Southern Vipers bounced back in style after their humiliation at the hands of Sunrisers last week, with an emphatic 158-run win against South East Stars at Beckenham.

On what felt like the first sunny day of the year, Georgia Adams chose to bat first; and Vipers vindicated that decision by putting 287 on the board.

After Maia Bouchier and Ella McCaughan shared a century opening stand, a run-a-ball half-century from Georgia Elwiss at no.4 helped them finish well.

However, Beckenham is renowned for being a decent batting wicket, and the boundary rope was (inexplicably) 10 yards shorter than usual for this game. Stars therefore emerged after the innings break audibly confident about their chances.

Nobody was more confident than Capsey, who looked (as ever) a cut above the rest. She helped Stars to 25 for 0 in the first four overs, and played the shot of the day – a beautiful cover drive.

But the next two overs from Lauren Bell decimated the Stars. Firstly, and most crucially, she bowled Capsey with one which nipped back in to take out her off stump. The next ball, Ryana MacDonald-Gay was adjudged LBW.

Bryony Smith saw off the first hat-trick ball; but then created a chance for a second, as Bell took another two-in-two in her following over. Smith fell to an excellent low catch by Charlie Dean at cover, before Alice Davidson-Richards wafted at one outside off stump and Bouchier snaffled it at slip.

Fresh from scoring her first century in a decade against Thunder last weekend, Paige Scholfield again looked the most assured of the Stars batters, striking the ball cleanly on the way to 31 off 63 balls.

But she was bowled going down on one knee trying to slog Adams in the 27th, and Stars gradually succumbed to their fate – all out for 129 in the 37th over.

Oddly, Stars had earlier chosen not to open the bowling with England’s Freya Davies, instead opting for the combination of Tash Farrant and Phoebe Franklin.

That allowed Bouchier and McCaughan to find their feet and build a platform, which Elwiss and Adams (31) built on with a 76-run partnership for the 4th wicket.

Stars ultimately used a mammoth 9 bowlers, mostly in vain, as Vipers enjoyed a day of regaining their mojo.

In December, in response to the success of the Lionesses in the Women’s Euros, the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee set up an inquiry into women’s sport and invited the submission of written evidence.

The terms of reference for the inquiry are:

1. How can the growth in domestic women’s football be accelerated?
2. What should other sports be learning from the growth of women’s football leagues in the UK?
3. What is needed for women’s sporting organisations to grow audiences and revenues?
4. What action is needed to tackle sexism and misogyny in sport?
5. What needs to change at a regulatory level to facilitate more parity between men’s and women’s sport?

In my evidence, I focused on Question 5. Those of you who follow The CRICKETher Weekly will be aware that I have quite strong views about how cricket (and other women’s sports) should be governed!

My current research project at Bournemouth University looks at the way in which women’s sporting organisations were forced into “mergers” with men’s sporting organisations in the 1990s – including the Women’s Cricket Association, which (having run women’s cricket since 1926) was absorbed by the newly-formed ECB in 1998.

My research shows that these mergers were not desired by those within women’s sport – they were, largely, government-mandated. The merger “negotiations” were dominated by male voices and priorities, and subsequently (in my view) the mergers stymied the growth and development of women’s sport.

In my evidence, I argue that merged governance (where women’s and men’s sport are run by the same governing bodies) is not always the best way to promote parity between men’s and women’s sport. I also recommend that the Government give serious consideration to the adoption of a model of devolved / separate governance of women’s sport.

That might sound extreme – but it’s important to think hard about why women’s sport hasn’t yet achieved parity with men’s sport. Maybe it’s time to get radical?

A number of National Governing Bodies also submitted evidence to the inquiry, including England Netball, the FA and the RFU. (The ECB didn’t, though – aside from a short joint submission with the FA, LTA, RFU and RFL calling for the Government to improve sport for girls in schools.)

You can read my evidence, as well as all other submissions, here – it’s worth a look!

