Yesterday’s KSL Finals Day was really the story of four captains.

Captain One: Georgia Elwiss, the Loughborough Lightning leader. For some KSL teams – Southern Vipers, Western Storm – their choice of captain was obvious; but for Lightning, it was coach Salliann Briggs who decided on Elwiss, after sitting down with a number of her players to talk it through. And who can argue it was the wrong choice? Briggs knows her players inside out; and Elwiss has the intelligence required of an excellent captain.

But she is also one of the least experienced captains in the competition – and inexperience, in a pressure situation, can find you out. There was one odd decision in particular that stood out: with Storm chasing 125, Elwiss chose to open the bowling with seamer Beth Langston, who conceded just 1 run off her first 2 overs – and then never came back on, even when Storm appeared to be cruising to their target.

“My gut instinct was to keep changing the bowlers around,” Elwiss said by way of explanation after the semi-final. It’s probably not the best maxim to live by. By contrast, Vipers bowled Arran Brindle for four overs straight in the final simply because she was clearly making life difficult for the batsmen.

Captain Two: England’s own Heather Knight. It was, of course, her fifty which guided Storm’s chase in the semi-final; and credit to her for that. But equally, after Storm had lost Stafanie Taylor halfway through their innings in the final, it was probably her responsibility to hang around and see them to a good total. She failed to do that, pulling the ball straight to Katie George at deep backward square leg in the 15th over, and you could tell from the way she slammed her bat as she walked off that she was furious with herself.

Then, after Vipers lost Edwards and Bates, Knight had the opportunity to turn the screw on her opponents as they slowly edged towards their target. With 3 overs to go, they still needed 20 runs, and they also needed their captain to keep her cool. But on the second ball of Anya Shrubsole’s over Knight picked up the ball and, without hope of achieving very much, shied at the stumps, earning Sara McGlashan and Lydia Greenway an overthrow. It was the mark of a captain who seemed to be out of options, and wasn’t quite sure what to do.

Shrubsole’s over went for 14 runs and Vipers surged to victory.

Vipers lift the trophy. Photo credit: Ruth Conchie

Captain Three: Charlotte Edwards – a legend if ever there was one; a player who captained England over 200 times, more than anyone else is ever likely to; a player who is used to captaining on the big stage. Edwards downplayed her own role in the post-match press conference – “This team runs itself; I just pull a few strings”, she said – but she also, tellingly, stressed that “I’ve really sensed the team behind me [during the tournament]”. Only the best captains inspire that kind of loyalty.

Edwards’ knowledge and experience mattered twice-over in yesterday’s final. Firstly, she made the decision to bring Arran Brindle into the attack in the 9th over, and bowl her for four overs straight – a spell in which she conceded just 15 runs, and removed both Stafanie Taylor and Knight from the reckoning. It turned things in the Vipers favour. Another captain might have hesitated to bowl Brindle; might have turned elsewhere. Edwards – good friends with her for so many years now – knew exactly what she was capable of.

And then, of course, there was her 24 off 18 balls to lay the foundations for Vipers’ successful run chase. While Edwards hasn’t shone with the bat during Super League, it showed what she so often displayed for England – that on the days when it really matters, she will come through. “I kept backing myself,” she said, after raising the trophy aloft. “I really enjoyed today. This is what I miss playing in and I love these sort of occasions.”

It’s not that Edwards was seeking revenge – she has said repeatedly that she is not bitter about Mark Robinson’s decision – but if she was, winning the inaugural KSL wouldn’t be a bad way to show Robinson and everyone else that she has damn well still got it. Just in case we ever doubted it.

The Victorious Captain. Photo Credit: Ruth Conchie

But I said four captains – and no, I didn’t lose count! Because Vipers didn’t just have one captain out there on the field yesterday, they had two.

Suzie Bates was instrumental in Vipers’ path to the final, both with the bat – with scores of 25, 15, 45*, 57 and 38 – and in the way she so calmly stepped into Edwards’ shoes halfway through the first game, even when Vipers had just seen their captain limping off the pitch with a likely concussion. Even since she returned to resume the captain’s mantle in the third game, we’ve seen the unfamiliar sight of Edwards – not the most collaborative of captains towards the end of her England reign – being instructed where to field not by a bowler, but by the current New Zealand skipper.

