INTERVIEW: Warwickshire’s Katie George On Being A “Calm Presence In Turmoil”

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Taking on the captaincy of a club mid-season is always tricky. Doubly so when they’ve just fired their existing skipper.

That’s the situation Warwickshire’s Katie George finds herself in, after she returned to the club last week fresh from a month representing London Spirit in The Hundred and was immediately launched into a dramatic few days.

Monday – head coach Ali Maiden informs the squad via Zoom that Georgia Davis is parting ways with the club and been placed on gardening leave until her contract expires at the end of the season. Tuesday – the squad reassemble at Edgbaston, train, and try to come to terms with the news. Wednesday – Warwickshire face Yorkshire in a One-Day Cup match, with George at the helm.

“I don’t think it’s easy for any team,” George tells CRICKETher. “Obviously, like the England men with Stokes, when you lose your captain it does affect things.

“I’m definitely not trying to be G [Davis]. I can’t be. She’s a brilliant girl and I wish her all the best.

“Any feelings towards that stuff is allowed to be there. It’s not like it’s been dismissed or anything like that.

“But I think there is a real sense of, let’s be in it together, this group of players, and then move forward.”

Davis has represented the Bears since 2015, and was unveiled as their first ever professional captain at the start of the 2025 season.

But CRICKETher understands that the level of disagreement between her and Maiden this year about both selection and the overall future of the team was so high that any future relationship was felt to be untenable.

A spokesperson for the club told CRICKETher: “The Club initiated renewal talks with Georgia in April 2026 and offered updated terms to stay. Despite numerous attempts to engage in discussion, Georgia did not choose to engage in any discussions until June 2026, by which time alternative recruitment plans had been made and the contract offer was rescinded.”

Warwickshire are also rumoured to be losing keeper-better Abbey Freeborn and all-rounder Bethan Ellis to Glamorgan at the end of the season, while seamer Em Arlott has announced her departure to Yorkshire.

Amidst the upheaval, George is clear about her own role:

“I think I can bring a little bit of stability and calmness for the next five weeks. It’s important we come together as a team and come together as a group and we’re in it together, and have that collective goal of trying to get these trophies.

“My plan is to try and have that calm presence in a little bit of turmoil.”

George herself recently signed a two-year contract extension with the club, meaning she will remain at Edgbaston at least until the end of 2028.

But she says that the possibility of her taking on the club captaincy on a permanent basis has not yet been discussed.

“Personally, I wouldn’t want that conversation now,” she says. “I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s respectful.

“If I get asked, then that’s something I’ll think about. But for now, it’s about these five weeks.

“As someone that wants to be involved in all three facets of the game it would be a decision to be made for myself as well. And honestly, I don’t know the answer right now.”

Left-arm seamer George played two ODIs and five T20s for England as a teenager back in 2018, but a series of back injuries left her future career hanging in the balance.

She joined Warwickshire’s previous iteration as Central Sparks back in 2023, and praises the club for their support of her recent transition into a batting all-rounder who has made her mark in the No 4 position, hitting scores of 98 and 127 in the One-Day Cup this season.

But she has never given up on bowling.

“People ask me why I keep trying to bowl, and it’s just my passion. It’s what made me fall in love with cricket. It was watching Jimmy Anderson bowl at Sachin Tendulkar at Lord’s, waking up at 5AM to go and watch because my dad decided it was a good idea.

“That love doesn’t go away. It’s tricky because it’s taken a lot from me, but the love for it’s still there.”

Being handed the new ball midway through The Hundred for London Spirit – the culmination of several long, hard periods of rehab – was therefore particularly special.

George says she started the competition not knowing if she would be able to bowl at all. “I hadn’t bowled for over a year. I only bowled off a full run-up once before The Hundred. I was in Regents Park bowling during the World Cup when I was supporting [girlfriend and England bowler] Issy Wong. Thanks to her for picking the ball up for me!

“The first time I bowled at a left-hander was [Phoebe] Litchfield in Leeds, so it was crazy. And I hadn’t really thought about it until I was at the end of my mark and I was like, sh*t. This isn’t optimal.”

The encounter ended with George having the Aussies overseas caught at deep midwicket – a satisfying moment for the English seamer.

“I feel like I’ve smiled playing cricket again,” she says.

As for what comes next? Well, her bowling workload is still being carefully managed by Warwickshire… sort of.

“Sometimes we have three 50-over games in seven days. So do I not bowl in one of those? They’re sensible conversations to be having, which I think are the right conversations.

“But if it’s a must win game, we obviously throw it out the window because I’m getting f*cking stuck in. That’s me. And I never want to lose that.”