So, what happens next? Usually, the Committee moves now to oral evidence sessions, so it’s possible I may get a summons to appear before the Committee and present my suggestions there.

After that, an overall report will be compiled with recommendations for the Government, based on all the evidence presented. I’ll keep you updated once that final report is published. The Government don’t have to act on it, of course, but it could make for very interesting reading!

There have been a lot of words expended about what Jon Lewis has brought to the England camp which is different to his predecessors, but one word stood out to me from Danni Wyatt’s eve of semi-final press conference – “calmness”.

“We’re feeling really confident, and more importantly really chilled. We’re all ready for tomorrow,” she said. “Lewy [Jon Lewis] has brought this really calm aura into the team – everyone knows their plan.”

For me, it’s that word which has epitomised England’s approach this World Cup. It meant that they didn’t panic when they found themselves 29 for 3 against India. It meant that they were able to pick themselves up in the midst of a frenetic WPL auction on the day of their game against Ireland. And whenever Nat Sciver-Brunt gets to the crease, a zen-like focus seems to take over.

“She’s as cool as a cucumber, our Nat. Nothing fazes her,” Wyatt said of her teammate, who currently tops the run-scoring charts in this World Cup. “She’s very chilled, and everyone looks at that and it feeds around the team.”

Wyatt herself, fresh from making a half-century against Pakistan, seemed supremely relaxed, joking in the press conference about the team’s experience of getting stuck coming down Table Mountain thanks to load-shedding (periodic power-cuts that are an everyday fact of life in South Africa at the moment) – “I don’t think I’ll be going up that mountain again soon, unless I walk up! I’m not going up that cable-car ever again!” It’s rare to see someone so breezy and composed ahead of a knock-out game.

By contrast, South Africa have had a mad run-up to this semi-final – losing their first game against Sri Lanka after completely losing their heads in what should have been an easy run-chase; before finally inching their way to a nervy win against Bangladesh on Tuesday.

I’m no body language expert, but Sune Luus seemed the opposite of relaxed in her own pre-match press conference. To use a cricketing metaphor, she spent the entire 15 minutes playing defensive shots.

T20 cricket can be a crazy game. But maybe calmness is the way to win a World Cup?

On Saturday MCC proudly issued a press release which stated that the crowd of 15,000 people at Lord’s for the England v India fixture was a record for a bilateral women’s fixture in England.

24 hours later, less than 500 people were present to watch the final of the 2022 Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy – a thrilling game of cricket which came down to the very last ball and saw Northern Diamonds triumph over Southern Vipers by just 2 runs. The cricket was phenomenal and the surroundings were iconic – but (almost) no one came.

This should have been the perfect marketing opportunity for regional cricket – a Weekend of Women’s Cricket to wrap up the season at Lord’s, with a captive audience present from the previous day and some of the same players in the England squad present on both occasions. Not least Charlie Dean, who after inadvertently finding herself the centre of attention on Saturday then played another 100 overs of cricket on Sunday – good on her!

But if we are purely judging by the size of the crowd, then… it flopped.

Of course, not everyone who might have been interested in women’s cricket was able to get to Lord’s – they could instead watch on Sky at home. Or could they? The game was pushed onto the red button after 3pm – it was still available on YouTube, but even so the decision suggests that someone at Sky felt that keeping it on a main channel was a “waste”.

That’s not even mentioning the quality of the coverage, which was more akin to a poor live stream. Firstly, it was fixed camera. Secondly, as a friend of ours watching at home said: “the sound went up and down like a yo-yo, and at times the ground effects microphones packed up completely. At others, you couldn’t hear the commentators.”

And this for a day which was supposed to be the pinnacle of the regional calendar. Imagine if T20 Blast Finals Day was treated like this?

The whole day was symptomatic of a wider problem. The new professional domestic structure is now three seasons old… and yet the marketing of regional cricket is still wildly inconsistent, part-time and in many cases almost non-existent. The replies to my tweet made this pretty clear:

If you’ve time, it’s worth reading the replies in full, but here’s a sample:

Perhaps more importantly, the disparity between attendance at the RHF Trophy final and the final of the Women’s Hundred a few weeks previously (20,000) highlighted more clearly than ever before the extent to which regional cricket is living in the shadow of The Hundred.

