Oval Invincibles thrashed London Spirit by 9 wickets with 42 balls remaining at Lord’s to secure their spot in the finals of The Hundred, sending Spirit crashing out with a round of matches still to play.

Spirit should have been on a high after racking up their first win of the tournament on Wednesday against Welsh Fire. Instead they essentially lost the match within the first 25 balls, facing down 13 dots and losing 3 wickets – including the biggie of Beth Mooney, who sent up a tame catch to Alice Capsey at cover.

For the first time in this year’s tournament, Mady Villiers was tasked with opening the bowing; and after having Dani Gibson caught at mid-off, captain Dane van Niekerk chose to keep her on for a second consecutive set. The wicket of Mooney was her reward.

Before today, Villiers had bowled her full allocation of balls only once in this year’s Hundred. With Sophia Smale launching onto the scene so successfully, and Alice Capsey continuing where she left off last year, Villiers has been somewhat overshadowed: against Trent Rockets she didn’t bowl at all, while in Invincibles’ last match v Phoenix, she bowled just 10 balls – neither set in the powerplay. But she made up for it today, finishing with figures of 4 for 12 and the Match Hero award.

So what did she do differently?

“I just kept it more simple,” she said after the match. “Previously I’ve looked too much at what the other players do and I’ve focused too much on what the other person’s skills are, rather than what my best ball is.”

“I bowled my arm ball today more than I’ve bowled it in the other two games put together.”

Interestingly, her third and fourth wickets – Naomi Dattani and Grace Scrivens – were both bowled, a mode of dismissal which is unusual for Villiers. A lot more of her wickets than “average” come from stumpings (20%, compared with an average in women’s cricket of 7%) – only 15% of her dismissals are bowled (compared with an average of 24%).

Or, as Villiers put it: “I got two bowleds today. I don’t think I’ve got too many bowleds in my life!”

With Invincibles facing Manchester Originals in their final group-stage match – a game which could be important in deciding whether they qualify automatically for the final – a boost of confidence for a spinner who has so far been discarded by England this summer won’t go amiss.

Meanwhile, Spirit limped along to 80 all out, losing wickets regularly along the way and facing down far too many dot balls; leaving Suzie Bates and Lauren Winfield-Hill to come out and show them how it should have been done, smashing 12 boundaries between them (4 more than Invincibles managed in their entire innings).

Despite a revamp of their overseas ranks, with Beth Mooney and Amelia Kerr brought in to replace Chloe Tryon and Deandra Dottin (who were both felt to have underperformed), Spirit’s batting just hasn’t fired this year. Tammy Beaumont’s decision to move to Welsh Fire was a big blow; but of course the loss of Heather Knight just days before the competition started was the real biggie.

“Heather is a great person to have around, such a great leader,” Naomi Dattani said after the match. “Her experience and nous with the bat – we definitely miss having her. She’s around today and it’s been nice to have her in the dressing room and use that experience where we can.”

Dattani added that Spirit’s lop-sided schedule hadn’t helped matters:

“Three games away [to start] – we were on the road for 10, 11 days. We needed to start well. We had a couple of close games and if one of those were a win, it might have got us going.”

“We didn’t get over the line in the first couple of games and then we were on the back foot from there.”

Oval Invincibles pulled off a convincing 8-wicket win against Birmingham Phoenix at The Oval on Tuesday, handing them a first defeat of the season and pulling ahead of them in the race for a spot in the top three.

Invincibles set up the win by restricting table-toppers Phoenix to the lowest score so far in The Hundred this season – 105 for 7 – achieving the feat even with their best bowler Marizanne Kapp sitting out with “quad soreness”.

Just as they did in the 2021 competition, Invincibles are proving the value of a strong bowling unit tasked with clear plans. They are also, again, drawing on young players to achieve success – Alice Capsey, Sophia Smale and Ryana MacDonald-Gay are all ranked in the top 10 bowlers so far in the competition.