As Warwickshire look for their next permanent captain, they could do a lot worse.

EXCLUSIVE: Katie George And Charis Pavely Sign Contract Extensions With Warwickshire

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Warwickshire all-rounders Katie George and Charis Pavely have signed contract extensions with the club, which will keep the pair at Edgbaston until the end of the 2028 season.

Left-arm seamer George has struggled with injuries over the past couple of years but has fully earned her spot as a pure batter, with highest scores of 98 and 127 from the No 4 position in the One-Day Cup this season. After she returned to bowling for London Spirit during The Hundred, there are hopes she can find some stability as a genuine all-round option over the next two years.

Katie George. Photo credit: Don Miles.

The 21-year-old Pavely was better known for her left-arm spin until this season, but struck back-to-back hundreds in the One-Day Cup in April / May and is now firmly established as an all-rounder in the side. She recently earned an England call-up for their upcoming series v Ireland.

George told CRICKETher: “I’ve been at Edgbaston for a while with the Sparks and then Warwickshire, so it definitely feels like home. I’m grateful that I’ve been given the opportunity here to shift into a bit more of a batting all rounder, and be allowed the space and be given the confidence to do that.”

The news will be welcomed amid a period of transition for the club which has seen current captain Georgia Davis placed on “gardening leave” until her contract runs out at the end of the season, Em Arlott agreeing to join Yorkshire, and Abbey Freeborn and Bethan Ellis departing for Glamorgan this winter.

George was this week named as interim captain until the end of the season, overseeing the end of the County Cup and the final few rounds of the One-Day Cup, but says that no decision has been made about who will lead the club come 2027.

George told CRICKETher: “We don’t know what the plan is through the winter. My role is very clear: I’m going to get us through the next month. My plan for that is to try and have that calm presence in a little bit of turmoil.

“It’s important we come together as a team and we’re in it together, and have that collective goal of trying to win these trophies.”

THE HUNDRED: SunRisers Leeds v Southern Brave – Fireworks Optional

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Earlier today, ECB CEO Richard Gould and MD of The Hundred Vikram Banerjee spoke to the media, displaying a staggering degree of denial about the problems which the total rebrand of The Hundred has generated.

Anyone who has followed this comp (and has eyes) understands there has been a drop-off in attendances. Anyone who has been on social media in the last few weeks will have witnessed the feeling of disillusionment many previous fans of The Hundred have felt in the face of brand new team names and shirt colours.

Gould, though, said he was “very, very happy with ticket sales” and mentioned seeing “loads of people” wearing MSG shirts out in Manchester earlier this week – shirts which the franchise are giving out for free, by the way. “I’ve seen a lot more positive engagement now that we’ve got this change of ownership,” Gould added. “Now that we’ve got engaged owners, engaged clubs, I think that’s rubbing off on the supporters.

When I asked about the disappointing decline in the percentage of fans who are turning up in time to watch the women’s match – crowd ratios between the women’s and the men’s games have dropped by about 3% – Banerjee basically didn’t engage with the question. Instead he pointed to an increase in broadcast viewership for the women’s matches and said that the competition has been “another really positive step forward for women’s cricket”.

In a way, it’s a shame we didn’t get to do this press conference after the Eliminator, which attracted an attendance of just 10,271 – the lowest in four years of the comp.

The public will draw their own conclusions; personally, I would have more respect if those at the top of the tree honestly engaged with what has gone wrong, given that this has clearly been (by many visible metrics) a disappointing edition of the Women’s Hundred.

(As usual, I’ve paid no attention whatsoever to the men’s, but I imagine many of the same issues apply.)

Anyway, onto today’s semi-final. It was always going to be difficult to live up to last year’s equivalent match, in which Northern Superchargers (remember them?) hit 214 runs and Davina Perrin whacked the innings of a lifetime. But arguably we got the Eliminator this competition deserved: Southern Brave put just 114 on the board, and SunRisers then almost (but not quite) made a mess of chasing it.

There were no fireworks before the women’s game (thankfully – we were all baking in the heat); and there were few fireworks to be found during the match either. Lizelle Lee dominated the strike in Brave’s powerplay, facing 20 balls to Maia Bouchier’s 5, in what was a very Lee innings: a lot of power, not quite so much brain, and she was eventually undone by a smart piece of bowling from Hannah Baker.

From there, Brave’s strike rate took a huge dip, only recovering right at the end as Charli Knott – who in many ways has been a fortuitous injury replacement for Brave, replacing an out-of-form Jemimah Rodrigues – hit 25 off 21.