I’ve loved attending and covering both seasons of The Hundred. It’s been incredibly exciting to see the huge crowds for women’s cricket, and be able to watch the entire tournament from start to end on Sky and the BBC.

But for me, that was just Step One. Step Two is about translating those audiences into fans of the non-Hundred women’s teams as well. Because if the success of The Hundred, built on a vast marketing budget, is coming at the expense of regional cricket – then is it really success at all?

Lauren Winfield-Hill said that she was “chuffed to bits” after top-scoring for Northern Diamonds in a hard-fought final against Southern Vipers on Sunday at Lord’s, which saw Diamonds secure their first ever regional title by just two runs.

“We’ve come close to the Vipers a few times now and we’ve got a few wounds against them,” she said. “We managed to hold our nerve.”

The match-winning performance came just a few weeks after she helped Oval Invincibles sweep to victory in the Women’s Hundred at the same ground – rounding off a prolific season with the bat.

She was the overall leading run-scorer in the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint Trophy with 470 runs; and earlier finished fourth in our Hundred batting rankings.

“My form this summer’s been the best it’s ever been, in terms of different competitions, different oppositions, different surfaces – I’ve adapted better than I ever have before,” she said.

The remarkable thing about her recent performances is that they have come after the most difficult winter of her career, during which she was dispensed with by England two matches into the World Cup.

“It’s no secret that I’ve found the winter hard, the bubbles hard, being dropped from England hard. I could barely even function as a human being. I was in a pretty dark place,” she said, after struggling to hold back tears in the post-match presentation.

“To be able to turn it around, fall in love with the game and take pressure off myself, enjoy what’s in front of me, has been the most enjoyable bit. I’ve loved every game, and that’s reflected in how I’ve performed. I’ve done a lot of work to get myself back into that place, and it’s nice seeing the fruits of that.”

What enabled Diamonds to finally get over the line after twice falling at the final hurdle to Vipers in the 2020 and 2021 RHF finals? Winfield-Hill pointed to the way that numerous players in the squad had stepped up at crucial times, including 21-year-old Bess Heath, who has had a breakthrough season in the middle order and scored 44 runs at No.6 in Sunday’s final.

“It’s not been a one-man band. That’s been our real strength,” Winfield-Hill said. “This year our preparation, how tight we’ve been as a team, how many people have contributed at different times was the difference this year that enabled us to get over the line.”

“I was in and out last year with England stuff,” she added. “It’s been nice to feel part of it this year, rather than the adopted one that just comes in every now and again.”

With an increasingly professional set-up at domestic level, it’s more important now than ever that consistency in regional cricket is valued on its own terms, rather than seeing runs in the RHF and CE Cup purely as a means to an end – that end being a place in an England squad.

The door may currently be closed on an England return for Winfield-Hill; but so what? Being instrumental in Diamonds winning their maiden title, and doing it at Lord’s – that’s a pretty good day to wrap up a monumental season at the office.

The ECB have today announced the fixtures for the 2023 Women’s Ashes series – and the big news is that the Test at Trent Bridge will be held over five days.

The Test will be only the second in history ever to be played over five days, following on from repeated disappointment after a series of recent rain-affected draws – the most recent against South Africa in June.

The multi-format series will look similar to recent Women’s Ashes with one Test, three ODIs and three T20s – however, in a departure from previous series, the Test match will be played at the start, with the T20 leg in the middle, and the ODIs wrapping up the schedule. Two of the T20s will be played as evening games in London, at The Oval and Lord’s – the first time the Women’s Ashes has been played at these grounds.

It had previously been suggested that the question of a fifth day for women’s Tests was in the hands of the ICC, but the decision to host a five-day Test appears to have been taken by the ECB independently – there is no mention in today’s press release of any change to the ICC’s overall women’s Test match playing conditions.

