Cricket is a simple game… right? The batting side’s job is to score runs; the fielding side’s job is to take wickets!

Well, imagine the scene:

It is the World T20 Final, and there are 3 overs left: the batting side need 30 off 18 balls, with Annie Accumulator at the crease, currently on 15 off 25 balls.

The bowling side bring back their star bowler, who bowls 5 dots in a row – now they need 30 off 13 balls, and Annie is now on 15 off 30 – a Strike Rate of just 50.

In desperation, Annie takes a big heave at the final ball of the over. It skies up towards the bowling side’s skipper, Rachel Reliable, at extra cover – it is going straight to her – the easiest catch she’ll ever take!

But…

Rachel knows that the next batsman in is Briana Basher – probably the only batter in the world who could hit the now-required 30 off 12 balls. So she takes a step backwards, allowing the ball to bounce in front of her, before hurling it in to the ‘keeper to save the second run.

In the post-match press-conference, after the batting side have fallen 20 short with Annie Accumulator not out on 17 off 35, Rachel Reliable holds the trophy in front of the media.

“What about that catch?” they ask.

“I just misjudged it,” she replies innocently.

And maybe she did (!) but it raises an interesting question.

These circumstances are clearly rather contrived; but there is a situation we do actually see quite often, where a fielder in the deep will chose not to go for a diving catch because if they miss it, it will go for 4 – so they prioritise saving the 4 over (possibly) taking the wicket.

The question is somewhat analogous to a play in baseball called a “Walk”, where the pitcher will deliberately bowl four consecutive “wides” to a batter, in order to prevent them hitting a home run, at which point they have to “walk” to first base – a play so normal in baseball, there are stats on it!

But would it “be cricket” if it happened in cricket?

Sophie Ecclestone was named Player of the Series for the T20 Tri-Series between England, New Zealand and South Africa and unsurprisingly she tops our bowling rankings, with 10 wickets at 7.05.

Although Suzie Bates slightly damned Ecclestone with faint praise after she took 4-18 against New Zealand in the group stages, saying “when you are chasing over 10 [runs/ over] it makes any bowler look better” Ecclestone got her own back in the final with a perfect arm-ball to dismiss Bates and essentially end New Zealand’s hopes in that match. You can watch the wicket here, and although it is easy to dis the arm-ball as “one that doesn’t spin” in fact it does spin – the application of top-spin means the ball shoots on much quicker than Bates is expecting, so that before she has even got into the cut she is trying to play, it has hit her off stump – magic bowling!

In Twenty20 cricket there is always the question of wickets versus economy – in a tight match (which only 2 out of 7 in this Tri-Series really were) an Economy Rate of 5.4 can easily be the difference between victory and defeat, so England will be very happy with the performances of No.2 ranked Anya Shrubsole this summer – with the World T20 coming up in November, she will be a key player as she looks to recreate the form which won her the Player of the Tournament at the WWT20 in Bangladesh back in 2014.

New Zealand’s leading bowler was teenage leg-spinner Amelia Kerr. Fresh from scoring her world-record double-century against Ireland, she didn’t look entirely convincing with the bat, with scores of 2, 5 and 12*; but with the ball in her hand she can do things that ought to be illegal, and while the commentators in the Sky box might be able to pick her googly, we discovered on Sunday that Sarah Taylor sure can’t and we doubt she is the only one!

Finally, it is worth noting one player who did not make the Top 10 – Marizanne Kapp had a pretty indifferent series, taking just 2 wickets and leaking runs at over 10 an over. Of course, “Form is Temporary…” and all that – less than 6 months ago Kapp was by far the most economical bowler in WBBL – but if South Africa are to compete at the World T20 they will need that Marizanne Kapp to turn up in the West Indies, not this one!

Bowling Ranking = Wickets / Economy

Surprisingly, our Batting Rankings are led not by Tammy Beaumont – the leading run-scorer in the T20 Tri-Series – but by Suzie Bates, whose superior Strike Rate gives her the edge. Bates plundered the South African bowling for 124* in their opening match, and a further 62 against them in their second game at Bristol; though she was notably less successful against England, scoring 23, 0 and 31.

Bates and Sophie Devine, at No. 3, between them scored a whopping two-thirds (66.8%) of New Zealand’s runs off the bat in the series, which really ought to be worrying them quite a lot – the next-ranked New Zealand batsman was Amy Satterthwaite, who came in 14th with just 58 runs.

For England obviously Tammy Beaumont was the stand-out star, but Nat Sciver also had a good series, despite playing a slightly more reserved game than we’ve maybe come to expect of her – she hit just two 6s in the series, and had the lowest boundary percentage of the Top 10 by quite a long way – 52%, compared with (for example) 77% for Lizelle Lee, the most in the Top 10.

