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.”

This match was a case-study in not giving up. The Storm looked dead and buried at least twice.

First, at the end of the 4th over, with the Storm at 17-3, and with Rachel Priest, Heather Knight and Fran Wilson all back in the dugout, you’d have put your money on the Stars 100% – the Storm were dead and buried.

Then, with the Storm having somehow clawed things back to parity by the end of the 13th over, thanks to some powerful hitting in a 75 run partnership between Lizelle Lee and Stafanie Taylor, the Storm lost Lee at the start of the 14th, and proceeded to score just 3 runs for the loss for the loss of 2 wickets in following 2 overs, leaving them staring at a Required Rate of over 14. Having come back to life… presumably as zombies… the Storm were dead and buried once more – Surrey just couldn’t lose it all over again… could they?

That they did was down to a number of things – Stafanie Taylor keeping her cool, finding the boundary 7 times in the last 3 overs; Sophie Luff (whose game would really be much better suited to Tests… which she’ll probably never get to play) keeping her cool in supporting Taylor and giving up the strike; and some frankly pretty woeful fielding from the Stars – the latter probably actually the most important factor overall – if they had fielded better, the Stars would have won this game.

Afterwards, Stafanie Taylor reflected upon the impact her dropping Nat Sciver had on her mindset going into bat:

“The type of player that I am, it was horrible for me actually to be in the field and not take those catches and not get it right. So when I came off I sat in the dressing room and I just had a moment to myself, thinking: ‘I have to contribute to this team, I really have to – it doesn’t matter about what happened, but I have to give it my all and just go out there and do my best’.”

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!

Yorkshire Diamonds Jenny Gunn and Hollie Armitage have become the first KSL players to be penalised under the ECB’s Discipline Code.

They were reprimanded for “Level One” breaches of the code – showing dissent at an umpire’s decision – during the Yorkshire Diamonds’ Kia Super League match against Loughborough Lightning.

The reprimands will remain on their records for two years, with the accumulation of nine or more penalties in any two year period resulting in an automatic suspension.

Three days before the start of the Kia Super League, there is news of a shake-up for Surrey Stars, who have signed New Zealander Lea Tahuhu and Middlesex’s Naomi Dattani.

Tahuhu replaces Meg Lanning, who ruled herself out of the competition last week due to a shoulder injury.

All-rounder Dattani, meanwhile – fresh from taking 3-35 in Middlesex’s successful match against Warwickshire on Sunday – has been brought into the squad in place of wicketkeeper Kirstie White, who suffered an ankle injury in Surrey’s warm-up game against Loughborough Lightning last week. It means that England’s Tammy Beaumont will be back behind the stumps for the Stars.

The Stars’ choice of Tahuhu, a right-arm seamer with 49 international wickets to her name, in place of Lanning, suggests that they see strengthening their bowling line-up ahead of the tournament as crucial, after conceding over 200 runs against Loughborough in their warm-up last week.

On a sunny day at Beckenham, Kent held their nerve to win the T20 Cup in a contest that went right down to the final over of the third game.

As the day began, only Warwickshire had their destiny in their own hands: a win in either of their games would have handed them the Cup after strong performances earlier in the competition. Both Kent and Middlesex, meanwhile, were reliant both on winning their games and on other results going their way.

The first game of the day was thus crucial to both team’s hopes; and it was Kent who kept their title dream alive – while quashing Middlesex’s – with a comfortable 7-wicket victory. Middlesex, having been put in, started slowly and were soon undone by a bit of Suzie Bates magic, as she seized a wicket off her first ball – Tash Miles, caught by Tash Farrant at backward point – and followed it up with the wicket of Fran Wilson four balls later, lbw attempting a sweep shot. It put Middlesex on the back foot and they found it hard to recover, posting just 111, a total which Kent chased down with 9 balls to spare.

Middlesex could thus hope for nothing more than the consolation prize of victory against Warwickshire, but this nonetheless seemed to be enough to spur them on. Warwickshire had posted a mammoth 137-8 in their 20 overs, thanks to the aggressive intent of openers Amy Jones (29 off 20 balls) and Georgia Hennessy (36 off 37).

It looked an enormous ask, but Middlesex proved themselves equal to the task as England Present came together with England Past in the form of Fran Wilson and Beth Morgan. Coming together on 40-2, the two shared a 98-run partnership and fortune favoured the brave as they rode their luck in the form of dropped catches and missed run-outs by a nervous-looking Warwickshire side. An improvised ramp shot for four over Wilson’s head in the final over helped seal the deal for her team, as they won by 8 wickets.

Fran Wilson Brings Out the Reverse Ramp © Sam Gibbs

Thus it all came down to the third and final game of the day between Kent and Warwickshire. Put in by Kent, Warwickshire were under enormous pressure after their poor showing against Middlesex, but openers Jones (40) and Hennessy (37) laid a solid foundation, taking their side to 55-0 at the halfway point. Once they were dismissed, in the 13th and 14th overs respectively, it was left to Marie Kelly and Jenny Gunn to frantically push for singles in the last 5 overs as the pair dragged Warwickshire to a competitive 126-4.

It might have proved enough, but the old adage that catches win matches came home to roost and, while Warwickshire’s fielding was much improved from their first game of the day, dropping Bates twice in the course of the first four overs was a costly error. Bates went on to amass 43 before finally being caught by Becky Grundy at backward point in the 12th over.

A glimmer of hope shone upon Warwickshire as Charlotte Edwards and Tammy Beaumont both followed Bates back to the dug-out, with Kent still requiring 39 off the last 5 overs, a figure that became 30 off the last 3 and 7 off the very last over of the day – still more than a run a ball. But a Greenway straight drive for four ensured that Kent brought home the silverware, winning by 7 wickets with two balls to spare.

Alice Davidson-Richards Played A Couple of Crucial Knocks © Sam Gibbs

While Kent’s England players are often shouted about, today the calm composure of Alice Davidson-Richards (30* and 19*) deserves special mention: coming to the crease in difficult circumstances both times, she was ultimately crucial to the two wins that her team needed to secure the Cup. The Bears, meanwhile, were left cruelly ruing what might have been.

Kent Celebrate the T20 Cup © Sam Gibbs

Afterwards Suzie Bates, who ended the T20 season as Div 1’s highest run scorer, reflected to CRICKETher:

“We didn’t have a great start [to the T20 season] at Wokingham – we lost two close matches and we knew we had to win everything from there, [so] we said at the start of today that everything else was out of our control, and we just had to play good cricket.”

“Warwickshire played 18 overs of pretty outstanding cricket and probably deserved a win, but it just shows in Twenty20 cricket two overs can change the game pretty quickly, and it just shows the experience of Lydia Greenway coming through in that final part of the game.”

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:

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.