The South African city of Gqeberha has been crying out for rain in the midst of a severe drought, so yesterday’s downpours were good news for everyone except cricket fans, who woke up to further persistent drizzle this morning, with two crucial matches being played at St. George’s Park – the oldest Test ground in South Africa.

England overcame India in the first of those matches, with the key difference being their spinners, who maintained their control where India’s had lost theirs, despite having to contend with a damp ball as the skies let loose once again part-way through India’s innings.

Having put England in, India had the better of the powerplay, almost entirely thanks to the brilliant Renuka, who took a wicket in each of her first 3 overs, finishing the powerplay with figures of 3 overs, 3-12; while the 3 bowlers used at the other end recorded 3 overs, 0-25. It was reminiscent of the way she had Australia on the ropes in the opening match of the Commonwealth Games; and how India must wish that bowlers could be permitted more than just the 4 overs in T20 cricket! From England’s perspective, Sophia Dunkley could perhaps have played a more appropriate shot, but there wasn’t a lot Danni Wyatt or Alice Capsey could have done differently – it was just good bowling.

To their credit, Heather Knight and Nat Sciver-Brunt didn’t flinch from playing positively, despite that less-than-ideal start, and England had their best phase of the match in the early middle overs, taking advantage of some wayward bowling from India’s spinners, which let England right back into it.

The fall of Knight led to another lull, but India again let England off the hook as Amy Jones took Pooja Vastrakar for 14 from the 15th over, setting England up for a decent finish – they’d definitely have taken 151 having been 29-3 early-doors. Things have been up and down of late for Amy Jones with the bat, but this was definitely a very good day to have an “up”, making 40 off 27 balls.

England decided to open with Katherine Sciver-Brunt today, rather than Lauren Bell – possibly to save Bell from having to bowl at the left-handed Smriti first-up – and her opening over went for just 4; but her second was a disaster. Having conceded consecutive 4s off not-terrible deliveries on the opening two balls, she predictably went short and equally predictably got hammered to the boundary twice more in the over. It should have been the end of her day, but it wasn’t… as we shall see!

Post-powerplay, Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn and Charlie Dean were into the action, and they locked India down tight, with the Strike Rate slipping back towards 75 in the early middle phases. In essence, this was where England won the match, given that India only fell 11 short in the end. Both Jemimah and Harmanpreet gave their wickets away trying to break out of the gaol England’s slower bowlers had them in, and although Smriti always remains a danger, she was forced to play within herself and try to anchor the innings, denying her the chance to accelerate her strike rate very much.

India did start to get the motor turning in the late-middle phase, thanks to Richa Ghosh, on her way to an eventual 47 off 34. (Somewhat counter-intuitively, Richa has looked a much better player in the senior World Cup than she did in the preceding U19 one, which might be a lesson for selectors for future U19 events if nothing else.)

Nonetheless, India looked dead and buried as the asking rate began to spiral in the death overs; until Knight made the inexplicable decision to bring back Katherine Sciver-Brunt for the final over, with India needing 31 and Charlie Dean still having an over in the locker. In some ways it was a risk free decision – statistically speaking no one ever makes even 10 off the final over in women’s T20s, let alone 31 – and India did not make 31; but they did make 19, as Sciver-Brunt was taken to the cleaners by Richa.

Sciver-Brunt has been a hero for England for more years than most of us can remember; but no one deserves a place on sentiment alone, and if she plays the next match, that will be the only reason. If that had been Bell, it would have been the end of her tournament, and probably fairly so. The last match of the group is one England (at time of writing) still have to win to be 100% sure of qualification – if Pakistan thrash West Indies and go on to win big in that last game against England, they could mathematically overhaul them on Net Run Rate. Freya Davies should be in the XI for that game.

They say that the USA and UK are two countries divided by a common language; and much the same could be said about cricket and baseball. They may share some basic characteristics, and even some terminology; but they are very different games, not least in their typical scorelines: while cricket measures its scores in hundreds, a baseball game will rarely end with more than a handful of runs being scored.

