Heroes – the anthem for England women’s cricket, written and performed by Laura Wright – has been released as a single and is available now for download now on all other major music stores.
Laura performed Heroes last night at the Kia Super League Launch Party in Manchester, in front of everyone who is anyone in cricket… and us!!
The evening also brought us face-to-face with the beautiful KSL trophy for the first time.
Australian captain Meg Lanning will play no part in this summer’s Kia Super League, after being ruled out with a shoulder injury.
Lanning was crucial to the hopes of the Surrey Stars, who yesterday suffered two huge defeats in a warm-up double-header against Loughborough Lightning, with the Lightning posting over 200 in the second match, thanks to 91 from Georgia Elwiss, and the Stars well behind the D/L rate when the rain came down to bring proceedings to a close.
The Stars will be permitted to replace Lanning, and an announcement on that is expected shortly.
Although the Women’s County T20 Finals Day was abolished two years ago, last weekend’s results mean that we will have something close to a de-facto Finals Day at Beckenham next weekend between Warwickshire, Kent and Middlesex.
Here’s how the table looks:
| Team | Played | NRR | Points |
| Warwickshire | 5 | 0.81 | 17 |
| Kent | 5 | 0.54 | 12 |
| Berkshire | 5 | 0.12 | 12 |
| Lancashire | 6 | -0.23 | 12 |
| Middlesex | 5 | 0.32 | 10 |
| Yorkshire | 6 | -0.51 | 6 |
| Nottinghamshire | 5 | -0.41 | 5 |
| Sussex | 5 | -1.04 | 2 |
After two more wins yesterday, Warwickshire are in the driving seat – if they win either of their games, they are champions.
But if Kent and Middlesex both beat Warwickshire, the winner of their match could (see below!) be taking home the trophy instead.
The one team who could upset the party at Beckenham are Berkshire, who play Sussex and Notts at Hove.
If Berkshire beat Sussex and Notts, they can snatch the cup if either (a) Beckenham is rained off; or (b) Middlesex win both their matches and Kent beat Warwickshire. (There is a theoretical (c) too, if Kent win both their matches and Middlesex beat Warwickshire, but it would require a massive turn-around in NRR.)
Exciting times… and between us at Beckenham, and @WomensCricBlog at Hove, we’ll have full coverage for you next weekend.
England captain Heather Knight top-scored with 32 and took 3 wickets for Berkshire, but it wasn’t enough as Middlesex cruised to victory at Wokingham.
Wokingham is getting a bit of a reputation as being a difficult place to score runs – when Berkshire played Kent and Lancashire here 3 weeks ago, the highest score was just 96 – but Berkshire made it even harder for themselves as they gave Middlesex plenty of catching practice after having won the toss and elected to bat.
It started with Maia Bouchier who, after giving away 4 runs with a ghastly misfield on the deep backward point boundary, more than made up for it with a lovely diving catch to her left at mid off, to dismiss Rachel Priest for 6 off Ria Raval.
Lissy Macleod lasted just 5 balls before popping one up to Anna Nicholls at cover; and then Alex Rogers, off the mark with a beautiful cover drive for 4, soon followed, bowled by Holly Huddleston without adding to her score.
Sherisa Gumbs hung around with Knight for a short while, taking the score to 48-3 at the half-way mark, before she drove Naomi Dattani to short midwicket; and then it was Knight’s turn to head back to the pavilion, after slog-sweeping Dattani straight to Fran Wilson on the midwicket boundary. With Alex Hartley also picking up a couple of late wickets – Amanda Potgieter bowled and Emily Gerke LWB – Berkshire finished on 92-8.
With Daisy Gardner clearly still not quite herself (she bowled 1 over in the middle of the innings, going for 8) and Lauren Bell sitting this one out, Berkshire’s attack lacked any real venom, and it was not until Knight brought herself on in the 4th over that a double breakthrough was made, the England skipper bowling Naomi Dattani for 8 and Tash Miles for 10.