The question is whether Lee’s rapid-fire runs with the bat make up for her slip-ups behind the stumps, which were pretty embarrassing today – of the 18 extras conceded by Brave, 8 were byes.

Brave have dug themselves out of several holes with the bat during this tournament by absolutely nailing it with the ball, and there were two windows of opportunity here to do similar. SunRisers quickly found themselves 13 for 2, with the tournament leading run-scorer Phoebe Litchfield one of those back in the dug-out after coming down the track to Issy Wong in a rare brain fade.

Then, with just 20 runs needed from the last 25 balls, there were a few nerves jangling when Wong found herself on a hat-trick, bowling Lauren Winfield-Hill with one that kept low and trapping Dani Gibson leg-before when she unnecessarily swiped at her first ball.

Even for Brave’s bowlers, though, defending such a low total proved a bridge too far, as Official Adopted Northerner Jess Jonassen and decent cameo from Deepti Sharma did the necessary.

Afterwards, Jonassen reflected that SunRisers had benefited from having a tougher route to qualification than Brave across the back-end of the competition:

“We essentially played four knockout games before we came to a genuine knockout match. So we knew that we were hardened under previous pressure, and we knew that we just needed to come out and try and play the same way that we had those other games and try hard not to do anything too different.”

For Brave, time to take stock and reflect on how they might tweak personnel next season to bolster their squad – recruiting another wicketkeeper might well be near the top of the list?

Hopefully, the conversations in their dressing room tonight are a bit more honest than the one Gould and Banerjee had with the media at the start of the day.

THE HUNDRED: MI London v Manchester Super Giants – That’s Not My London! Its Batting Is Too Terrible

Posted by Raf Nicholson

It’s not been the best weekend in CRICKETher Towers. Syd was pretty scathing about yesterday’s Spirit v Brave shenanigans and I can’t say I departed The Oval today feeling much more positive, after MI London were bowled out for 92 and proceeded to lose their fourth match in the competition by six wickets inside 72 balls.

MIL’s head coach Lisa Keightley seemed understandably shell-shocked after the match: “I’m still trying to work it all out.”

From here, MIL’s qualification prospects are down at 1% and all routes rely on them having a superior net run rate to teams close to them in the table – not great when your NRR is currently -1.540.

The Salty Manchester Elephants (MSG), meanwhile, continue to be well-placed to make the Eliminator, although captain Meg Lanning clearly needs to be referred to the CRICKETher Alligator after confessing post-match that she was finding her team’s route to qualification “too hard to work out”!

After being put in to bat, MI London quickly found themselves 1 for 2 after Sophie Ecclestone rattled the stumps of both Alice Davidson-Richards and Hayley Matthews. With Danni Wyatt-Hodge ruled out of the rest of the comp with a calf tear, ADR has been bumped up the order, on the basis (according to Keightley) that MIL want to “stretch it out a little bit and have some power hitters in the middle to the death”. Whether ADR will remain at no.2 after swiping across the line to the skiddy Ecclestone for a duck remains to be seen.

Matthews then inexplicably decided to go back to a fuller ball from the left-armer, and succeeded only in edging onto her own stumps.

If anything, things got worse from there – at the halfway stage, MIL had put just 37 runs on the board for the loss of 4 wickets. It honestly felt like watching women’s county cricket in about 2014. No disrespect to anybody involved at the time – those were some of my happiest days watching cricket – but in an amateur era many of the batters were not savvy enough to find the gaps, repeatedly hitting it straight to fielders. That was exactly the way MI London played here, set after set after set:

Ecclestone finished with a ridiculous 2 wickets for 7 runs. She also had a great day in the field, leaping up to take a catch at mid-off to see off Nicola Carey (a relief for everyone given how painfully slowly Carey batted) and running out Tara Norris with a direct hit as MI London threw their remaining wickets out of the pram.

The most entertaining moment for the crowd was probably when Chinelle Henry wellied a six over long-on and a bald bloke four rows back in the JM Finn Stand shelled it onto the row in front. (It’s OK – no one was hurt – except perhaps the feelings of bowler Kathryn Bryce!)

In reply, Lanning managed the chase perfectly. Syd compared her innings to the one against London Spirit at Lord’s 10 days ago, when she was in no hurry at all to chase down the required 81 runs – game-management from the world’s best at the art. I do think she was a BIT more aggressive than that this time around, hitting 43 at a SR of 138 including a swivel-pull for six against Henry before finally perishing to a sweep with 4 runs still required as MSG lost a clatter of academic wickets when the game was all-but won.

“We wanted to try and finish it as quickly as we could,” she said afterwards. “We want people to come out and take the game on.”

