It is a recurrent trope in cricket commentary that T20 is a “levelling format”. In T20s, we say, upsets are more common because anyone can beat anyone on the day; whereas ODIs are a more predictable format where the better team tends to pull through. But is this true?

In order to answer this question, let’s look at all ODIs and international T20s played since the pandemic (2020-23) between the top 10 sides, and use the current ICC rankings*. We’ll define an “upset” as a team beating a side ranked 3 or more places above them.

In men’s T20 internationals 16% of the 250-odd matches played during our period resulted in an upset. That sounds quite “levelly”; but how does that compare to men’s ODIs? The men play a lot less ODI cricket, but there were still 170 games between the top 10 ranked sides during the past 4 years, of which 21% produced an upset.

So much for the levelling effect – in the men’s game, an ODI is 5% more likely to produce an upset than a T20.

What about the women? In T20 cricket, based on 180-or-so matches between the ‘Championship’ sides since 2020, just 8% resulted in an upset. That compares to 16% in men’s T20s, which is interesting of itself – international women’s T20 cricket is a lot more predictable than the men’s game.

But how does this compare to women’s ODIs? In the 130 ODIs played in the past 4 years, the number ending in an upset is… 8% – exactly the same as for T20s! So a Women’s T20 international is no more likely to produce an upset than an ODI. The levelling effect which we talk so much about, once again just isn’t there in the data.

This leads us to two conclusions:

1. The “levelling effect” of T20 is a myth, in both men’s and women’s international cricket, and we all need to get over our confirmation bias and stop repeating it!
2. Women’s cricket is very predictable, compared to the men’s game, and perhaps we should do something about that?

——

* This isn’t ideal – because the rankings are based on the results, there is something of the cart pushing the horse, but it keeps things simple, and it actually doesn’t matter much anyway because we are looking at the results comparatively.

This week:

• ECB’s response to ICEC – talking the right talk but will they walk the walk?
• Will we get an England Test at Lord’s?
• Domestic salaries: why we need to level up
• South Africa v New Zealand & why NZC’s lack of a pathway is coming home to roost

Chasing a lowish total in the RHF Trophy final, Southern Vipers lost their top order cheaply, but came back from the dead thanks to a rearguard action led by top scorer Emily Windsor, to lift the title at Northampton.

Oh no… hang on… that wasn’t today… it was two years ago – chasing 183, Vipers were 109-7, but Windsor and Tara Norris brought it home with an unbeaten stand of 78, with 2 balls to spare.

It was actually a lot less squeaky this time. Vipers were 109-5 when Windsor came together with Freya Kemp, but whereas last time they had ground-out the runs they needed, this time they cruised to victory.

Two years ago, it didn’t feel like Windsor was the kind of player who could have gone at over a run a ball for 15 overs. She was someone who had evolved up in the old county pathway, where keeping your wicket intact was prized above all, and her run rate in 2021 reflected that – 47 off 97 balls – a strike rate of 48.

But times have changed, and Windsor has changed with them. From 109-5 today, Vipers needed another 92, and they got them at well over a run a ball, with Windsor finishing on 57 off 53 – a strike rate of 108 – more than double that of two years before.

She even did it without the feeling that she was really going for it. The ropes weren’t in miles; and the outfield wasn’t particularly quick, though it was in notably better nick than it has sometimes been at this ground by the end of the season. But she pushed and prodded, guiding the ball into the gaps – taking the boundaries when the ball had the legs, and running hard when it didn’t.

Freya Kemp also deserves a lot of credit for holding her nerve, and resisting the temptation to play the big shot which could have been her… and the Vipers… downfall. Given that there wasn’t a lot of batting to come, her 32 off 35 balls was almost as important as Windsor’s innings.

It so nearly wasn’t to be for the Vipers today. Josie Groves looked to have turned the game with 3 wickets in 8 balls, including the two set batters, the Georgia’s Elwiss and Adams. Quite how Groves got the ball to flutter like the first butterfly of summer, past the bat of Georgia Adams, I’ll never know. Possibly Groves won’t either. It looked set to be her day, and I even had the headline ready – Get On The Grovey Train – a much better headline than the one you’ve just clicked on too!

Groves didn’t deserve to be on the losing side today. Neither did Grace Ballinger who opened the bowling with more dots than the morse code – 5 overs in the powerplay, 3 maidens, and just two runs. Nor did Marie Kelly, who has been on the wrong end of the result in all 3 domestic finals this season.

It has been a cruel summer indeed for Blaze, who headed the table in the Charlotte Edwards Cup, and were at the top of the ladder in the RHF Trophy until literally the very last moments of the season, with Vipers overtaking them by a cat’s whisker on Net Run Rate in the final round of games in the group stages.

