India took control of the Test against England in Navi Mumbai, with 4 batters making scores in the sixties on Day 1 taking them to 410-7 at the close.

England went into the game with a seam-heavy attack, selecting 3 specialist pacers in Kate Cross, Lauren Bell and Lauren Filer, plus Nat Sciver-Brunt; and just 2 spinners in Sophie Ecclestone and Charlie Dean, with Alice Capsey left on the bench, and no other serious spin options. (Knight isn’t going to bowl herself for more than a handful of overs, and Sophia Dunkley isn’t a serious option, though she might send down a couple of overs if England get desperate.)

To justify these selections the seamers needed to take wickets, and they did get two early breakthroughs with the new ball inside the first ten overs, but it was mostly hard labour for them thereafter, though a magic ball from Lauren Bell – probably the best ball she has bowled for England – added the wicket of Jemimah; and a tired shot from Sneh Rana saw her bowled by Nat Sciver. On the other side of the balance-sheet, the 3 specialist seamers conceded 212 runs between them, at a rate of 4.8, as the Indians cashed-in.

To be fair to the Seamers Union, Nat Sciver-Brunt was the exception, finishing the day as England’s most economical bowler, going for just 25 from 11 overs. She didn’t look particularly threatening, but whatever she was doing differently, it was obviously working!

Overall though… and stop me if you’ve heard this before… we seem to have put quite a lot of eggs in the basket marked “Seam” and then discovered that the spinners were far more effective. I guess it is difficult to disentangle the spinners from who the spinners actually are – Sophie Ecclestone is Sophie Ecclestone, and she’s Sophie Ecclestone for a reason; while Charlie Dean was almost as good, extracting genuine bounce and turn. Would Alice Capsey have done the  same? Possibly not, but it feels unlikely she would have done any worse than Filer, who didn’t take any wickets and was a run an over more expensive than anyone else, and she would also have significantly strengthened the batting.

UPDATE: The consensus seems to be (including from Ecclestone herself, if what Lauren Bell said in the press conference is to be believed) that she had an off-day. I agree that it wasn’t her best day, but she wasn’t terrible by any stretch. I guess it is all relative – an Ecclestone off-day is still a better day than 99% of anyone else!!

Anyways… let’s just hope India haven’t picked any spinners and we don’t have to bat last, eh?

To give them their due, the Indians played very, very well – positively, without being reckless – this wasn’t Jonball. Satheesh (69), Jemimah (68) and Yastika (66) were all selections you could argue with, but all justified themselves here. I guess all 3 will be kicking themselves that they didn’t push on past the 60s… there’s more to life than The Beatles and The Stones you know guys! Meanwhile Deepti also made it into the 60s, and remains not out overnight with the chance to push on tomorrow towards the 90s (Boyzone! Steps!) and beyond (Taylor awaits!).

The game really ought to be beyond England already – 400 is a lot of runs, and needless to say no one has ever lost a women’s Test having scored 400 (or for that matter, 300) runs in the 1st innings. But records are there to be broken, and India aren’t Australia, who England weren’t a million miles from overhauling after they scored 473 in their 1st dig at Trent Bridge last summer, so there is something to play for nonetheless. With no multi-format series to worry about, there are no excuses for playing for a draw – England’s batters need to go out there tomorrow, assuming the bowlers can wrap things up, and make hay the way India did today, and we’ll have a game on our hands.

By Andy Frombolton

Last week Will Macpherson broke the news in The Daily Telegraph about Project Darwin (the ECB’s plan for the women’s domestic game in 2025-29); the one-line summary being that counties will be invited to take over the running (and the partial funding) of the 8 regions from the ECB and rebrand them.

Project Darwin thus builds on the ECB’s 2019 Action Plan for Transforming Women’s and Girls’ Cricket which sought to develop an integrated pathway from club to country; core to which were 2 components: (i) raising standards in the girls’ County Age Group and (ii) the creation of eight senior regional teams along with their associated academies (Regional Development Centres, RDCs.)