So to say that the last few overs of England’s match today against Ireland in Paarl felt a little like watching baseball is not exactly a compliment – especially after the exhibition of Bazball (or should that be… Jonball?) to which we had been treated earlier by Alice Capsey, hitting the joint-fastest ever T20 World Cup half century.

Having opted to bat first, Ireland got off to a pretty reasonable start, losing just one wicket towards the end of the powerplay, as Amy Hunter and Gaby Lewis played positively to take them to 42-1 at the 6-over mark.

Indeed the Irish kept chugging along at around-about a run-a-ball right up until the 13th over, when England brought back Sophie Ecclestone with Ireland well-placed at 80-2. Ecclestone’s impact was immediate – a double-wicket maiden, including the key scalp of Lewis, which turned the course of the game. From 80-2 Ireland went downhill on skis, before finally ending up face-down in a hedge in the 19th over at 105, having lost 8 wickets for 23 runs.

Although England’s 3 spinners shared the wickets around – Ecclestone and Sarah Glenn taking 3 apiece, and Dean 2 – Ecclestone’s importance as England’s “trump card” had already been underlined when she was brought into the attack in just the 3rd over, after the openers had gone for 18 in the first two overs. Ecclestone delivered then too, conceding just 3 – every time England need “something” it is her they turn to.

England’s reply saw Capsey into the action in the first over, after Dunkley holed-out; and she took little time to reassert her claim to be the most exciting young player in the world right now, hitting her 2nd and 3rd balls for consecutive boundaries. The punishment was just beginning for the Irish bowlers. Eimear Richardson went for 3 consecutive 4s in the 4th over, and probably shouldn’t have been given another at that stage, but she was, and she psychologically imploded – delivering 3 balls to Capsey which would have been wides with 9 sets of stumps, and having to watch as Capsey brutally slapped them for 3 more consecutive boundaries – the last a maximum to bring up her half century.

With England 69-1 at the end of the powerplay, it was on-course to be done inside 8 overs; but the dismissal of Capsey somehow spooked England – they started to lose more wickets and forgot how to score runs – losing 3 wickets in the 5-over “early middle” phase and making just 20 runs at a strike rate of under 75 – practically baseball territory, at least by the standards England have set themselves recently.

With plenty of time on their side, England were in a position to inch towards the Irish total, and inch they did, with Heather Knight requiring 23 balls to make her 14 runs; and then suffering a bit of a comedy-dismissal to put the cherry on the cake, as the ball wobbled like Mr Blobby on his way home from a long night out, onto the stumps after a mis-hit sweep.

At the end of the day, all that really matters is that England got the points and a healthy boost to their Net Run Rate, should they need it. But the last few overs did serve to remind us that whilst Capsey and Ecclestone are the kind of players who can make stuff happen, England don’t have the depth of Australia; and that whilst Australia can play badly and still make 170-odd, England aren’t quite at that level yet.

With temperatures in the middle at Boland Park in Paarl pushing 40 degrees, the heat hardly needed to be turned up any more; but England did it anyway – winning the opening game of their T20 World Cup campaign with 5 overs to spare, thanks to a brutal batting display which will inevitably be compared to Bazball.

England have been acclimatising in South Africa for a couple of weeks now, but Paarl is always hotter than England’s base at Stellenbosch, closer to the coast near Cape Town; and locals here in Paarl say this is one of the hottest Februarys they can remember. The last place you want to be at the height of the afternoon is out in the field, but that’s exactly where England found themselves, having lost the toss with Hayley Matthews choosing to bat.

Matthews herself got off to a decent start, making 37off 23 balls in the powerplay. Unfortunately, as if to emphasise the Windies’ current dependence on Matthews, this was 90% of their runs off the bat during the powerplay, with Stafanie Taylor at the other end looking desperately out of touch. Matthews had admitted in the pre-match press conference that it was touch and go for Taylor coming back from injury, and she was eventually put out of her misery two balls after the end of the powerplay for just 3 off 15 balls.