This brought Fran Wilson and Beth Morgan together and they simply turned on the cruise control – Wilson making 27 off 21 balls before she became Knight’s 3rd victim, only to be replaced by Maia Bouchier, who just continued where Wilson had left off – ending up on 21* off 19 balls, with Morgan also not out on 21 (off 22) as Middlesex completed the chase with more than 5 overs to spare.
Afterwards Fran Wilson told CRICKETher that the secret to success here is batting “ugly”:
“It is sometimes a tricky pitch playing here, and low scores can be difficult to chase; but the thing is not being scared to bat a bit ugly – doing all the basics well and running hard, and not being too caught up in looking great or playing flary shots.”
The result means that Warwickshire move above Berkshire to the top of the table – after their victories against Sussex and Lancashire in this round, they need just one more win from their two remaining games next weekend, against Middlesex and Kent, to seal the title.
Former Berkshire player Emma Boswell has been appointed by Oxfordshire Cricket Board as their first Director of Women & Girls Cricket.
Boswell – a retired former Royal Navy submarine officer – is currently Assistant Coach of Berkshire’s Women’s 1st XI, and has also done some work with their age group sides this year, where she is a popular figure with the girls.
Her role at Oxfordshire will be to oversee the promotion and development of Women’s cricket throughout the county. A key focus will be creating an effective pathway – from school, via club, county and Super League, to England – ensuring there are enjoyable and rewarding experiences for the players at every stage.
Boswell is also set to return to the field with Oxfordshire, who are currently 2nd in Division 3 of the Women’s County Championship, with 3 wins from 4 completed games this season.
Lauren Winfield:
There were a few criticisms of the team after the World T20 – do you think you’ve answered those?
It was an important series for us, to not only win 6-0 but the way in which we’ve gone about those runs. It’s about being ruthless and playing the brand of cricket that we want to play, which is to win by big margins. So it’s not necessarily just about the wins, it’s how we’ve played that’s been most pleasing.
Is ruthlessness a personality trait?
I’m a very ambitious and driven person so it was really tough for me not going to the [T20] World Cup. But it was an opportunity to go away from the game and say: ‘Right – where am I going here? What kind of role do I want to play for England and how on earth am I going to get there?’
I was obviously aware that changes were occurring within the team and opportunities were opening up, so I worked exceptionally hard within that period and now it’s really nice to be contributing a little bit more to England wins. It’s something that I’ve not done previously as consistently as I’d like, but hopefully long may it continue.
Are you and Tammy Beaumont sick of the sight of each other?
Me and Tammy have played a lot of cricket together – we opened together at university, and we actually used to compete against each other for opening spots. But we’re growing as a partnership and learning more about each other, both on and off the field.
I think something we’ve done really well “as a group” this summer is having lots of cricket conversations away from the game – learning about how people operate under pressure and what various members of the team need from each other and at what times. It’s been a real good learning curve for us – we’ve got a better understanding of each other as a group and hopefully that’s been shown in our cricket as well.
How do you and Tammy complement each other?
We hit different areas – if you look at the game today, our wagon wheels are quite opposite, so that’s always nice as an opening partnership and it is difficult for oppositions to be setting fields and getting bowlers to try and execute plans, if you are hitting opposite areas
Also I think we both love batting – we want to be out in the middle and we want to be the ones putting our hand up. Going out there as openers, you’ve got the longest time to bat – you know when you are going to bat, and it is just about taking those opportunities.
You certainly enjoyed the PowerPlay?
That’s how I like to play my cricket – I like to be aggressive and I never want to be in a position where I feel like I’m under pressure from the bowler – I always want to try and counter that onto the bowlers. My job within this team in T20 cricket is to lay the foundation and get the team off to a good start, so that’s what I’m looking to do every time I bat.
Thoughts from Syd Egan & Raf Nicholson (And don’t forget to add yours below!)