“When you’ve got experience around you,” Edwards said, paying tribute to Bates after the final concluded, “that’s what really helps.” Bates might have been just pipped by Stafanie Taylor for Player of the Tournament, but it was a close run thing. Vipers will surely be hoping that she’ll be back in orange for next year’s Super League.

Earlier this week we sat down with ECB head of women’s cricket Clare Connor to discuss the new KSL Regional Development Centres, which will replace the existing England Women’s Development Programme for Under 15s, and are set to launch this autumn. She answers all our questions below:

When and why was it decided to open these new Regional Development Centres?

The ECB’s High Performance Manager for women’s and girls’ cricket Jonathan Finch, and everyone he consulted with, decided to decommission the EWDP Under 15s programme last September. That came about because we realised that to identify from county age group cricket 20 cricketers, roughly, to be the EWDP Under 15s squad, and to traipse them up to Loughborough, was a big investment in players that we weren’t massively sure about. We were rewarding performance at that stage rather than looking at development potential.

We then worked out that with the new Sport England funding we have received, we could create these Regional Centres, to reach 120 girls on a much more localised scale, connecting them and giving them the aspiration of their Super League team to look up to.

Can you provide more details about the Sport England funding?

We’ve received talent funding for the 2013-17 funding cycle from Sport England. That talent funding has mainly gone into the Academy programme each year (home and away), the EWDP Under 19s and the EWDP Under 15s. Last year we were then awarded some extra “Reward and Incentive Funding” because we had done everything that Sport England had tasked us to do with that original pot of money. We then worked with Sport England to decide how best to spend the extra money, and the decision to go ahead with the Regional Centres came out of that conversation.

We’ve got that extra funding to run for 2 years, and we’re in the process with Sport England at the moment of putting together our submission for the next funding cycle. The current funding cycle ends on 30 March 2017.

How will the players be selected to train at these Centres?

The counties have continued doing their talent ID system, as before, to create a long-list of talented age group cricketers, based on what the counties have seen them do in county age group cricket but also the potential that they see in them. That long-list has been split into KSL regions, and in mid to late September those players will be attending talent identification days. Based on that, players will then be allocated to the Regional Centres.

What age range will the new Centres cater for?

It’ll be fairly open-age. The broad age range will be 13-16. The EWDP Under 19s will still run as a squad of about 20, because we do want to focus in on them and give them some central Loughborough time. I am envisaging 70% of the girls at the new Centres being 13 or 14. I doubt we’ll go much lower than that.

What will the programme look like at the new Centres, and where will they be based?

I don’t know yet. I am presuming that the Vipers, for example, will be at the Ageas Bowl – they’ve got such an amazing facility there – but there’s nothing to stop the training being at Sussex sometimes.

We’re splitting the funding from Sport England between the 6 KSL hosts, and they will each be presenting us with their plan as to where things will be based and what their programme entails. Jonathan Finch as our High Performance Manager will make sure he believes that is a good use of public funding.

By October half-term all six will have started their programmes. All six will deliver about 12 days between October half-term and the end of the year, and that will be a mixture of skills development and assessment and education type stuff that we would previously have done centrally through the EWDP 15s. And then we’ll continue from there.

Will the new Regional Centres be in competition with each other?

No – it’s really important to get that across. These Centres are purely about how to reach more players on a more local level, to give more players more opportunity to have an equitable route into the elite end of the game.

How do these new Regional Centres fit in with existing county girls age-group / club cricket?

It’s important to stress that competitive cricket for the selected players will still be for their county age group teams. These Centres are about development programmes in the off-season, which lots of counties do not give their girls.

The key in all of this is the connection and relationship with those people working hard in counties, with their county age group girls, to make sure that if they are selected onto a regional centre, there is communication. The regional opportunity is not to replace anything you get through county age group cricket – it will be complementary. We need to make sure, and this is not always easily achieved, that the communication between that regional infrastructure and the counties is tight.

The main thing we’re trying to do more and more is not just look at this with an ECB lens about what we think – it’s about trying to do what is right for the player. The most important thing is that the player feels that they’ve got the best support, and the support is fit for purpose for that player, both from a geographical perspective and from the perspective of: has she got the best coaching we can get for her?

What we don’t want to do is to have 14 year olds at the end of a school week driving for 4 hours from Truro (for example) to somewhere, to arrive tired and stiff and to not really enjoy it.