We talked on this morning’s CRICKETher Weekly about the new team owners prioritising “big name” overseas stars over and above domestic players. This is now a live issue for MIL: Melie Kerr (11 off 14) and Carey (17 off 24) both played innings at The Oval the like of which many an English domestic player has been dropped for in the past. To drop any of your overseas in a franchise comp is a huge call but intriguingly, MIL head coach Lisa Keightley strongly hinted after the match that she is prepared to do exactly that:

“We haven’t had our overseas play as well as we’d like. If they were firing, would things look a little bit different? I’m going to have a look at a few more options, and see what some domestic players who maybe haven’t had much opportunity – see if they can get exposed and see how they go.”

Credit to Keightley if she does make that call – it’s a brave one, and hopefully she has the backing of the owners in doing it. Things could hardly get much worse.

THE HUNDRED: Southern Brave v Birmingham Phoenix – Brave Victorious But Perrin Welcomes “Small Wins”

Posted by Raf Nicholson

On Wednesday, Birmingham Phoenix released a new poem to celebrate the team, written by the Birmingham Poet Laureate Ayan Aden: “This is Birmingham, where it’s your turf, your team. This is Birmingham, where we rise.”

Presumably rising from the bottom of the table wasn’t quite what they had in mind. Nevertheless, that is the position Phoenix now find themselves in, having lost Thursday’s match to Southern Brave by 24 runs.

This was a match which Phoenix really should have won – or more accurately, one which Brave should have lost. Brave’s batters went for 30 balls without scoring a boundary. They dropped three catches. They failed to take a single Phoenix wicket for 55 balls.

But Brave’s bowling depth once again proved the key factor, preventing Phoenix from accelerating across the final 30 balls, despite having 9 wickets in hand. “I think they were trying [to go harder]”, Sarah Glenn said. “The intent was there for sure. But we shut it off really with our bowling.”

Put in to bat, Southern Brave had earlier reached 140 for 3, though it should really have been more after a rollicking start from Lizelle Lee. Lee might not be the most adept at moving her feet these days, but she has enough heft in her arms to make up for it, smashing 43 from 28 balls.

In the end the pace-off approach from Alice Capsey worked – there wasn’t quite enough velocity on the ball for Lee to clear the rope at deep midwicket and Linsey Smith took the catch.

Brave’s run-rate had actually fallen off a cliff prior to Lee getting out – they had a poor early-middle phase. Slow spin was most effective on this wicket, which meant that Capsey was particularly useful, bowling her full allocation of 20 balls (she only bowled 10 in Phoenix’s first match of the comp).

As an aside, I still think making Capsey back-up keeper for England’s World Cup campaign was a bit silly. But it was always pretty obvious it was a temporary move, while Lottie tries to figure out who is Amy Jones’s long-term replacement, and that Capsey remains committed to her off-spin. In fact, she told me so when I interviewed her at the start of the tournament: “I really enjoy bowling. It’s still a massive priority of mine. It just means my training days are slightly longer than they used to be. Instead of doing bat, bowl, field I’m doing bat, bowl, field, keep.”

Maia Bouchier looked dangerous until she got out in unnecessary but sadly typical fashion, trying to reverse-ramp Lauren Filer five runs short of a half-century. Enter Laura Wolvaardt, who limped to 11 off 15 balls before being dismissed in two different ways off the same ball, simultaneously caught behind and stumped (yes I know this isn’t technically possible in the Laws).

Wolvaardt has just come off the purplest patch of her career, but for some odd reason looks a shadow of her former self since she arrived in England for the start of the World Cup, with a highest score of 45 against Netherlands. From the peakiest of peaks to the troughiest of troughs – it’s not clear quite what’s gone wrong or why?

Thanks to some punches from Jemi Rodrigues in the final set, Brave did eventually get up to a total which was towards the high end of a “typical score” in this competition according to the Ghost:

In reply, Davina Perrin played an innings dominated by wild hacks, offering up three chances – on 30, 32 and 34. Each time, Rodrigues dashed 100 yards across the field to comfort the culprit – Bouchier, Wolvaardt and Bell – before finally getting so fed up / exhausted that she decided to take a catch herself, running in from deep midwicket; although the batter out was Tammy Beaumont, not Perrin.

Heading into the last 35 balls, WIN-her had both teams neck-and-neck:

But then Alice Capsey chewed up nine balls for eight runs, and chipped a catch straight to Sophie Molineux at cover. It was the death knell for Phoenix, and Capsey knew it – she was so annoyed at herself that she threw her bat in the air, tried to catch it with the other hand, dropped it, and suffered the added indignity of having to bend down and pick it up before walking off.