England
By this stage in the series, Tammy Beaumont and Lauren Winfield were essentially playing back-garden cricket, and loving every minute of it; yet again they set up a fantastic platform for England, between them having scored over 700 runs this summer. However, once more a better fielding side would have punished them: both survived run out chances, and Winfield was actually dropped twice, the first time on 22*. Overall, though, it’s hard to criticise a top order that was under a lot of pressure coming into the ODI series but doesn’t seem to have been phased by that.
Pakistan
Pakistan at last seemed to get their fielding together in this game, with a direct hit run out and a brilliant diving catch at deep backward square leg to dismiss Nat Sciver and Heather Knight in successive balls. It was just a shame that they left it until the penultimate over of the tour…arguably a little bit late in the day!
With the bat, it’s interesting to look at the breakdown in how the runs were scored. Across the second and third T20 matches, Pakistan hit exactly the same number of fours as England did (13 at Southampton; 15 at Chelmsford – though England admittedly did hit four sixes today). The main difference was in the number of dot balls faced: today, for example, Pakistan’s innings contained twice as many dot balls as England’s (62 to 31). It was Pakistan’s failure to snatch the quick singles, then, that let them down in this series.
Alex Hartley
We were thrilled to see Alex Hartley receive her T20 cap before start of play today, and it was good captaincy on Heather Knight’s behalf to bring her back on for a second go after her first over went for 11 runs. In fact it mirrored what had happened at Taunton on Hartley’s ODI debut: she came on, lost her line bowling at the left-hander, but on both occasions was given a second chance. This time round she changed ends, and got a bit of luck – firstly bad (Danni Wyatt dropping an absolute sitter of a catch which she would have taken 999 times out of 100); and then good (Fran Wilson taking a catch the next ball to give Hartley her first international wicket).
On the other hand, her second wicket was nothing to do with luck: she saw Bismah Maroof coming down the pitch and fired in a much quicker delivery which clean bowled her. It was a really smart bit of work to dismiss one of Pakistan’s best batsmen, and just shows why Hartley’s selection was long overdue.
Tash Farrant
It was also good to see Tash Farrant finally getting the opportunity that we felt she so deserved, having had very few chances to don an England shirt over the last few years despite being one of the original contracted 18. She only took the one wicket, but it was a beauty: the perfect slower ball out of the back of the hand, straight out of the textbook, with Nahida Khan getting onto it far too quickly and sending the catch back into Farrant’s own hands. As current top wicket-taker in the County Championship, Farrant joins the long list of players this summer who have seized the chance to show they can replicate their domestic form at international level.
Jenny Gunn
Not only is Jenny Gunn far and away England’s most economical bowler and their leading wicket-taker in ODIs, she now – after today’s caught-and-bowled effort to dismiss Nida Dar – holds another record: the most catches by any player in T20Is. Following on from her brilliant performance in Tuesday’s game at Southampton, it’s pretty apparent that while she might no longer be an automatic selection on Robbo’s team sheet, she still has something important to offer England.
XBox and PlayStation game developer Big Ant Studios have announced that some of the top women cricketers will be featured in the new version of Don Bradman Cricket, which is set to be released on consoles in time for Christmas.
Big Ant, who are based in Australia, have gone all-out to do things properly – working with some of the Southern Stars to get the unique motion capture right for the female players.
The previous version of the game – Don Bradman Cricket 14 – was aimed more at hardcore fans than casual gamers, but nevertheless received mainly favourable reviews, with the Daily Express, for example, commenting: “Don Bradman Cricket IS the real deal… it’s almost as if you’re playing the real thing.”
Last year, women players were added to EA’s “FIFA” football game for the first time, with all the top international teams being featured, including England and Australia.
Fran Wilson:
Were you nervous going out there today?
Yes, I was nervous. Obviously it’s been 5 years since I last played. I think I’ve grown up a lot in that time, but I was definitely very nervous. But I’ve worked hard on my game and I knew exactly what I wanted to do, just hitting the sweepers hard, running hard. If you simplify it, it takes away the nerves really.
Did it feel like you were on debut again?