So the Vipers juggernaut thunders on. They lost games this summer, most notably to Sunrisers in the season-opener at the Ageas back in April. But when it mattered, they dug deep, and never more so than today. We’ve made a choice in cricket – the “winner” isn’t the best team through the season, as it is in football, where the league rules all – it is the team which handles the pressure of the big moments at the climax. And once again, that was the Southern Vipers – in 2023, cricket belongs to them.

This week:

• Raf tells Parliament how to fix women’s sport
• Sunrisers shine & Diamonds decline in the RHF
• We get cross about the lack of a Blaze home ground for the RHF Eliminator
• England v Sri Lanka ODIs reviewed
• What next for Bess Heath?

A typical score in a normal, 50-over ODI between the ICC Championship sides is 245. Crudely adjusted for a 31-over game, a par score today would have been 152. England had more than that after 17 overs, and finished on 273-8, which would have been a decent outing in a full 50-over game.

In truth, 31 overs is more like an extended T20 than a shortened ODI, and England treated it as such. Nat Sciver-Brunt hit the fastest hundred ever by an English woman in an ODI, and Maia Bouchier played admirably fearlessly for her 95. I’m normally a paid-up member of the No One “Deserves” a Hundred club, but I’m temporarily resigning my membership here to say that today The Mighty Bouch Deserved a Hundred!

England got off to a shaky start, scoring just 28-2 in the 6-over powerplay, but then Sciver-Brunt and Bouchier exploded, rocketing along at nearly 12 runs per over during the Early Middle and Middle phases. Sri Lanka’s bowlers had no answers. We talk about players “milking” singles sometimes in long-form cricket; but here NSB and Bouch were basically milking boundaries, finding the rope 33 times between them.

At one stage 300 was a possibility, but the run rate fell off a bit in the late middle phase, and it was actually only after NSB and Bouch were dismissed that it went up again, as England’s late middle order continued in T20 fashion – sacrificing 6 wickets in the final phase but getting the run rate back over 8 again.

Bess Heath had license to have a bit of a bash, and grabbed 21 off 14 balls on debut, though there was a certain inevitability about her being caught off a slog-sweep on the boundary out towards cow corner – Sri Lanka had planted not one but two catchers there for a reason! It would be unfair to say that Heath is one-dimensional – she brought out a couple of other shots today, including a reverse slog-sweep – but she needs to watch how Nat Sciver-Brunt plays to take her game forwards into 3 dimensions over the next couple of years.

Now… having just spent several paragraphs raving about England’s batting, I’m about to say something controversial. NSB shouldn’t have been Player of the Match. Hundreds might not quite be two-a-penny, but they are pretty common these days – there have been 15 tons scored for England in the past 5 years. In that time there have been just four 5fers. With bowlers only permitted to bowl a maximum of 20% of an innings, grabbing a 5fer is a much more impressive, and consequently rarer, achievement.

So… yes… I’m saying it: Charlie Dean should have been Player of the Match for her 5fer.

They were proper Off-Spinner’s Wickets too – Dean doesn’t get a lot of turn, but she does get some, and she showed today that you don’t need a lot if you land the ball consistently in the right spot. In life generally, if you keep asking the same question over and over, you’ll not only annoy people, but you’ll likely get the same answer. But spin bowling is a bit of an exception to that rule – you ask the question… then you ask it again… then you ask it again… then you get the answer you want, as a catch is nicked to the keeper or back into your own leaping hands, or the ball shimmies through the gate and onto off stump.

Lauren Filer also picked up another 3fer and a Player of the Series award of a bottle of “I Definitely Can Believe It’s Not Champagne But They Sponsor Us, So… Yer”. Player of the Series was nominated by the Sky Sports comms team, and I can see why Charles Dagnall likes Filer – he doubtless sees something of himself in her – tall and quick and “a bit ‘ard”. But the jury is still out for me. How she fares in India will be a key test, if England are trying to build a team to have a shot at the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh next October. And if she does well and proves me wrong, I’ll be the first to stand up and say it.

And with that, another international summer ends. England have had their ups and downs; but they finish it on a positive note – with 5 more ICC Championship points in the bag, and only denied a 6th by the weather in Northampton, when it would have taken a miracle of saintly proportions for Sri Lanka to have salvaged the game if the rain hadn’t intervened to do so for them.

Perhaps even more importantly, England have started to rebuild for the future. They haven’t found all the combinations yet, and the captaincy succession remains an issue in the shorter term, though it becomes increasingly clear that Grace Scrivens is the answer a little further down the line. But under Jon Lewis they have taken steps they didn’t take under Lisa Keightley, and that is really the story of this summer – the one which would be keeping me awake at night if I was an Australian looking at the next ten years.

This week:

• England v Sri Lanka – the T20 series post-mortem
• The return of Meg Lanning
• England A to tour New Zealand
• Shocking disparities in pay for women umpires