Perrin did go on to get fifty, but was reluctant after the match to take any credit for an innings which was ultimately in a losing cause and perhaps wasn’t quite quick enough to make up for slow-ish scoring at the other end. “Missing the Blast and being injured, and having a lot of the season out, obviously means that when you come back to play, you’re just sort of finding your feet,” she said.

She admitted, too, that it feels like these days she is trying to live up to her magical Eliminator innings every time she is at the crease. “I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t cross my mind. But I think I’m also reminding myself, it’s the small things at the minute. Being back out on the pitch, having a healthy body, they’re the small wins for me at the minute.”

For now, the bigger wins will have to wait.

THE HUNDRED: MI London v SunRisers Leeds – Money Makes The World Go Round

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Just three weeks ago (it feels like an eternity), Hayley Matthews was here at The Oval, playing in a World Cup semi-final and unleashing a brilliant, heartfelt critique of cricket’s financial inequities.

On Tuesday she was back at the same ground (well, sort of: apparently we have to refer to it as The My London Stadium for the next four weeks… or do we?). This time, she was opening the batting for MI London in shiny new blue kit. She will earn £120,000 for four weeks work: a small cog in a big tournament which has itself become part of the problem.

Money from overseas investors (£520 million to be more specific) can buy you a lot of things. Judging by Tuesday’s opening match in The Hundred, that includes very big, very noisy fireworks. At least some of that money also trickles down to (some of) the players. Take a moment to compare the 2026 Hundred with the first franchise cricket in England, the Kia Super League, which got underway almost exactly a decade ago up in Headingley – incidentally now home to SunRisers Leeds. Matthews played in that, too, representing Lancashire Thunder. Her take-home pay was about £600.

Interesting, then, that when she decided to call out cricket’s haves and have-nots, Matthews was actually nostalgic for that period. “The reason we were so successful back in 2012 and 2013 and 2015 and 2016 is because women’s cricket was based off pure talent at that time,” she said. “The minute that investment comes into the picture, we’ve seen the gap widen a lot because of that.”

Perhaps without even realising it, Matthews was expressing a certain wistfulness for times gone by when women’s cricket didn’t revolve around making a bunch of Indian (and American) businessmen richer. And as I watched the match on Tuesday at ~~The Oval~~ The My London Stadium on Tuesday, I was wistful too.

Matthews herself finished as top-scorer for MI London, with 33 from 22 balls, looking good until she popped up a return catch to Deepti Sharma. The music which the powers-that-be insist “makes the Hundred experience” was still blaring when Deepti delivered the ball, which didn’t seem ideal if you were the batter trying to to focus on the actual cricket. MI head coach Lisa Keightley put it best after the match: “That’s just The Hundred, isn’t it? You’ve just got to roll with it.”

From there, though, MI got stuck, and the runs stopped coming, as they limped along to finish on 107-8.

SunRisers Leeds (don’t forget that all-important capital R) then strolled to a 7-wicket victory with 31 balls (almost a third of the innings) remaining, led by their two star Aussies Phoebe Litchfield and Annabel Sutherland, who were both part of the previous iteration of the Popchips who won The Hundred in 2025.

That did, though, leave time for John Newman to perform a longer gig between matches – either a bad thing or a good thing, depending on if you ~~have heard of him~~ like his music or not.

One fascinating aspect of this opening encounter was the number of spectators who turned out for the women’s game – 8,532. Of course, in the days of the Kia Super League, we would have given our right arm for a crowd like that. But, for comparison, that’s almost 2,000 less than the 10,249 people who attended the opening match of the 2024 Women’s Hundred at The Oval, which was also on a Tuesday, against Birmingham Phoenix.

It’s early days, but does this maybe reflect a slight wariness on behalf of the British public, who don’t quite trust that this iteration of fake plastic teams will stay around long enough for them to bother caring about?

A final word on Dani Gibson, she of the £190,000 price tag, who hit the winning runs on Tuesday. I’m told that we aren’t supposed to talk about money – let alone compare salaries – because it makes the players uncomfortable. Certainly, SunRisers head coach Adrian Birrell refused to admit that it might have been on Gibson’s mind as she led her team out onto The Oval on Tuesday: “I don’t think she’s thinking about it for one second. She’s trying to win matches. I don’t think it’ll be a factor at all.”

“No one’s mentioned anything about who earns what. It’s just purely cricket, and everyone’s getting down to playing cricket and doing what they do,” he added.

