBL has in being a ‘spin off’ of the (M)BBL – the team uniforms look amazing, and are a million miles away from the “50 Shades of Black” we’ve currently got going on in our Women’s County Championship.

Plus CA clearly realises how important it is to show a human side to the corporate identity of the teams. So the Twitter feeds (because… OF COURSE they all have Twitter feeds… and OF COURSE they all look AWESOME) carefully balance the WBBL logo, the team badge and the faces of the key players announced thus far.

All in all, Cricket Australia have done a fantastic job. They realise that WBBL is first and foremost a BUSINESS which needs to be successful in engaging their potential CUSTOMERS – i.e. the fans – and they’ve set the standard which the ECB’s new Women’s Cricket Super League is going to have a hell of a job to follow.

How does the standard of England’s Women’s County Championship compare to Australia’s Women’s National Cricket League? Perhaps one player’s stats tell a story?

New South Wales’ Kara Sutherland had a pretty indifferent season in the WNCL in 2014-15. In 7 matches, the all-rounder took only 3 wickets at 52 and (admittedly batting down the order) scored just 1 run in 4 innings, averaging 0.5 thanks to a couple of not-outs. Looking back at previous years, the story is a similar one: Sutherland is a very good club player, who probably isn’t quite classy enough to play at the highest level of domestic cricket in Australia.

Consequently, it was something of a surprise when Kent – England’s reigning county champions, and home to (among others) England captain Charlotte Edwards and four other contracted England players – signed Sutherland as their “overseas” for the 2015 Women’s County Championship.

But watching Sutherland play for Kent against Berkshire and Ireland in the T20s, however, was something of a revelation – she looked pretty good, bowling at a similar pace to Daisy Gardner, who I rate as probably the best “county” bowler (excluding England and Academy players) around at the moment; and Sutherland’s stats reflect this. So far this season, she has taken 9 wickets at 21. Meanwhile with the bat, she averages 16 – not spectacular… but a lot better than 0.5!

As commentators, we’ve often wondered about the relative standard of the Women’s County Championship compared to the WNCL; and it is usually taken as a “given” that WNCL is the stronger.

But it can be difficult to find hard facts to back-up this hunch; and that is why The Strange Case of Kara Sutherland is so interesting. A player who struggles in WNCL but looks pretty good in the Women’s County Champs? I’d say this was rather strong evidence that domestic cricket in Australia is of a much higher standard than it is here… and that is a big part of why we need the ECB’s new Womens Cricket Super League to succeed in its mission to strengthen our domestic game.

When England’s Women’s Ashes ODI squad was announced earlier this week, the omission of Danielle Wyatt was no great surprise to followers of the women’s game. But it does beg the question: just what has TAFKAW* got to do to get selected for England outside of the T20 arena?

Even in T20s, Wyatt has had little opportunity to shine at international level recently. Since the contracts were put in place last year, she has played 6 T20s – three against South Africa last summer, and three versus New Zealand over the winter. But in those games, she has bowled only once, taking 0/5; and batted just twice, scoring 0 and 7. So whilst it is true that she could have made more of her opportunities… when those opportunities are so few and far between, is it really fair to expect her to instantly be able to just ‘turn it on’ at the highest level?

Meanwhile, Wyatt’s form at county level has been superlative – hitting runs all over the place, and averaging over 40, with a highest score of 102 in domestic cricket this season. Even her bowling seems to be getting back on track – we have seen her bowl twice this season and while she wasn’t turning it like Holly Colvin at Billingshurst, not many would be; and she has nevertheless done a job, taking 6 wickets at 29, and bowling very few bad balls.

In contrast, Georgia Elwiss, who was selected, has NOT had a great start to the county season – she averages just 19 with the bat, with a highest score of 34; and has taken only 3 wickets with the ball.

But Elwiss did have one opportunity which Wyatt did not – she was selected for the Academy tour of the UAE, where she made a hatful of runs against Australia’s youngsters – the Shooting Stars.

However, we must then raise the question: is scoring hundreds at county level really so much less valuable than making runs against a very inexperienced Shooting Stars team, in a series of “jumpers for goalposts”** matches on a road in the UAE?

Apparently, the England selectors think so… but I’m not so sure!

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* The Artist Formerly Known As WAG!
** These games were NOT played under standard international playing conditions, with teams effectively making substitutions and batting on when technically All Out.