Smale was crucial today in the powerplay, helping restrict Phoenix to a score of just 23, and running out towards midwicket to take a catch off her own bowling and get rid of the exceedingly dangerous Sophie Devine. If she isn’t quite going to do a Capsey and launch a full international career within 12 months of the competition, 17-year-old Smale can at least feel fairly confident of bagging a spot in the inaugural U19 World Cup, scheduled for South Africa in January.

Smale’s brilliant diving catch to see off Georgia Elwiss, running around from short third in front of a huge crowd at The Oval, was the kind of thing we wouldn’t have seen domestic players pull off a few years ago – they’d have been overwhelmed by the occasion; and short on the requisite skill. Vive the regional system. As Syd said on Twitter, it typified a fantastic effort in the field from Invincibles, who made it very difficult for Phoenix to score freely.

In response, Invincibles got off to a flyer, helped by the fact that Sophie Devine decided to bowl Phoebe Franklin in the powerplay instead of Emily Arlott (who ended the match as by far the most economical Phoenix bowler, conceding just 8 runs off her 17 balls). Capsey showed her disdain for Franklin, getting off the mark with a huge six over long-on, as Invincibles raced to 41 for 1 in the first 25.

Phoenix did manage to peg them back after Capsey miscued Arlott to short third off the 47th ball, with Dane van Niekerk looking like someone who hasn’t batted in a cricket match for months on end – because, well, she hasn’t. But Lauren Winfield-Hill (now the competition’s third leading run-scorer, behind Wolvaardt and Dottin) eventually brought it home for her new team with 13 balls to spare. Is Winfield-Hill this season’s “best new buy”?

Hopefully van Niekerk’s time in the middle today will have helped restore some of her old confidence, after Phoenix helpfully fluffed a run out chance against her early on, allowing her to go on and make a run-a-ball 21*. Oddly, though, she didn’t bowl; it’s not clear whether that was her choice or coach Jonathan Batty’s.

What role will DvN play in the rest of the competition? An interview by Matt Roller with stand-in skipper Suzie Bates on Cricinfo, published today, is unclear on the answer to that question. Bates describes events so far in The Hundred as an “interesting time”: “It’s just one game at a time at the moment: I’m waiting to be told what the team needs from me,” she says. Hmmmmm. There is something very strange going on inside the Invincibles camp at the moment and I’m not sure we’ve got to the bottom of it yet. Watch this space.

It’s the age-old question in cricket – should a captain be selected first, and the team put in place around them; or should you select your best XI, and then choose a captain from that? Or, to put it a different way, how much does the wisdom and charisma of a captain matter, over and above their cricketing skills?

The Oval Invincibles management seem pretty clear on the answer to the above. In their match against Southern Brave on Sunday, they were happy to dispense with established skipper Dane van Niekerk, in order to be able to field their three other overseas players Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail and Suzie Bates. “We have four quality [overseas] players and the management decided that this is the best combination”, stand-in captain Bates said at the toss.

It’s pretty universally acknowledged that van Niekerk’s captaincy created a team environment last year which was conducive to success and ultimately led to Invincibles winning the title. OK, she didn’t have to bat in the opening game on Thursday; but dropping her seemed, well… brave. [Ed: That’s the type of pun I expect from Syd, not you.]

Whether it cost Invincibles the game is (obviously) hard to quantify, but it certainly didn’t help.

Brave had two “big” phases of their innings. The 25-ball powerplay saw Smriti Mandhana having lots of fun smoking boundaries, with Danni Wyatt’s main role at the other end being to get her partner on strike and keep her there.

Invincibles pulled it back well in the middle phases – Brave lost 5 wickets for 40 runs between the 37th and the 72nd balls. Sophia Smale was excellent yet again – a late replacement for the competition in place of the injured Emma Jones, could she be the Hundred’s equivalent of Linsey Smith, who was a last-minute injury replacement in the first year of the KSL (and went on to catch the eye of then-England coach Mark Robinson)?

After Bates put down a simple chance at midwicket off Smale’s first ball of the day, the 17-year-old kept patient, and smart. In her next set, she tempted Wyatt down the track a couple of times, and ultimately had her stumped. She then did for possibly the best T20 batter in the world at the moment, Tahlia McGrath, courtesy of an absolutely brilliant catch from Kirstie White diving forwards at short third. Perhaps most importantly, 10 out of the 20 balls Smale bowled were dots.