Given that SunRisers’ Lauren Winfield-Hill, whose salary dropped from £50,000 in 2025 to £27,500 in 2026, has previously described the auction process as “awful” and an “ego bruise”, I find that hard to believe.

Either way, the honest truth is that we don’t talk about money anything like enough in women’s cricket – who has it, who doesn’t, and what are the problems when a whole load of it suddenly gets concentrated in a few places.

That press conference by Hayley Matthews was memorable precisely because she DID talk about money. And maybe in the age of The Hundred 2.0, we need to start talking about it a little more.

FEATURE: South Asian Cricket Academy Addressing Tier Two’s “Postcode Lottery”

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Next week is a big week for the South Asian Cricket Academy. In January, SACA launched their first ever women’s programme after receiving funding from ECB; after a rigorous recruitment process, the first cohort of 15 will take to the field for their first match, against Warwickshire.

SACA is a non-profit organisation designed to tackle the lack of British South Asian representation in professional cricket across the UK. For the first four years, it was a male-only undertaking – but given that SACA founder Tom Brown has a strong connection to women’s cricket, it was clearly only a matter of time before that changed.

“All my coaching journey was in the women’s game,” Brown says. “I was one of the senior coaches at Warwickshire and I met my partner Marie Kelly there, who’s at The Blaze. And I’m the lead scout for England Women as well. I’ve always had quite a big interest in the women’s game.”

Research undertaken by PhD student Hina Shafi has revealed that the representation of South Asian women drops drastically between involvement in the recreational game and entry into / retention in professional cricket. SACA’s programme aims to provide bespoke support, helping address those barriers.

Isa Guha’s Take Her Lead charity are collaborating with SACA to deliver the programme. “They take care of the coaching, but we’re there to give them the additional support that they need to be able to take those next steps in cricket,” Guha said.

“We’ve got a mental health practitioner on our board, Kay Baig. We’ve got some players & former players – myself, Sonia Odedra and Abtaha Maqsood, so there’s intersectionality across the board. There’s nutritional support, with Krushmi Chheda, the Rajasthan Royals nutritionist, who ran a few workshops which have been incredible. They did a session with Alison Mitchell around media training, because they recognise their role as role models in the sport.”

Originally, the idea was to recruit 6 to 8 women for the programme – but the calibre of applicants was so high that Brown and his team changed their minds. “We realised there was a lot of talent out there. We’re still getting applicants through at the minute but we’re going to keep it smaller to start with, because we want to give a lot to these girls, rather than be spread too thin – that’s a lesson we learned from the lads.”

It means that as well as workshops and coaching, the players have a full programme of fixtures against Tier One second XIs to look forward to this summer. For Nayma Sheikh, a leg-spinner and left-hand batter who represents Scotland and Leicestershire, that’s crucial.

“In Scotland, you don’t get that many games,” she says. “For me the reason I applied to SACA was to showcase my skills to major counties, for them to see that I am there.”

She adds that the environment is second to none in terms of support: “You have that connection with the other girls straight away. I’ve had loads of opportunities for one-on-one coaching sessions, and the coaches know so much about leg-spin.”

For now, the programme is a pilot, funded by ECB – but the hope is to be able to expand beyond this initial intake. Brown says one thing which has already become clear is that the new tiered women’s domestic set-up is falling short in delivering consistent opportunities for female players across the country. SACA is filling that gap.

“Tier Two is a little bit of a postcode lottery. Some of these girls, if they were just living in a different county, would be playing in Tier Two,” he says. “For some of them, this is their first experience of being in an environment where it’s built for them and it’s not a turn-up and have a net, it’s a real high performance environment. They’re quite green but they’re taking to it well.”

The aim, he says, is to replicate the success they have achieved in the men’s game: there are now 18 graduates of the SACA programme with pro contracts at first-class counties. “A couple of these girls are good enough for Tier One now. And therefore it’s on us to make sure that our networks are good and that we’re getting them the right opportunities.”

Here are the 15 players in the programme:

Bhoomika Bhat
Anusha Chauhan
Kashish Choudhary
Imaan Effendi
Maryam Faisal
Iqraa Hussain
Amarah Imran
Anjali Ketan
Sanya Khurana
Riva Pindoria
Zaynah Rehman
Rhia Sedha
Nayma Sheikh
Asmi Shembekar
Regina Suddahazai Khan

INTERVIEW: Scotland Coach Craig Wallace Relishing Kirstie Gordon’s Return

Posted by Raf Nicholson

On the day Scotland announced their squad for the forthcoming T20 World Cup, Scotland head coach Craig Wallace spoke to CRICKETher about the long-awaited return of a certain Kirstie Gordon – who is available for selection for Scotland for the first time since 2017.