Regarding that first goal, in reality, the elite tiers of the game have received virtually all the focus in the intervening years whilst County cricket has been starved of funds, competition and attention; surviving primarily through the determination, creativity and passion of some very committed individuals. Given this track record, the ECB’s vagueness about what will happen below Tier 1 and that, whatever form this takes, won’t be rolled out until a year later should sound alarm bells. ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’

Regarding the proposals for the 8 Tier 1 teams, reaction so far has been largely positive. And the proposals are backed by serious amounts of money. But some obvious questions arise:

1. What are the benefits vs the cost implications of being a Tier 1 county? And what will happen if no suitable bids are received for some of the regions?
2. What happens to the RDC Academies?
3. The new structure risks reducing ‘depth’ of player participation within the host counties as well as ‘breadth’ of representation from across the country. Does the ECB deem this a price worth paying?
4. A truly-integrated. holistic strategy would be rolled-out simultaneously. Why roll out Tier 1 and Tier 2 strategies in different years?

Surrey and Lancashire have already expressed an interest in hosting one of the regions and probable bidders for several others have been mooted.

But, what’s in it for any bidder? For the foreseeable future International cricket and The Hundred will constitute the main stage for women’s cricket – and the hosting of England women’s and Hundred games is independent of, and totally regardless of, whether a county is one of the eight Tier 1 women’s counties.

What then are the other reasons to bid? To demonstrate a commitment to equality? Of course – although the corollary position would be that any county which doesn’t bid isn’t committed to equality (which would be both simplistic and a grossly unfair characterisation).

In Will Macpherson’s scoop he stated that host counties will be required to assume responsibility for a significant share of the running costs – initially around 400k but rising to 1.1m by 2029 as salaries and associated costs rise. These are significant sums in themselves, but need to be considered in the context of the women’s county game’s ability to generate additional revenue in this timeframe.

Consider for instance the 3 obvious candidates for the ‘Western Storm’ franchise: Gloucester, Somerset and Glamorgan. Both Gloucestershire and Somerset have proved themselves to be superb advocates of the women’s game over many years. Yet, Gloucestershire lost 570k last year, Glamorgan lost 39k and Somerset made a surplus of just 399k. None look well placed to take on a further 400k of costs in 2025.

Similar challenges face a bidder for the ‘Sunrisers’ franchise. MCC might be keen, but they’re not a county and have no infrastructure so would need Middlesex to partner any bid and provide all the resources. Middlesex’s finances are similarly precarious and would therefore require MCC to underwrite all costs.

Just as importantly, at a practical level, Middlesex currently produce the fewest ‘home grown’ players of any RDC, meaning that the issues cited at point 2 would be particularly germane for them.

Objectively, Essex might be a more logical host than Middlesex given its really strong support for girls and women’s cricket and also in terms of broadening the geographical spread of the Tier 1 counties, but it lost 32k last year which renders a bid unlikely.

What then happens if no county bids for e.g. the ‘Western Storm’ franchise? No one could expect a club to take on costs it can’t cover. And no one is going to think less of any club which is ‘only’ a Tier 2 county – provided they do everything for women’s cricket that’s expected of a Tier 2 club.

Or what happens e.g., if the Welsh Government partnered with Glamorgan to produce a winning bid? The players of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucester and Wiltshire would be excluded in any realistic sense from harbouring professional ambitions.

Based on the information in the public domain, what Project Darwin means for the RDC Academies is unclear. However, if the new Tier 1 counties are to assume responsibility for everything the regions currently do, then this must comprise not just the senior women’s teams but also the associated talent pathways which feed into the senior squads (i.e., the 8 RDCs and the 23 Emerging Player Programmes, EPPs).

A review of the 2023/24 intake for each of the RDCs shows how well represented the non-host partner counties are (a dramatic change from a few years ago).

• Blaze: Derby (2); Essex (1); Leicester (4); Lincs (1); Notts (5); Staffordshire (1)
• Central Sparks: Staffordshire (5); Shropshire (2); Worcester (2); Wales (1)
• Northern Diamonds: Yorkshire (8); Northumbria (4); Durham (3)
• South East Stars: Kent (5); Surrey (9)
• Southern Vipers: Berkshire (3); Hants (5); Kent (1); Oxford (1); Sussex (2)
• Sunrisers: Cambridge (1); Essex (5); Hertfordshire (2); Kent (1); Middlesex (4); Norfolk (2)
• Thunder: Cheshire (3); Cumbria (1): Lancashire (11).
• Western Storm: Devon (2): Exeter (1); Gloucester (5); Somerset (3); Wales (1); Wilts (3)

So, what is proposed to replace the RDCs under Project Darwin? County Under 19 teams? County U21 teams? This won’t work since, as these figures clearly show, no county has enough indigenous talent to organically underpin its senior women’s team.