But at the back-end, Freya Kemp and Georgia Adams were able to take advantage of Bates’ decision to front-load her best bowlers, adding 47 runs off the final 25 balls.

With Invincibles already light on bowling due to the absence of Alice Capsey (sitting out with “stiffness” after Thursday night’s ankle injury), and Bates unable to turn her arm over due to her long-standing shoulder issues (she hasn’t bowled a ball in anger since the 2020/21 WBBL), it seemed to make even less sense to assume they could do without van Niekerk’s leg-spin.

Invincibles’ efforts at the death were also damaged by the fact that they dropped behind the required over rate, and were therefore only allowed three fielders outside the circle for the final 10 balls of the innings. There seemed to be a LOT of chat going on between balls and “sets” between Bates, Kapp and Ismail – too many captains spoiling the broth? – which certainly didn’t help matters.

In reply, Invincibles got off to a decent start, with Winfield-Hill and Bates adding 38 runs in the 25-ball powerplay. Kapp, too, did her best to jog things along, smashing 16 runs from Amanda-Jade Wellington’s second “set” of the day, including a slog-swept six.

But the “golden arm” of Georgia Adams, who bowled both Winfield-Hill and Kapp in the space of 14 balls, proved ruinous to their run-chase. There were some brave fireworks from Ryana Macdonald-Gay, but a lack of contributions from the Invincibles’ middle-order had essentially already cost them the game by that point.

If only they’d had the player who was the competition’s leading run-scorer in 2021 at their disposal – a specialist in the middle-order, if you will – to stabilise their chase…

One of the reasons why Invincibles were able to win the 2021 Women’s Hundred was their team culture. It makes this decision, which appears to have been imposed on the players with little to no notice, even more bizarre. Let’s hope it’s just a blip, or things could quickly get very difficult indeed for the Oval-based team.

Just over a year ago, in June 2021, England announced that Nat Sciver would be replacing Anya Shrubsole as vice-captain. Sciver had done the role on a temporary basis during England’s tour of New Zealand earlier in the year; and the decision had been made that she should take on the role on a permanent basis.

Fast forward 13 months. It’s the eve of women’s cricket’s debut at the Commonwealth Games, and Heather Knight is receiving injections to try to relieve the nagging pain in her hip. She desperately wants to play… but it turns out that the pain is just too much. Sciver is called to a meeting with Heather and Lisa Keightley and told that she will be skippering the team. Not only will the anchor-batting role (in the absence of both Knight and Tammy Beaumont) rest on her shoulders, but so will leading a young side to the medal podium. Sciver is one of the world’s leading all-rounders, but even so… this is a LOT.

We all know what happens next. England’s first three matches are a walkover. Then they meet India in the semi-final, and fall just short in a desperate run-chase. The next day, they completely fail to turn up in the bronze medal match against New Zealand, seemingly deciding that if it isn’t a gold medal, it ain’t worth the bother. A picture of Heather Knight consoling a desolate Katherine Brunt after the match goes viral.

It could have been a very different story had England handled the situation with the captaincy-succession a little differently.

We thought at the time of the announcement that it was slightly strange that Sciver had been handed the vice-captaincy role – she is just two years younger than Knight, so it was clearly not a decision made with a long-term view in mind. Subsequent events have reinforced the view that Sciver is not seen by England as Knight’s long-term replacement. Last summer, with Knight out injured for the first two games against New Zealand, Sciver stepped in as captain. Afterwards, when I asked her about an on-field tactical decision, she made it very clear that all the key calls had been made by Knight before the game.

Then, during the Commonwealth Games, Knight was kept with the squad. “She’s been in all the meetings,” Issy Wong said after the New Zealand group-stage match, “and been pretty much 100% part of the group.” It seemed to be for the best, but for Sciver, trying to do the captain’s job on the pitch while (presumably) not feeling like the captain off the pitch must have been a challenge. She admitted as such in one of the mixed zones. “The first few games I was a bit like, ‘arghhh!'” she said, when asked about replacing Knight.