We definitely will not be taking players out of anything, and if there is a county training session going on and the county says “this is a really important team-building session for our under 15s”, we wouldn’t just take that player and say “no, she’s coming here”. That’s not how we want to work at all.

Given that this is being funded by Sport England, will Welsh players be able to be put forward to attend the Centres?

Absolutely, yes. Welsh players are still included within anything the England and Wales Cricket Board wants to do – any Sport England funding we get includes Wales. For example, Glamorgan Cricket Board will be treated the same as any other county.

Are more changes in the pipeline for U15s, U19s or the Academy?

There probably won’t be massive structural change coming. We’re considering aligning the Academy with the men’s equivalent programme – they’re the Lions when they play proper matches, but the programme is called the England Performance Programme. We’re looking at all of that at the moment.

Throughout the Kia Super League, we’ll be featuring short interviews with players, coaches & other interesting people we find around and about at the grounds. In yesterday’s Surrey Stars win over Lancashire Thunder, left-arm spinner Alex Hartley featured heavily, taking 3-11 in her 4 overs. She answers our quick-fire questions below…

If not Surrey Stars, who would you like to win?

I’m going to have to say Loughborough Lightning, because Evelyn [Jones] and Macca [Alex MacDonald] play there.

Who would you like to see playing in KSL that isn’t?

I’d love to see Meg Lanning come over and play. Unfortunately she couldn’t this year because she’s injured, but it would be great in future.

Favourite KSL player?

Er…that’s hard! Tammy Beaumont (so I don’t get kicked out of the house!)

Justin Bieber or One Direction?

Justin Bieber! Without a doubt!

Favourite cricket ground?

I love the Ageas Bowl.

Favourite thing on the menu in Nandos?

Lemon and herb butterfly chicken and chips. I’m not a spice person!

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Hopefully being England’s number 1 spinner and winning the World Cup!

Where do you see women’s cricket in 10 years?

Hopefully it’s massive. With the KSL we want thousands of people coming to watch, so hopefully it’ll get like that.

There have been a few one-sided games in this competition, but today takes some beating. On a glorious batting pitch, Lancashire Thunder somehow conspired to fall over themselves to get out; and the Surrey Stars then absolutely hammered them with the bat from ball 1 of over 1. With both teams having struggled so far at points in KSL, this level of dominance really wasn’t the match I was expecting to see when I woke up this morning.

So what happened? Well, for one, the Stars have clearly been doing exactly what Nat Sciver told us they’d be doing after that dramatic loss to Western Storm on Sunday – working on their fielding. Diving stops; skilful catches; and three run-outs. Perhaps the best was Cordelia Griffith’s effort to dismiss Tash Miles from short fine leg: she spotted that Miles was starting a run, used her head, quickly grabbed the ball and threw it straight to Beaumont behind the stumps, who had ample time to remove the bails. Really neat work.

It could have been so much worse for Thunder – the one catch that did go begging today was by Alex Hartley, who missed a caught and bowled chance off Amy Satterthwaite when the captain was on just 10* (she went on to make 34*). It’s a little ironic that the overseas player who Thunder only called in as a last-minute replacement when Sarah Coyte bowed out is now their leading run-scorer in the competition (with 130 runs to date).

Fortunately Hartley – who admitted after play that she was “really angry with myself” after the drop – kept her cool, her captain kept the faith and Hartley went on to take 2 wickets in her very next over. Whether or not the Stars qualify for Finals Day – that will depend on whether they can beat Loughborough Lightning on Friday – this competition has vindicated our long-held belief that Alex Hartley is one of the best spinners in England. With 7 wickets across 4 games, she also happens to be the KSL’s (joint) leading wicket-taker to date, and her scalps include Lauren Winfield, Sara McGlashan and Deandra Dottin – not bad going!

Surprising stat of the day: top run-scorers so far in KSL are Nat Sciver (169), Amy Satterthwaite (130), Tammy Beaumont (112) and…Emma Lamb (also with 112). With scores of 25, 26, 34 and 27, Lamb hasn’t rivalled the sheer dominance of the innings we’ve seen from the likes of Sciver, but her strike rate has been well over 100 and, as Satterthwaite put it after close of play, “She’s played exactly like we would want her to”. At just 18, she’s got a bright future ahead of her.