Pretty much. We were joking, we were saying that if it’s been a 5 year absence everything should be wiped and you should just start again! So I might propose that!
Was the pitch quite hard to score runs on?
Yes, it was pretty tough, especially [Bismah] Maroof bowling really slow. But I guess that’s a lesson learnt for the next game.
Heather Knight:
What was the pitch like?
I think it was probably a slightly worse pitch than we thought. We thought it was going to be an absolute belter when we started…I think Pakistan put their best fielding performance in, and when they took the pace off [the ball] it was quite hard to score. Probably we didn’t get quite enough boundaries in the powerplay, but the main thing is we got a score on the board and the bowlers were outstanding.
With the short boundaries today, did you think there were going to be more chances today to score boundaries?
No, they’re the same boundaries that we’ve played on for the last few games. They’re the boundaries we’ve been used to, and I think it’s something that’s worked quite well…Fran was brilliant today. Like she said, she knows her game much better now and has really progressed in those 5 years, and hopefully there won’t be another 5 year absence now!
Jenny Gunn bowled particularly well today?
The batters have taken all the plaudits this series, but I think the bowlers had their day in the sun today. They were brilliant: Jenny Gunn at 30 and Sophie Ecclestone at 17 doing the business at each end is really nice to see. Jen was outstanding. She knows her plans very well and executed them brilliantly today.
You chose to open the bowling with Nat Sciver today. Is that something we’re likely to see again?
In T20 you’re sometimes trying to get one step ahead of your opponents, and do something slightly different. We feel Dani Hazell is probably our best powerplay bowler, and I think she showed that today. The worst overs as a bowler, the ones most likely to go for runs, are the ones at the back end of the powerplay…We decided to [open] with Nat today, we thought we might get a little bit of swing and bounce as well. It might be something we see again, it might not!
England’s Batting
Tammy Beaumont was no doubt disappointed to get out in the way that she did today, with replays suggesting that the lbw decision against her was a poor one; but it was probably actually a blessing in disguise for England – she’s hit a ton of runs this series already and it was good for some of the other batsmen to get some time at the crease, without any artificial adjustments to the batting order.
Fran Wilson
Having not played in an England shirt for five years, the pressure was massively on for Fran Wilson coming in when she did – she could easily have buckled under it. Credit to her, then, that she kept her head and, having taken a bit of time to get going, really anchored England’s innings with her 43*. With tough competition at the moment, I think she’s earned her spot for the next match and beyond.
Pakistan’s Fielding
Pakistan generally looked a much tighter fielding unit today (the throwing-the-ball-over-my-head boundary aside). Debutant Aiman Anwer seemed to point the way with her brilliant catch at long off to dismiss Lauren Winfield, off a shot that on any other match of this tour would have been six for sure. Consequently England found it a lot tougher to score boundaries – only 13 fours and 1 six today, despite the short distance to the rope – and at one point it did actually seem like Pakistan might have a shot at reaching the required total.
Pakistan’s Batting
It was wonderful to see the way Pakistan came out and attacked right from the get-go today. I’d much rather see them bowled out having died trying; and that was certainly the approach this afternoon. It was also a positive move to see Asmavia Iqbal – who has looked their best batsman on this tour – promoted up the order to 5. Of course they still need to avoid playing recklessly across the line to straight balls, but still, there was actually a frisson of competitiveness out there today. It just goes to show how important matches against top opposition are for sides like Pakistan, to ensure they keep improving. More please!
Danni Wyatt
If there’s anyone cursed with bad luck, it’s surely Danni Wyatt. She’s barely had the chance to face a ball this summer; and in the last game she was run out at the non-striker’s end on 0, having been sent back by Heather Knight. Today she was out caught and bowled to a ball of Bismah Maroof’s that was hit so firm and fully that it really deserved to be 4; only a stonking catch saved it from being so. Having said that, one element of her game that isn’t anything to do with luck – her fielding – was yet again excellent. I wouldn’t ever want to be the one running to the end that Wyatt is throwing at.
CRICKETher 