Arguably, the past few days for England have seen a real failure of leadership. As Syd put it in his piece yesterday:

England talk a lot about being role models, but after one player was given an official reprimand yesterday for swearing on the field of play, the overriding image of England today was another being shown live on TV, smashing over a chair with her bat on her way back to the dressing room after being dismissed.

I want to make it clear – I don’t blame Sciver for this failure. The real issue is that England have not been treating Sciver as a captain-in-waiting. They have been treating her as a captain-in-name-only, who simply executes decisions which seem to have already been made by Knight and Lisa Keightley before the match begins.

That can take you so far – but in crunch matches, like the semi-final against India, you need a captain who is equipped to think for themselves, who can come up with Plans C through to Z on the hoof, when Plans A and B fail. Has Sciver really been encouraged to develop that kind of independent thinking by England?

Imagine an alternative world, in which a year ago, England had decided that they were going to make a real effort to blood a proper successor for Knight. If you really want to think long-term, Sophia Dunkley is probably the most plausible candidate from the “next generation”. So appoint Dunkley as vice-captain. Allow her free rein to make some key decisions, even if you do that in “minor” matches against weaker opposition (e.g. those six white-ball games against South Africa). Give her the chance to captain the England Academy in warm-up games. Let her make mistakes. Allow her to be a real challenge to Knight’s authority.

Choose to do that a year ago, and losing your captain on the eve of a huge tournament is no longer a disaster. But they didn’t. And disaster it was.

Obviously, England can’t go back in time now – they’ve thrown away their chance to spend the past 12 months blooding Knight’s replacement, just like they threw away their chance at a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games on Sunday.

But this should be a salient lesson for captain and coach. If you care about the future of this team, you need to let a future leader develop – really, truly, properly develop – and you need to do it now.

England have made the bold decision to opt for youthful “aggression” over experience in the selection of their squad for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, which includes 17-year-olds Alice Capsey and Freya Kemp, and a recall for Bryony Smith, but omits Tammy Beaumont.

“We feel like it’s our best squad,” Lisa Keightley said. “We want to be quite aggressive up top, and the players that we’ve picked we think give us options to do that.”

Kemp, who made her debut for Southern Vipers a matter of weeks ago, offers a left-arm pace option, but has also shown herself capable of being explosive with the bat, as she proved just last Saturday for Vipers against Stars at Hove.

Capsey, meanwhile, has been picked at a point when she is just starting to regain some form in domestic cricket, but Keightley said that she felt the teenager was now ready to make the step up to internationals.

“It’s always great to get on a bandwagon really early but I think she’s matured,” she said. “Going over to Australia and seeing her travel and play a little bit under the radar – her time is now. She gives us lots of options – she can float in the batting order and tends to be able to move quite freely with a good strike rate in doing that.”

Bryony Smith, Keightley suggested, could play a similar role – either as an opener or at no.6 or 7, “hitting boundaries at the back-end” – while both of course also offer England some further options in terms of their off-spin bowling.

Freya Davies, meanwhile, makes it back into the side after being omitted from the ODI squad against South Africa – so it’s possible that England have realised that having Nat Sciver open the bowling and go at 7 or 8 an over isn’t actually ideal! “T20 cricket, she’s really skilled,” Keightley said. “At the back end of an innings she generally is quite a good defensive bowler. We know what she can do when teams are coming at her, it’s being able to take those wickets up front.”

The omission of Beaumont, who has been one of England’s most successful players in recent years, comes as a big shock to everyone; but Keightley was firm in her belief that Beaumont is not, as it stands, one of England’s best players in the 20-over format:

“In 50-over cricket you can’t match Tammy’s record, it speaks for itself. In T20 I think there’s still some room for growth and improvement there, and now it’s up to her to go away and do it,” she said.