Back in February, Raf interviewed Kirstie for The Observer (paywalled link); the Blaze captain explained that a conversation with Craig had been instrumental in her decision to return to her home nation. So we got his side of the story!

He recalled: “The last time I was in Nottingham, seeing Kathryn and Sarah [Bryce], I messaged Kirstie saying, ‘shall we have a little catch-up?’

“I tried not to be too intense. We had a drink. I literally said, ‘what is your plan?’ And I managed to outline the next year and a half to her.

“And I could see in her eyes, she was like, ‘wow, I want to do that’. I left that meeting quite happy!”

We asked exactly what he said to persuade Kirstie that the time was right to return. “It’s the team,” he said. “It’s how well we’re playing, how well we’re acting as human beings and as people. For me that was the easiest sell – we are going to this World Cup, we are going hopefully to many more World Cups, and we will keep improving and playing a brand of cricket that I can be proud of, that she wants to be part of.

“It’s not the team it was when she made her debut – it’s so much bigger and better than that,” he added.

He apparently messaged Kirstie when the England squad was released to check in, concerned that there might be doubt or regret bubbling up. “But there was literally nothing. She just said, ‘I cannot wait to get started’.”

As for how Kirstie is feeling about facing her old team, England, at Headingley on 20 June?

“She’ll be excited to take them on. That day will be me trying to calm her down, more than anything! And try and make sure that we get the best out of her.”

A fired-up Kirstie Gordon? It should be a cracker of a match!

The full Scotland World Cup squad is below:

Kathryn Bryce (captain) – Blaze
Chloe Abel – Gunnersbury / New Town
Olivia Bell – Lancashire
Sarah Bryce – Blaze
Darcey Carter – Lancashire
Priyanaz Chatterji – Surrey
Gabriella Fontenla – Yorkshire Academy
Katherine Fraser – Durham
Kirstie Gordon – Blaze
Ailsa Lister – Lancashire
Maisie Maceira – Carlton
Abtaha Maqsood – Essex
Megan McColl – Glamorgan
Rachel Slater – Yorkshire
Pippa Sproul – Hampshire

ONE DAY CUP: Surrey v Durham – Filer’s Flurry in Surrey

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Rumour has it* that Charlotte Edwards was at The Oval today (Ed: is she following us around?) although she didn’t actually prove visible to the naked eye – much like some of the balls in Lauren Filer’s opening spell.

After winning the toss under blue skies at The Oval, Durham had posted 256 for 8. A skipper’s knock of 106 from Hollie Armitage, a nifty half-century from Mady Villiers and a handy back-end cameo of 18 not out off 10 balls from Sophia Turner all played a role.

But it looked to be well light of a competitive total on a belter of a wicket at The Oval. That is, until Filer began her work.

It’s a bit of an open secret that Edwards has not yet settled on her World Cup Fifteen – hence pulling all the England contracted players out of the One-Day Cup earlier this week for an intra-squad camp. Some big decisions lie ahead, including what is likely to be a three-way fight for one spot in the World Cup squad between Filer, Issy Wong and Em Arlott.

Over in Chelmsford, Wong (0-21 off 4 overs) was being pummelled by Grace Scrivens, while Arlott (2-14 off 5) was economical but unspectacular.

Meanwhile here in Surrey, Durham’s powerplay bowling exactly epitomised Edwards’s dilemma: go with the safe option of Arlott, or throw caution to the winds and opt for the ferocity of Filer?

Filer started with an erratic no-ball beamer which hurtled over the fine leg boundary, costing a sum total of five runs. She also fell over in her follow-through three times in as many overs – a worrying habit which England confidently claimed last year that they had cured her of.

“The first couple of overs was a bit of a pick and mix,” Filer said afterwards. “I said to Hollie [Armitage], ‘I’m sorry mate, I’ve probably not bowled as straight as I can’ – but the balls that did go straight were wickets. So it was just taking the confidence from those balls into future overs.”

She blamed her falls on “a big divot in the foot holes” and joked: “It’s not Lauren Filer if I don’t fall over.”

In fact, the Surrey top-order looked genuinely frightened of her pace: a fear which translated into figures of 3 for 13 in her first three overs. Paige Scholfield and Alice Davidson-Richards both had their middle stumps pegged back; in between, Alice Capsey was hurried into a drive and got an edge behind – albeit reliant on a fantastic diving catch from Tahlia Wilson to pouch it.