England won’t be completely satisfied with the start they allowed the West Indies to make. Lauren Bell couldn’t get her lines right as she struggled to control her swing, and though she got away with it in her first over, conceding just 3, two of which were wides – one down leg and one down off – she wasn’t so fortunate in her second, as Matthews took her for 12, including 3 more wides. Brunt and Ecclestone also took some dents in their metalwork from Matthews.

But England’s spinners began to wrestle back control in the post-powerplay overs; with the West Indies Strike Rate dropping close to 75 in the early middle phase, mostly as a result of Matthews falling back as she failed to find a single boundary to add to the 8 4s she had struck during the powerplay before she was dismissed in the 11th over.

Nonetheless, the West Indies had enough wickets intact to be able to throw the bat a bit at the end, taking themselves from 106-3 to 135-7 in the death phase to give England something to chase.

As they’d promised to do, England came out of the traps at full pelt, with Danni Wyatt and Sophia Dunkley hitting and running fearlessly. It is high-risk cricket – neither lasted the powerplay, and both could have been out even sooner than they were, but it gave England the kind of confident start that takes the pressure off everyone else, and later enabled Nat Sciver-Brunt and Heather Knight to play a slightly less risky (though ultimately no less productive) game through the middle overs to carry England to the win with 5 overs to spare.

The real positive from this is that it definitely feels like England had a lot more in the tank if they needed it. Nat Sciver-Brunt and Knight actually weren’t playing Bazball by the end, but they were still going at strike rates of 133 and 145 respectively.

At the end of the day, for all Heather Knight’s talk in the press conference of taking it one game at a time, she knows that this tournament isn’t about beating the West Indies in the opener – it is about beating Australia in the final, and England won’t do that unless they take a few risks. They haven’t suddenly become favourites for the tournament; but they’ve made a very positive start, and right now, that’s all we can ask.

UPDATE: This piece was updated on 26/01/2023 in the light of further information about the distribution of TV money in the first 5 years of the competition.

The 5 successful bidders for the Indian WPL franchises have been announced by the BCCI, with teams set to be based in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

Collectively they have bid about half a billion pounds for 10-year franchises – i.e. around £50 million per year. It’s a lot of money, so we have to ask: is it sustainable?

It bears repeating that these are businesses – they aren’t doing this as an act of charity – they need to make that money back; and that might be an issue going forwards.

In the short term, the BCCI have agreed to give 80% of the TV rights income back to the franchises for the first 5 years of the competition; but after that, the franchises are going to be on their own, and will need to recoup their investment from sponsorships and merchandising.

Barclays title sponsorship of England’s (men’s football) Premier League is reckoned to be worth about £40m per year – i.e. 10 million a year less than the WPL franchises collectively need to generate just to break even on their initial investment. (And that’s ignoring operating costs, which will likely be non-trivial.)

So that’s the kind of ball-park the franchises are playing in, in the medium term – and it isn’t going to be easy money to find. The attraction of women’s sport to sponsors right now, mainly rests on the fact that it is “good value” (i.e. cheap) – but this will not be. Whoever takes on these sponsorships is going to need seriously deep pockets – much deeper pockets than we’ve seen in England or Australia for women’s cricket to date.

It’s a huge challenge that the franchises have set themselves up for, and my guess is that while most of them will muddle through, some will struggle financially to break even on their investment and won’t survive.

Women’s cricket used to be a nice cosy world – that’s all changing now, with the promise that the top players will benefit to the tune of (literally) millions.

But if the franchises can’t bridge the gap between what they’ve agreed to pay to the BCCI and what they can persuade the sponsors to pay them, it could all end in tears very quickly. Welcome to the jungle, folks – there will be winners and losers… and the losers will get eaten.