Batting Ranking = Runs * Strike Rate

England have recalled left-arm orthodox spinner Alex Hartley for the ODI series against New Zealand which begins on Saturday at Headingley.

Fast bowler Katie George – yet to make her ODI debut – is also included in the squad announced today, but Danni Hazell has been dropped despite performing well in the T20 Tri-Series, when she took 6 wickets at an Economy Rate under 7.

Hazell, who is highly rated as a T20 specialist and played in the Women’s IPL Exhibition Match earlier this year, was included in the squad for the ODI series against South Africa which preceded the Tri-Series, but didn’t actually play.

Full Squad

Heather Knight (Berkshire)
Tammy Beaumont (Kent)
Katherine Brunt (Yorkshire)
Sophie Ecclestone (Lancashire)
Georgia Elwiss (Sussex)
Katie George (Hampshire)
Jenny Gunn (Warwickshire)
Alex Hartley (Lancashire)
Amy Jones (Warwickshire)
Laura Marsh (Kent)
Anya Shrubsole (Somerset)
Nat Sciver (Surrey)
Sarah Taylor (Sussex)
Lauren Winfield (Yorkshire)
Danni Wyatt (Sussex)

After their knife-edge relegation from Div 1 of the Women’s County Championship, Middlesex stormed back in style as they won the T20 Cup at Beckenham.

With Kent beating Warwickshire first-up at Beckenham, Middlesex’s match with Warwickshire turned into a dead rubber – it didn’t matter if they won or lost – the final match between them and Kent would be a de-facto final which decided the title.

Batting first, Middlesex’s co-captains Naomi Dattani and Tash Miles put on 73 for the first wicket, setting up an eventual total of 128-5. In reply, Kent could only reach 112 in their 20 overs, with Alice Davidson-Richards top-scoring with 38, but chewing-up 49 balls in a chase where the ask was over a run-a-ball, to leave Middlesex celebrating their first title.

Sussex sealed second place with wins against Worcestershire – Georgia Adams top-scoring with 64* – and Notts – Adams this time leading with the ball, with 3-15.

At the other end of the table, Worcestershire and Yorkshire were relegated after Surrey beat Yorkshire in what was effectively a play-off – Beth Langston hit 50 as Yorkshire posted 125-6, which Surrey chased-down with just 2 balls to space thanks to 43* from Aylish Cranstone.

Meanwhile in Div 2, Hampshire, Wales and Scotland all finished on 28 points, with 7 wins each and their only losses being to each other, meaning promotion came down to Net Run Rate, with Scotland the ones to miss out – Hampshire promoted as division winners, and Wales in second.

After a thoroughly convincing win in the T20 Tri-Series Final at Chelmsford, are England now favourites going into the World T20 in the Caribbean this autumn?

Heather Knight was typically reluctant to get over-excited:

“I don’t think we’ll be favourites – it is hard to look past Australia – but I think we’ll be up there.”

Nevertheless, having won the T20 rubber of the Women’s Ashes, and now this Tri-Series against New Zealand and South Africa, there will be no better-placed team going into the tournament.

England’s batting has obviously enjoyed a remarkable renaissance – it says much about the way the team are playing that it feels like Dani Wyatt had a quiet series… yet she still scored two 50s at a Strike Rate of 138.

But in a way, in a Batsman’s Series like this, where the world record total has been broken not once but twice, what you actually need is your bowlers to turn up, and England’s definitely did, especially today.

“The bowling has been the highlight for me,” Knight told us. “The bowlers have been very consistent. It was a very good wicket today, but the way we’ve executed our plans on different types of pitches has been really good.”

This is why Sophie Ecclestone, not leading run-scorer Tammy Beaumont, was our Player of the Series – to take 10 wickets at an Economy Rate of a shade over 7 is a splendid return; but more impressive was the way she took her wickets. Like everyone, she was knocked around at times, but she responded by keeping her head and just sticking to her game-plan.

“You obviously get hit in T20,” she said today, “but it is all part of the game – you get your rewards if you just bowl straight, keeping the stumps in play.”

Heather Knight was also full of praise for the left-armer:

“She’s matured a lot in the last year – she’s become a lot more savvy with how she goes about her bowling – she’s very tall so she gets some extra bounce and attacks both edges of the bat.”

With Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole also back on the absolute pinnacle of their games this is what England will need in the West Indies, where there will perhaps be less batting-friendly pitches. England really did hardly bowl a bad ball today, and they backed it up with some tight work in the field – if they can do that in November, we could well be looking at double-World Champions.

It was a match that promised much… and delivered somewhat less. With qualification for the Tri-Series final still very much alive, I was looking forward to “a cracker” whilst Martin Davies from Women’s Cricket Blog predicted “Runs, runs, runs…”

But in the end the first over – a wide from Lea Tahuhu first-up, followed by two more – rather set the pattern for what was to come – an error-strewn contest which players and spectators alike will want to soon forget.