The full squad is below:

• Heather Knight (Western Storm, captain)
• Maia Bouchier (Southern Vipers)
• Katherine Brunt (Northern Diamonds)
• Alice Capsey (South East Stars)
• Kate Cross (Thunder)
• Freya Davies (South East Stars)
• Sophia Dunkley (South East Stars)
• Sophie Ecclestone (Thunder)
• Sarah Glenn (Central Sparks)
• Amy Jones (Central Sparks)
• Freya Kemp (Southern Vipers)
• Nat Sciver (Northern Diamonds)
• Bryony Smith (South East Stars)
• Issy Wong (Central Sparks)
• Danni Wyatt (Southern Vipers)

Surrey regained the London Cup from Middlesex in comprehensive fashion at the Kia Oval on Thursday, beating their North London rivals by 9 wickets after surrendering the trophy last year at Radlett.

Alice Capsey was the star of the show, recording remarkable figures of 3 for 6 before smashing 7* from 4 balls, including a beautiful drive for four lofted over extra cover, to wrap up the win for Surrey within 9 overs.

“It’s great to get the win and get the trophy back to us,” Capsey said. “We won it a couple of years ago here and then we lost it last year at Radlett, so it was a big thing to come back to the Oval and try and win it again.”

Middlesex had chosen to bat first on a glorious evening at the Kia Oval, and Bryony Smith made the somewhat unconventional decision to open the bowling with an over from Capsey – a decision that Capsey said was only communicated to her a minute or two before she walked out onto the pitch, in front of the smattering of spectators.

But she repaid her captain’s confidence, opening her account with a maiden, thus setting the tone for a Middlesex innings which did almost last for 20 overs, but saw just 68 runs put on the board.

After Charlotte Lambert and Danielle Gregory struck to leave Middlesex 28 for 2 at the end of the powerplay, Capsey – who had put down a catch at mid-off early doors – held onto another one in the same position to hand Gregory a second wicket.

From there, Middlesex were completely bogged down in the middle overs, largely lacking the power to reach what was a lengthy boundary. With wickets falling regularly, their young tail were caught between attack and defence, and Capsey struck three times – once in the 14th and twice in the 19th.

“This year I haven’t been bowling my best so it was really nice to take the new ball and get back to where I want with my bowling,” Capsey admitted.

In reply, Smith and Kira Chathli went after the runs at a canter, thumping fours around the ground and bringing up their fifty partnership within six overs.

Chathli was caught at short fine leg in the 8th over, but it took Capsey just six more balls to wrap up the win.

The contrast between the experienced Surrey side and the young Middlesex team was marked. Surrey fielded not just Capsey and Smith but Stars regulars Kira Chathli, Eva Gray and Danielle Gregory. Middlesex, on the other hand, were shorn of the Sunrisers best players, including all three of their eligible professionals. Neither fitness nor availability appear to have been the issue – both Naomi Dattani and Amara Carr were present at The Oval – so the conclusion that must be drawn is that Sunrisers management put their foot down ahead of the next round of the RHF Trophy on Saturday.

Sunrisers are, of course, perfectly within their rights; but if this is their way of achieving their illusive first win of the season, it seems an odd one. After the match, Capsey spoke of the way in which putting in an assured performance in the London Cup is helping her to regain the superb form she displayed last season:

“There was a conversation [with Stars], but I said I really wanted to play,” she said. “Even though it hasn’t gone my way this year, it’s starting to come, and the more games I play, the more confident I’m feeling.”

Denying Dattani, Carr and Cordelia Griffith that chance feels very much like an own goal.

It also feels like an own goal for women’s cricket as a whole. The London Cup was originally conceived by Ebony Rainford-Brent in 2015 as a way of giving the public a chance to celebrate one of cricket’s signature rivalries – the idea was for it to become a landmark fixture in the women’s calendar. Back in the early days, England-contracted players Fran Wilson (Middlesex) and Nat Sciver (Surrey) regularly featured – it was a true battle between the best players these counties could muster.

The fact that even with a staging ground like the Kia Oval, in the most beautiful cricket-playing weather imaginable, Sunrisers denied their players the chance to feature in this year’s London Cup is symptomatic of the broader decline in esteem which women’s county cricket has undergone across the past 7 years – a fact which left me with a rather sour taste in my mouth at the end of yesterday evening.