Talking of bright futures, Bryony Smith is clearly loving life right now – as the cheeky ramp shot she played over her shoulder for four today showed. Amy Satterthwaite, speaking after close of play, said that the opening 6 overs of the Stars’ innings had been vital: “I thought from the way the wicket was feeling at the time that [our score] would be just enough to try and scrape the win. The way they started left us in a pretty sore position to try and come back after the first six… In Twenty20 that first six can win or lose you the game.” Smith may have gotten herself out in the 7th over, but her 30 off 26 balls was an essential part of those crucial first 6. After Linsey Smith’s effort yesterday with the ball, perhaps we should be renaming this competition the Smith Super League?

When the initial Super League squads were announced, Berkshire left-arm spinner Linsey Smith was not even included in the list: her chance to play in the competition came only when Charlotte Edwards and Fi Morris collided horribly in the field in the Vipers’ first game last week and she was called in as cover.

Speaking exclusively to CRICKETher after the game, she admitted that even the chance to take to the field with the Vipers has been an unexpected bonus: “I’d been doing some training with the team but to get out there on a big stage like this is great. Just to be part of the team and to have an opportunity to play in the games has been amazing for me.”

But while Smith’s KSL career might have begun as a lucky break, it has not continued that way: it was only down to her own performance with the ball in the Vipers’ previous game, against Lancashire Thunder – she took 1-15 in her 4 overs – that she was retained in the starting XI for today’s match. She was clearly excited about having now claimed her spot in her own right: “I feel amazing. It’s a massive honour to be part of the Vipers with such a huge variety of players at such different levels, and some world-class players…we’ve got a lot of positive vibes in the team.”

On her bowling today – she finished with 4-10, currently the best figures in the competition – she acknowledged that things had gone to plan: “It was a pitch that suited my bowling quite a bit – quite a slow pitch. I was just trying to stick it in the wicket a little bit, making it hard for the batters by taking the pace off the ball, which went well.”

Linsey Smith celebrates taking the wicket of Alex Blackwell. Photo credit: Ruth Conchie.

Lastly, reflecting on the impact that KSL has had on her as a player, Smith was fulsome with her praise: “It just helps me get better and better really. I’m quite new to spin, still learning every game I play. So to have all these different experiences around me, both in games and out of games as well, is a huge opportunity for me to get better.”

Contrary to what seems to be becoming popular opinion, we’re not convinced there’s anything wrong with a low-scoring pitch in women’s T20 cricket – they can generate just as exciting a game as the high-scoring thriller we saw yesterday at Bristol. If this wasn’t that – and no one could really call today a “thriller” – it wasn’t the pitch’s fault; but the fact that Diamonds proved what we all suspected pre-tournament – they’ve got a very long tail.

It doesn’t help that Diamonds’ two overseas batsmen – Alex Blackwell and Beth Mooney – have almost totally failed with the bat, with scores of 3, 23 and 6, and 0, 9 and 17 respectively. Given that Ellyse Perry has also been having problems over at Lightning – she looked completely un-Perry-like when we saw her last Wednesday – is there something wider going on, in terms of Australian players who have flown over to England in the middle of their off-season being unable to recalibrate themselves quickly enough?

Meanwhile Suzie Bates – who’s been in good form with bat and ball – has been over here adjusting to English conditions with Kent for the last couple of months. This competition is very short, and having overseas players who’ve already been playing county cricket seems to have been a bigger advantage than we’d perhaps anticipated.

Alongside Bates, it was Arran Brindle who dug the Vipers out of the not-insubstantial hole they had thrown themselves into at 19-4 in the 7th over, steadying the ship from the instant she arrived at the crease – exactly the role she played so successfully for England in the last few years of her career. It’s patently obvious that she’s still a class above – and exactly what England have been missing since her retirement in February 2014. Sadly, we probably won’t be seeing her in an international shirt again – she gave a pretty unequivocal “no” when I asked her about the possibility of a comeback after close of play – but that’s one reason why it’s so exciting to see her back out there in this competition, playing against the world’s best.

But there were two real stars of today – and Linsey Smith deserves all the plaudits that we hope are coming her way. A week ago when we saw her at Loughborough she was running a how-fast-can-you-bowl sideshow – now she’s running the entire show, with the best bowling figures (4-10) in the competition to date. When she came into the attack at 32-2, the game was still just about in Yorkshire’s grasp; it was Smith who took it away from them with some highly intelligent bowling: a wicket-maiden first-up, followed by removing the dangerous Blackwell in her third over with a brilliant head-high reflex catch that otherwise would have gone crashing to the boundary. Perhaps she might even get her own Vipers shirt now!