“We were really disappointed with the way we started that game,” admitted New Zealand’s Sophie Devine afterwards. “We were flat, we bowled plenty of extras and we just weren’t there in the field.”

“We can’t afford to play like that against any side – Suzie had to give us a bit of a rarrrrk up!”

(No – we aren’t entirely sure what a “rarrrrk up” is either… but we are fairly sure we wouldn’t want to be on the end of one!!)

“We were probably lucky to be able to pull it back the way we did,” says Devine.

That they had an opportunity to do so was mainly because if anything South Africa looked even more off-colour.

Coach Hilton Moreeng told us:

“We were below par by our standards – it is very frustrating – the inconsistency. If you look at the wicket there was not a lot of daemons in it, so another 20 or 30 runs on the board could have made a game of it.”

Laura Wolvaardt in particular couldn’t get it off the square today and chewed-up a lot of dots on her way to 25 from 37 balls; but Moreeng maintains his faith in her:

“She is a youngster – she is learning, and at the end of the day we are building towards the [T20] World Cup. She is only 19 years old – you can’t box her and say ‘she can’ or ‘she can’t’ – there is a lot that she has got – she is a clean striker of a cricket ball – she has proven it – now she has to go back and see how she can get options here.”

It chimes in with what Wolvaardt herself told us last week – she is still learning as a Twenty20 player and she knows she isn’t the finished article yet; but there is confidence that if South Africa keep faith with her, then she can be.

Asked to chase 148, New Zealand knocked them off with almost 5 overs to spare, but it wasn’t the perfect batting display from them either:

“At times we played a few rash shots!” Devine acknowledged. “It’s important for us to make sure we put away the bad ball and don’t get too carried away with ourselves.”

What made it easier though is that, once again, South Africa did half the job for them, as Moreeng admited:

“When you look at fielding, we didn’t back up the bowling. On a wicket which took a bit of pace off, which actually assisted the bowlers, the fielding wasn’t up to par.”

“The fielding the whole series wasn’t ok – it is one area where we need to go home and have a look at it and see where we can improve.”

“Given the short format in the T20 you can’t afford to give the chances what we are giving, and the way we are fielding at the moment is not gonna help.”

But there are positives to take forward:

“This wasn’t a great series, but there is a lot we’ve learned – there have been some good lessons, so we’ll see what we can adapt in our plans to make sure we go forwards.”

“We’ve got 3 months before the World Cup. We’ve got West Indies in September, away – the ICC Series and a lot of T20s. Luckily for us, we will be in the Caribbean so we will be able to get used to the conditions.”

It wasn’t to be for South Africa in England this summer, despite winning the opening ODI of the tour, but they are still a good side and anyone who underestimates them in the West Indies does so at their peril.

A century from Bryony Smith brought Middlesex’s unbeaten run in the T20 Cup to an end at Banstead, but Middlesex stay top of Div 1 after thrashing Notts earlier in the day. Smith carried her bat for 109* supported by Aylish Cranstone (43) as Surrey posted 178-3; and Eva Gray then dismissed both Middlesex openers for ducks on the way to bowling Middlesex out for 89.

Three other teams remain in the hunt going into the final round next Sunday. Sussex picked up two wins at Edgbaston – Freya Davies (4-8) starring with the ball v Warwickshire, and Georgia Adams (61) with the bat v Lancashire. Warwickshire also kept themselves in the reckoning with a good win over Lancashire.

Meanwhile at Kidderminster Alice Davidson-Richards (37) top scored for Kent as they posted 135 v Worcestershire, who crawled to 88-8 in reply; and Kent then consigned Yorkshire to a 5th straight defeat as they restricted them to 103-6, which they chased in 18 overs.

Yorkshire did then pick up their first win of the season to beat Worcestershire, chasing Worcestershire’s 94-7 in 17.1 overs, with Abi Glen top-scoring with 30*.

The title will be decided next weekend, with Middlesex, Kent and Warwickshire all playing each other, while Sussex will be hoping to sneak up on the outside on Net Run Rate* as they face Worcestershire and Notts.

(* Assuming it doesn’t rain, I think Sussex can only win it on NRR – the maximum they can get is 24; which Middlesex will have if they win just one match, whilst if Middlesex lose both their matches, one of Kent or Warwickshire will have 24.)

[** Update – It is even more complicated than that – see comments!!]

In Div 2, Hampshire picked up two more wins, to stay top with 6-from-6; but Wales and Scotland remain close behind with 5 wins – two of those three will be promoted next weekend, when Hampshire play Wales and Northants while Scotland face Berkshire and Cheshire.