Alice Capsey hit her first half-century of the season, helping her side post 281-8 and beat Sunrisers by 80 runs in the opening round of the RHF Trophy at Beckenham.

The win came despite an outstanding individual effort from 18-year-old Grace Scrivens, who took 4-42 and hit a run-a-ball 74.

The fact that the star performers were two teenagers is an exciting indication that regional cricket is starting to successfully do its job of developing the next generation of England players.

Stars had got off to a flier after they won the toss and chose to bat, with Bryony Smith smashing fours around the ground on her way to a 41-ball half-century. Sharing a 50 partnership with Kira Chathli, who has today earned a call-up to the England A squad on the back of her performances this season, Smith helped her side bring up 67 runs inside the opening powerplay.

Mady Villiers helped slow things up and when Smith (66) tried to come down the wicket and take her on she ended up skying it; Cordelia Griffith ran forward from square leg to take a superb diving catch.

Bizarrely, despite the fact that the opening choice bowlers had leaked runs, Scrivens was not introduced into the attack until the 27th over. When Kelly Castle finally called on her, she struck with only her third ball of the day – Griffith taking another good catch at square leg to see off the dangerous Chathli (61 off 65).

Three more scalps would follow for Scrivens – including a sharp caught and bowled to get rid of in-form Aylish Cranstone – as she proved instrumental in a messy Stars collapse which saw them lose 6 wickets for 75 runs in 16 overs.

Admittedly Capsey – who finished on 64* – should have gone for 0, dropped at cover off Villiers, but the let-off allowed her to finally build the innings that has been lacking this season.

Taking Stars from 203-7 to 281-8 in the final 11 overs of their innings, Capsey gradually grew in confidence until she finally slog swept Castle for six, two balls after bringing up her fifty from 55 balls.

In reply, Scrivens initially found some support from Naomi Dattani as the pair shared a 43-run partnership for the second wicket, Dattani seizing on anything wide to score a quickfire 19 from 24 balls.

But Dattani was run out in the 11th over after Capsey’s direct hit ricocheted off the stumps and Scrivens attempted to run an overthrow.

Scrivens ploughed on, smashing Bryony Smith over her head for six to bring up a 48-ball fifty.

In fact she looked well on course for a hundred until she lost her head in the 28th over, slashing Smith straight to midwicket.

From there, her teammates struggled to keep up with the necessary rate and the game gradually fizzled out, with Smith (3-37) and Capsey (2-26) rattling though the tail to make sure Stars secured a bonus point win.

England coach Lisa Keightley has called for England to “lead the way” in playing more women’s Tests, ahead of her team’s one-off encounter against South Africa next week at Taunton.

Keightley labelled the recent remarks by ICC Chair Greg Barclay – who told BBC TMS earlier this month that he felt women’s Tests would not be “part of the landscape moving forward to any real extent” – as “disappointing”, and said that England would be looking to “challenge” Barclay’s vision in next week’s match.

“The last few Test matches has proven that it’s a format that is quite exciting,” she said. “We actually feel like we want to lead the way. The way to do that is to play more Test matches.”

“Realistically, I don’t think every country can play this format, but I do think we should stretch and challenge and still have the desire to improve women’s cricket and to grow it. There’s a few countries that are putting their hands up to play Test cricket for that purpose. The players want to play it, and the organisations are getting in and around it and behind it.”

She also strongly hinted that the ECB would be looking to include a multi-day component in the regional domestic structure going forwards. “You’ve got to learn the craft of Test cricket,” she said. “The countries that are playing Test matches have a pathway that they could slide along the format in. We’re looking to do that going forward, it’s just a matter of how you could put it in a domestic structure and what that may look like.”

After selecting a squad with five potential Test debutants ahead of next week’s match, Keightley was also keen to emphasise that this summer marked a “new cycle” for the England side, after their disappointing showing against Australia in the recent Ashes and World Cup. Spearheading that new cycle is Emma Lamb, who Keightley as good as confirmed would be opening the batting alongside Tammy Beaumont next week, saying: “It’s her time and it’s her chance to show us what she’s got.”