Just how quick was Filer bowling in the powerplay? There was no speed gun in operation, but Filer reckoned: “There were a few balls that were pretty up there.” (A reminder that for Filer, that means high 70s – she’s apparently been clocked at 80mph in training.)

Kira Chathli fought fire with fire, pulling and crunching Filer’s next over for 14 runs. But when the England quick returned for a second spell, Armitage tapped Filer on the shoulder and indicated that she should put in a deep square leg. Sure enough, Chathli sent one down her throat, handing Filer a fourth wicket and Armitage some field-placement bragging rights.

Filer often only looks dangerous when fresh, so perhaps the most interesting part of today was that her third spell (which consisted of two overs, the 29th and 30th) proved almost as threatening as her first. She basically bounced out the 19-year-old Jemima Spence, who tried to keep her body out of the way while waving her bat around, and was bowled.

The upshot of it all was that Filer finished with 5-59 – a List A best.

Of course, a typically aggressive innings from Danni Wyatt-Hodge eventually saw Surrey win by 3 wickets, picking up a bonus point in the process. But if Filer earns selection in a home World Cup on the back of today, maybe she’s the real winner?

The question, as ever, is whether the guaranteed risk is worth the possible reward. Only one woman knows the answer – and for now, she is keeping her counsel.

*Later confirmed by Filer after the match.

CLUB OF THE MONTH: Rushden & Higham Town Under 11 Girls

Posted by Raf Nicholson

Congratulations to the Under 11 Girls of Rushden & Higham Town, whose first season has just concluded. It was certainly an eventful one, including helping provide a guard of honour at the Northamptonshire County Ground, growing from 4 members to 12, and winning their last game of the season (against Earls Barton CC) by a single run!

The girls’ section was formed by Ben and Lisa Hodges. Ben had been coaching the under-9s for a couple of seasons and volunteering as an All Stars Activator, and could see that more girls were coming through but could also see that they were sometimes intimidated by the loud and over-confident boys. It was clear that there were girls with talent, but they needed their own space to find it.

The girls play at Short Stocks in Rushden, featuring an astroturf wicket, an astroturf net and a nice bar – always appreciated by parents during the Friday night training sessions!

Ben and the girls threw themselves into the deep end by entering a league in their first season, playing in the Corby and District Youth U11 League (East). Sadly one of the teams dropped out and fixtures were a bit erratic this season, but they held their own.

“Music and dance play a big part in the team!” says coach Ben Hodges. “Cartwheels in the outfield between overs can often be seen. We are fortunate (or unfortunate sometimes when we are trying to get the girls to focus) that six of our girls all dance together at Starlight Dance in Rushden. So, whatever the latest song is that they are dancing to, you can guarantee that it will be heard and the six will be doing their best to teach the others the moves.“

“Special mention to Jennifer, who during one training session was practicing singing her part as Anne Boleyn for her school’s performance of the musical ‘Six’ while bowling at her teammates.”

They were fortunate to be mentored by the Northants County Cricket Club Steelbacks in the Community Team who assisted with putting on the fixtures, including providing some of their girls from the Young Leaders programme to act as scorers and umpires.

They were also lucky to be successful in bidding for a Metro Bank Girls in Cricket Fund award this season, which funded 20 hours of mentoring from community coaches from Steelbacks in the Community. A big thanks to Liam, Patricia, Beth and Louise.

Meanwhile Ben continues to coach and manage the team and has secured funding through Northamptonshire Sport to top up his coaching qualifications before next season.

Ben says that his season highlight was the team’s first victory, which came against Earls Barton when Jess Hambleton-Clark hit a six in the final over: “It was the last game of the season and the victory felt incredible. Seeing how chuffed the girls were and seeing how hard they had worked all season, and it was finally paying off.”

He also wants to give a shout out to the Committee at Rushden & Higham Town Cricket Club for supporting and embracing the girls team this season, and to all the parents for ferrying their daughters to matches, helping set up, and adding to a great family atmosphere at the club.

Aims for 2026 include developing a women’s softball team, doubling the number of girls playing, and perhaps playing some hardball cricket. Good luck to all involved!

If anyone is interested in joining the club, they should contact Ben Hodges on womenandgirls@rushdenhighamtowncc.com

CRICKETher

Women's Cricket News & Views

Author: Raf Nicholson

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FEATURE: South Asian Cricket Academy Addressing Tier Two’s “Postcode Lottery”

INTERVIEW: Scotland Coach Craig Wallace Relishing Kirstie Gordon’s Return

ONE DAY CUP: Surrey v Durham – Filer’s Flurry in Surrey

CLUB OF THE MONTH: Rushden & Higham Town Under 11 Girls