Hence Tier 1 counties will still need to draw upon talent from adjoining counties – meaning they would need to: (1) continue to fund and support EPPs in contingent counties to identify and nurture the best regional talent; and (2) create replacements for the inter-RDC matches and tournaments to allow each Tier 1 county’s best non-contracted players plus affiliated EPP players play against similar squads from other Tier 1 counties.

For the majority of players across the country playing for their County is the pinnacle of their ambitions (whether capped by ability or other factors) and such a goal should be attainable wherever a player lives.

Currently, this is the case even when your county is also a regional host i.e., a player can play for Hampshire without being in the Southern Vipers squad or for Middlesex without being a Sunriser. (Although the distinction between regional squads and county teams is somewhat blurred at some counties.).

However, with the abolition of the regions if a county becomes a Tier 1 county this bifurcation will end. Suddenly there’ll be no place for the non-professional – however talented – at Tier 1 counties meaning players who don’t seek or don’t have the skills to be professional player will have only 2 choices: play for an adjacent Tier 2 county (if that’s viable) or accept that the highest standard they can play at will be premier league cricket.

This is unfair and discriminates against a Tier 1 county’s entire non-professional pool. In addition, it means that there’d be no structure to nurture a Tier 1 county’s late developing talent – after CAG U17, any player not in the county squad would have no support and hence no chance to improve.

I’ve written several times before about the folly of effectively closing the women’s talent pool at such a young age when evidence from the men’s game suggests there is barely no correlation between performance at age 19 and long-term success. (No one has yet countered with any argument why the women’s game would be different if similar support existed for late developers.)

This proposal risks significantly reducing the breadth of the talent pool by (i) the abandonment of the RDC level and (ii) the proposal that all other counties play Tier 2 cricket. A primary argument for the creation of the regions was that the standard of county cricket was too low. What chance has a talented cricketer in e.g., Cornwall or Cumbria of a professional career if the nearest host county is 2 hours’ drive away, their local coaching is limited to whatever a Tier 2 county can provide, who plays in matches against other Tier 2 sides (meaning no coach or scout from Tier 1 will ever see them play and any reports of good performances will invariably be dismissed as having ‘only’ been made at Tier 2)?

And even this pessimistic scenario requires that the ECB shows considerably more interest (and puts money) in the game beneath the professional level than they’ve done since the creation of the regional structure.

Finally, a staggered roll-out of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 structures suggests that the ECB hasn’t solidified its plans re the future structure of the Tier 2 game (other than issuing some ‘holding’ language that it will act as a level between the recreational game and Tier 1). What, like the counties were expected to do under the current regional set up? Can we expect another begrudgingly-endorsed regional county T20 tournament running the whole month of May? This would not be good enough.

I don’t propose to have all the answers, but here are a few suggestions to start the ball rolling.

1. All Tier 1 counties should be obliged to fund, support and deliver EPPs in a designated number of contingent partner Tier 2 counties. This will ensure that talent isn’t squandered simply because a promising player happens to live in a non-host county.
2. Tier 1 host counties should be required to fund and support a separate, entirely non-professional ‘A’ team (playing under the same county name) which would compete in Tier 2 competitions. This would ensure that all amateur players have the same opportunity to play for their county if their county is a Tier 1 county. Players on EPPs who haven’t secured regional contracts could play in the A team – which would be the next highest level of competition beneath Tier 1 in the absence of RDC games. This would help raise the standard of Tier 2 games and provide a stage on which Tier 2 players could showcase their skills – with the realistic expectation that good performances would be noted by Tier 1 coaches and talent scouts.
3. The ECB needs to launch properly-funded T20 and 50 over competitions for Tier 2 counties (and Tier 1 ‘A’ teams) which run the whole season and culminate in proper quarter-, semis and national finals.
4. Implementation of the new Tier 1 and Tier 2 structure should be on the same year.