It is also the first time ever that the Women’s Ashes fixtures have been announced at the same time as the Men’s Ashes fixtures, with the ECB running a new joint advertising campaign with the tagline: “One Epic Rivalry, Two Epic Ashes.” This marks an interesting point of difference from Cricket Australia’s strategy which aims to give the Women’s Ashes its own window, and to market it separately from the equivalent men’s series.

The full fixture list is below:

June 22 to 26 – Test match, Trent Bridge

July 1 – T20, Edgbaston, 6.35pm

July 5 – T20, Kia Oval, 6pm

July 8 – T20, Lord’s, 6.35pm

July 12 – ODI, Bristol, 1pm

July 16 – ODI, Ageas Bowl, 11am

July 18 – ODI, Taunton, 1pm

Amy Jones will continue as England captain for the three ODIs against India, despite Tammy Beaumont’s recall to the squad.

Jones had previously stated that she was unsure about taking on the role in the longer format, saying on Monday: “I’m not sure I’ll be throwing my hat in the ring. I think fifty overs is a whole other ball game.” It had been widely mooted that Beaumont, who is a former England Academy skipper and led the Welsh Fire in this year’s Women’s Hundred competition, might feel more comfortable taking up the reins in the ODIs.

However, the ECB appear to have opted for continuity, with Jones presumably set to continue filling in until Heather Knight returns from injury.

As well as Beaumont, Charlie Dean and Emma Lamb also find their way back into the squad, after missing out during the Commonwealth Games; while (of those who featured in the T20s v India) Bryony Smith and Sarah Glenn have been omitted.

That means that Alice Capsey and Freya Kemp have both earned maiden call-ups to the ODI squad – Capsey effectively making herself undroppable after a winning innings in the T20 series decider at Bristol on Thursday.

Interestingly, Maia Bouchier – despite being included in the ODI squad – has been released to play for Southern Vipers in Saturday’s RHF Trophy match against Diamonds, which will decide which of the two teams progresses automatically to the final.

The full England ODI squad is below:

• Amy Jones (captain)
• Tammy Beaumont
• Lauren Bell
• Maia Bouchier
• Alice Capsey
• Kate Cross
• Freya Davies
• Alice Davidson-Richards
• Charlie Dean
• Sophia Dunkley
• Sophie Ecclestone
• Freya Kemp
• Emma Lamb
• Issy Wong
• Danni Wyatt

Southern Vipers beat Thunder at the Ageas Bowl by 4 wickets with 3 overs to spare, having dug themselves out of yet another hole with the bat.

Chasing 204 to win, Vipers had been 100 for 5 in the 26th over after set batter Paige Scholfield (31) was trapped LBW to Shachi Pai. Vipers super-fan Syd had his head in his hands and it looked to be as good as over.

But Vipers being Vipers, they found a middle-order pairing to rescue them from disaster…

This time it was Emily Windsor, who had done exactly the same thing a week ago against Southern Vipers Brave in the final of The Hundred; and Chloe Hill, who had ALSO done the same thing six weeks ago, in the last round of RHF Trophy games against Sunrisers.

Windsor and Hill have had very different Augusts. Windsor played 4 matches for Invincibles in The Hundred but was called upon to bat just once – her thrilling 13 not out in the final the difference between a win and a loss for Invincibles. Her Vipers teammate Charlotte Taylor, sitting in the crowd at Lord’s, reportedly did not know who she should be cheering for when Windsor came to the crease.

Hill, meanwhile, was not picked up by a Hundred franchise. She spent August captaining Worcestershire Rapids in the 50-over West Midlands Regional Cup – ideal preparation for the RHF Trophy. Some may consider county cricket unimportant but for players like Hill, who draw on their experience at county to produce match-winning performances at regional level, county cricket remains a crucial link in the pathway chain.

Thunder were without their premier bowler Alex Hartley – who is commentating in the men’s Test at The Oval this weekend – but it wasn’t their “second string” bowlers that Vipers chose to target. Hill took on the bowling of Deandra Dottin, who offered up short ball after short ball for her delectation.