Lastly, a mention to Carla Rudd – 2 stumpings today, and impeccable work with the gloves. It obviously helps that she’s used to keeping to bowlers like Smith and Fi Morris at Berkshire, but she’s barely put a foot wrong in this competition, and if you’re looking at the reasons why the Vipers have become the first team to qualify for Finals Day, she’s got to be a factor.

The ECB has today announced that six regional development centres – each aligned to one of the current KSL franchises – are set to launch this autumn, to provide high-quality coaching for up to 120 talented girls under the age of 16.

The new regional development centres replace the existing England Women’s Development Programme (EWDP) for Under-15s, which was a national programme that catered for only 20 girls. Each new regional centre will act as a feeder of the most talented players into the senior KSL side, with the aim that girls selected for the centres will aspire to play not just for their county but for their local KSL team.

The launch has been made possible by the awarding of Sport England funding under their “Reward and Incentive Programme”, which rewards national governing bodies who have performed exceptionally well in the 2013-17 cycle with increased investment.

The Under-19 EWDP, meanwhile, will continue to exist in its current form.

Reflecting on today’s tight game against Western Storm, which ended with a 5-wicket victory by the Storm with just 2 balls remaining, Surrey Stars captain Nat Sciver admitted that her team’s fielding had let them down.

“It’s a tough one,” she said, “because we did things so well for a long time in the game and then just at the end, when we needed a bit of composure, we put down a couple of catches and unfortunately we couldn’t help our bowlers over the line.”

One mistake in particular was clearly playing on her mind: “Dropping Taylor when she was on not very many runs has proved very costly.”

She stressed that her message to her team in the post-game debrief was to “keep your heads up”, but also that they would be working on improving their performance in the field before their next match at Guildford on Tuesday: “I’ll have a chat with the team and let them know that a bit of composure and calm can help…We need calmer heads and hopefully that’s something I can help them with.”

For Sciver, the challenge with Super League has partly been captaining a young and inexperienced side: “This has been a really good standard of tournament and it really shows what the step up is, and for some of the county girls it is a little bit different. It is definitely a learning curve.”

The Stars have now lost both their away games, while winning their home game at the Oval, but Sciver feels this is a coincidence: “I don’t think it matters that much. For most of the game today we were on top.”

On her own innings, meanwhile – she became the tournament’s top-scorer today, ending on 90* – she said: “That is as fluent as I have felt. They bowled quite a few balls short at me, which I don’t think was the plan, because I know Heather [Knight] knows I like it short. I just found they kept bowling in the area that I wanted!”

While Stars now face an uphill struggle to qualify for Finals Day, probably needing to win both their next games in order to do so, Sciver said that they would “throw everything into it…it’s all or nothing now.”

Throughout the Kia Super League, we’ll be featuring short interviews with players, coaches & other interesting people we find around and about at the grounds. Yesterday’s top-scorer in Surrey Stars’ win against Yorkshire Diamonds may have been Tammy Beaumont, but it was fellow opener 18-year-old Bryony Smith who helped her set the platform. She answered our quick-fire questions after the match…

If not Surrey Stars, who would you like to win?

I would go for Lancashire Thunder. I’ve got some good friends playing there, and beating Loughborough yesterday [Wednesday] was really good for them.

Who would you like to see playing in KSL that isn’t?

I think Ebony Rainford-Brent should be getting her kit on! She’s been up in the changing rooms picking everyone’s bats up, so I think just give her a bat and she’ll be out there!

Favourite KSL player?

I’m going to go for my teammate Rene Farrell. The Loud Australian as we call her! She’s a really good buzz around the team and a great team player.

Justin Bieber or One Direction?

One Direction.

Which sportswoman/women do you admire outside cricket?

I play a lot of squash and there’s a woman called Nicol David, she’s won pretty much every single title in the world. She’s been number 1 for about 7 years. Just the way that she’s persevered through everything.

Favourite cricket ground?

The Oval.

Favourite thing on the menu in Nandos?

Chicken burger and chips – medium spice!

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Hopefully with an England shirt on, playing here in a World Cup final!

Where do you see women’s cricket in 10 years?

Attracting an even bigger, packed crowd at the Oval – a full house!