England’s bowling line-up is less decided, though Keightley talked up Lauren Bell, Freya Davies and Emily Arlott as being “exciting” possibilities to open the bowling: “We’ll see how they go throughout the week, and see who’s looking the best to see who gets the opportunity to play their first Test match.” Issy Wong, included in the squad as a travelling reserve only, will not feature in the longer format due to recent injury niggles; but is being looked at for possible inclusion in the white-ball squads later in the summer.

Keightley also shed some more light onto Katherine Brunt’s decision to retire from Test cricket, suggesting that after her recent bout of Covid and subsequent absence from the majority of the Charlotte Edwards Cup (she bowled just 4 overs in the competition), she had simply not bowled enough overs since the World Cup for the Test to be a realistic possibility.

“We knew after the World Cup we needed everything to go right with her prep and it didn’t. In the end she didn’t have the loads behind her to play in this Test match. It would have been high risk,” Keightley said. “Sitting down with Katherine and talking it through, it was pretty obvious that the Commonwealth Games was the focus and she wasn’t going to get up for this Test match.”

“With those conversations she’s gone away and thought about it, and thought the Ashes was too far next year so if she didn’t play in this one she probably wasn’t going to play a Test. It’s been an emotional few weeks for Katherine, coming to that decision… I think she’s made the smart call.”

Berkshire got their season off to a rollicking start with two convincing wins against Shropshire at Falkland CC.

The first match of the day was dominated by Mia Rogers, who made an early-season bid for inclusion in Sunrisers’ starting XI when regionals begin in four weeks time.

Shropshire had chosen to bat first after winning the toss, but Rogers’ sharp keeping allowed Berkshire to confine them to 88 for 7 in their 20 overs. Her contributions included whipping off the bails to assist in the run outs of Amy Griffiths and Alice Dixon, snaffling a skier sent up by Lauren Kenvyn (22) to break a 50-run partnership with Alexandra Hale, and two nifty stumpings to hand debutant Kali-Ann Doherty her first two wickets in senior county cricket.

Opening in conjunction with another of the Berkshire debutants, Abigail Avery (27* off 39), Rogers started in measured fashion but grew in confidence as her innings progressed, eventually smashing Kenvyn for six over deep midwicket.

As Berkshire raced along to their total, the only question was whether Rogers would be able to reach her half-century before they ran out of runs needed. It was touch and go but finally, having got back on strike in the 13th over with just a single needed for victory, Rogers pulled confidently for four to finish on 50 not out (from just 35 balls), handing Berkshire a 10-wicket win.

In the second match of the day, with Berkshire batting first this time, Rogers initially picked up where she had left off, but smacked it straight to cover in the fifth over when on 13. Instead Berkshire captain Ashleigh Muttitt did the heavy lifting, driving hard down the ground en route to a run-a-ball 34.

Emily Perrin (3 for 18) dented Berkshire’s efforts as they lost three wickets in the 13th and 14th overs with the score on 83, but Freya Johnson successfully defended the hat-trick ball and Berkshire added 23 runs in the final five overs to finish on 116 for 6.

Shropshire made a go of it in the run chase, reaching 37 for 1 in the powerplay as captain Lara Jones (24 off 27) gave off-spinner Hollie Summerfield some punishment.

But Jones was caught pulling Ava Lee to backward square leg in the 9th and Summerfield had the last laugh with a tidy spell at the death that strangled any last hopes of Shropshire getting across the line. Amanda “Steamer” Potgeiter helped things along with a direct-hit run out from mid-on to see off Hale for 0.

In a dramatic final over, with Shropshire needing an improbable 27 for the win, Freya Johnson finished things off in a style for the Beavers by taking four wickets – three of them bowled – as Shropshire were all out for 94 off the final ball of the match.

The double-win puts Berkshire top of Group 2 of the Women’s County T20 competition, ahead of rivals Worcestershire and Staffordshire.