Let’s be honest, this hasn’t been a T20 series either team will look back on with fondness. Following what Syd described in this week’s The CRICKETher Weekly as “the least entertaining T20 ever where 350 runs were scored”, England then almost stuffed up what should have been an easy chase in the second match on Saturday – after India were, embarrassingly, scuttled for 80.

Finally, on Sunday, England were bowled out for 126, in an innings which featured no less than four golden ducks (Maia Bouchier, Dani Gibson, Freya Kemp and Mahika Gaur).

Poor old Bouchier. Her chances to open the batting haven’t exactly come thick and fast for England. Then, when she finally DOES get to do the job, she has to face an on-fire Renuka Singh, who sent down a beauty of a ball which moved off the pitch and snuck through the gate. It shouldn’t count against Bouchier – you can’t do much about a ball like that – but you just sense that a good little innings here would have at least put her in contention as a possible Test opener (now that Emma Lamb is, sadly, back on the plane).

By contrast, it was another dismal effort from Sophia Dunkley, who looked like she was trying to rehearse getting out to Renuka with a huge swing-and-a-miss outside off stump which then turned into a swing-and-a-hit – straight to point. Jon Lewis might want to rethink that second career as an inspirational speaker; because whatever he said to her at his Emergency Bootcamp, it doesn’t seem to have done the trick.

England did eventually post a respectable total of 126, thanks to a 50 partnership off 34 balls between Heather Knight and Charlie Dean for the 9th wicket: the death-phase was by far the most productive of the innings.

There are two schools of thought about Knight’s innings (52 off 42). One is that she showed her younger teammates the “sensible” way to play on this pitch, taking the time to play herself in, before slamming two sixes down the ground in the final over to eventually finish on a healthy strike rate of 124.

The other is that by batting at well below a 100 SR between overs 6 and 18, Knight actually created a situation whereby the younger batters coming in below her felt backed into a corner: they needed to go at a million miles an hour from ball one, partly to complement and partly to counteract Knight’s slower style of play. That’s why you get Gibson exposing her stumps first ball, Bess Heath whipping out the reverse sweep, and Kemp cutting a ball which wasn’t there to be cut.

Sorry, Trev, but I’m afraid I tend towards the latter position.

Either way, it’s hard not to hold Knight partly responsible for being happy to encourage a philosophy (Jon-ball) in which reckless batting is, seemingly, valued above sensible batting. Four golden ducks don’t happen by accident.

After their win in the first T20, a lot of journalists wrote that England had overcome the batting woes which had plagued them against Sri Lanka in September. I wasn’t convinced then; I’m even less convinced now.

And so, with a mere three days to switch mindset, it’s onto the Test match – not the best timing for England. There’s been a lot of talk about it only being four days, instead of the five we enjoyed in the Ashes in June. But if England (and India) carry on batting like they have done over the last few days, it could easily be over in three.

This week:

• English domestic restructure: is it joy to the world?
• England contracts for Bouchier & Gibson, but disappointment for Davies
• England beat India in the 1st T20, but how convinced were we?

Heather Knight said in yesterday’s pre-match press conference that she wanted to silence the crowd at Mumbai’s giant Wankhede Stadium, and England certainly did that with a big win in the 1st T20.

England got off to the worst possible start, losing the wickets of Sophia Dunkley and Alice Capsey in the first over to Renuka, a bowler who continues to be a much tougher opponent on the field than she looks on paper. She doesn’t swing it miles; she doesn’t make it dance off the pitch; and she isn’t especially quick; but a bit like Sophie Ecclestone, she has control of the ball and that counts for so much when you combine it with a little street-smarts. Plans are nothing if you can’t execute them, and conversely if you can execute them perfectly, they are everything, and that’s the simple secret of Renuka (and Eccclestone’s) success.

Lydia Greenway said in the innings break that Dunkley’s was an “unlucky dismissal”; but to turn the old snooker adage – that the more you practice, the luckier you get – on its head: in cricket, the worse nick you’re in, the unluckier you get. Dunks didn’t commit to the shot, and she paid the price. She did have one big knock in WBBL, but it doesn’t seem to have altered the general trajectory of her form over the past few months, which remains in the bucket. My guess is that England will give her at least one more game, but with Maia Bouchier waiting in the wings, she is perhaps drinking quite late in the Last Chance Wetherspoons.