“I don’t mind a short ball!” Hill laughed after the match. “She bowled in my area and if a bowler’s going to bowl in my area, I’m going to play shots regardless of who they are.”

“The first four that went off her, I was like ‘ohhh, that felt good!’”

Thunder will have paid good money to have Dottin rejoin them for the final three rounds of the RHF but on today’s performance, it could have been better spent. Having scored just 5 runs with the bat, she went on to concede 36 runs from her 6 overs – the most expensive bowler in the Thunder attack.

For Thunder, then, a day that started well – with Emma Lamb (63) and Ellie Threlkeld (79) both putting in good days at the office – ultimately ended in disappointment. After today’s loss, they are now out of contention to make the final three and gain a place in the play-off.

Vipers, meanwhile, are now officially qualified alongside Northern Diamonds, who enjoyed a bonus-point win against Western Storm; with South East Stars still in pole position to join them.

LV= Insurance, the Official Domestic Test and County Cricket Partner of the England & Wales Cricket Board, today launches a grant to drive diversity in the cricket media by giving a young person the opportunity to cover the 2023 Test Summer as a cricket journalist.

The Black Collective of Media in Sport (BCOMS) will identify candidates for a fully-paid five-month internship with LV= with their brief to cover press conferences, matches and events taking place during the 2023 domestic cricket season.

The individual will be working with journalists from The Cricket Writers’ Club (CWC) – a partner of LV= Insurance – across the 2023 summer and get the chance to shadow members of the national cricket media at matches including the Ashes and within newsrooms, as well as co-writing match reports and news stories.

Media titles such as PA Media, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph, The Cricketer and CRICKETher have already agreed to support the candidate with opportunities to work on their sports desk and shadow at events.

BCOMS will be liaising with their northern and southern cohorts to identify a selection of applicants and, following interviews, the top three applicants will then be asked to take on a pre-assigned writing task and submit their entries to an expert judging panel.

The judging panel will consist of:

• Dean Wilson, Cricket Correspondent at The Daily Mirror
• Raf Nicholson, Editor of CRICKETher
• Andrew Ducille, Operations Manager at BCOMS
• Lisa Leroux, Social Media Lead at BCOMS
• Jon Mansley, Sales and Marketing Director at LV= General Insurance

Once the panel has decided the successful candidate, they will be unveiled at an event run by LV= Insurance in October in London.

The successful candidate will begin work on 20^th March 2023 and spend their summer working on activating LV= Insurance’s partnership with the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB), shadowing the national cricket media and covering Test matches and the LV= County Championship for both the LV= Cricket Hub and on behalf of selected UK cricket media titles.

Heather Smith, Managing Director at LV= General Insurance, said: “It’s very exciting to be able to announce the launch of our Media Diversity Grant, which will offer a young person from a diverse background the opportunity to work in cricket. Bringing more diversity to the sport is incredibly important and with the world of sport journalism being hugely competitive, we’re delighted to be providing this opportunity.  Over the last 18 months, we’ve worked hard to open up cricket and support new communities through our £1 million grassroots cricket initiative #Funds4Runs which is co-funded with the ECB and, working together, we’re keen to continue doing as much as we can to support the cricket community.”

George Dobell, Chairman of the Cricket Writers’ Club, said: “It has become painfully apparent that our sport isn’t as inclusive as it should be. Alongside the Bethan James Bursary, which we introduced in 2021, this grant is a tangible attempt to improve things. We’re grateful to LV= Insurance for their investment and delighted to support it.”

Drew Christie, Chair of BCOMS, said: “Cricket has a long and rich tradition in Black communities, and it’s important that this is reflected in those that frame the narratives around the game, as well as participate in it. BCOMS is pleased that LV= Insurance and the Cricket Writers’ Club recognise the value of working to improve diversity within the sport, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity the Media Diversity Grant will offer aspiring Black cricket journalists to develop their careers.”