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.