To give Dunkley her due though, she did at least try to play a shot, unlike Capsey who was bowled blocking down the District Line when the ball was taking the Metropolitan. It was embarrassing, but… which of us didn’t do something embarrassing when we were teenagers? Enough said!

Ultimately it didn’t matter anyway, because Danni Wyatt – in an innings perfectly timed ahead of Saturday’s WPL auction – and Nat Sciver-Brunt stepped up and added 138 runs for the next wicket off just 87 balls. From 2-2, England reached 140 without further loss and with 5 overs still to put a cherry on the cake. Neither Wyatt (75 off 47) nor Sciver (77 off 53) went mad – they didn’t take too many risks – but they piled-on enough runs to give England a decent platform to have a tilt at 200 in the death phase.

They didn’t quite get there, but they did more than enough to put the game out of reach, mainly thanks to Amy Jones (23 off 9) who was able to play the same role for England that she executed so well for Perth Scorchers in WBBL – late runs at a decent clip to turn a decent score into a big-un!

On a pretty good wicket, with a home crowd behind them, you can never count India out, even if they do need nearly 200, and they got ahead of the game with 53 off the powerplay. (England had early made 44 in the same phase.)

But it was the introduction of the spinners in the 7th and 8th overs that turned proceedings back in England’s favour, with Sophie Ecclestone conceding just 2 runs off the 7th over, and Sarah Glenn 3 off the 8th. In purely numeric terms, it didn’t make a huge difference – the required rate went from 10-point-something to 11-point-something – but psychologically, it felt like India were chasing the game from thereon; and although Harmanpreet brought Freya Kemp (who earlier in the innings had taken a wicket with her first ball back bowling for England) sharply back down to earth, hitting her for 3 boundaries in an over which cost 18 in all, that didn’t change. Glenn bowled another very decent over to Harman, who found just 1 run off the bat, and it was enough to panic her into trying to manufacture a cut off Ecclestone in the following over, losing her stumps in the process.

Richa and Shafali teamed-up for a little resistance, and were hitting at 9-an-over, but they needed to be going at 12… then 13… then 14… then… you get the idea! A crowd that had been singing noisily a couple of hours before, could only watch on in trappist silence as England turned the screw.

It was far from the perfect performance by England, and surprisingly for a match where 350 runs were scored, it wasn’t the most entertaining; but it was utterly professional. With momentum so important on a short, sharp tour like this one, it puts England very firmly in the driving seat.

It is a recurrent trope in cricket commentary that T20 is a “levelling format”. In T20s, we say, upsets are more common because anyone can beat anyone on the day; whereas ODIs are a more predictable format where the better team tends to pull through. But is this true?

In order to answer this question, let’s look at all ODIs and international T20s played since the pandemic (2020-23) between the top 10 sides, and use the current ICC rankings*. We’ll define an “upset” as a team beating a side ranked 3 or more places above them.

In men’s T20 internationals 16% of the 250-odd matches played during our period resulted in an upset. That sounds quite “levelly”; but how does that compare to men’s ODIs? The men play a lot less ODI cricket, but there were still 170 games between the top 10 ranked sides during the past 4 years, of which 21% produced an upset.

So much for the levelling effect – in the men’s game, an ODI is 5% more likely to produce an upset than a T20.

What about the women? In T20 cricket, based on 180-or-so matches between the ‘Championship’ sides since 2020, just 8% resulted in an upset. That compares to 16% in men’s T20s, which is interesting of itself – international women’s T20 cricket is a lot more predictable than the men’s game.

But how does this compare to women’s ODIs? In the 130 ODIs played in the past 4 years, the number ending in an upset is… 8% – exactly the same as for T20s! So a Women’s T20 international is no more likely to produce an upset than an ODI. The levelling effect which we talk so much about, once again just isn’t there in the data.

This leads us to two conclusions:

1. The “levelling effect” of T20 is a myth, in both men’s and women’s international cricket, and we all need to get over our confirmation bias and stop repeating it!
2. Women’s cricket is very predictable, compared to the men’s game, and perhaps we should do something about that?

——

* This isn’t ideal – because the rankings are based on the results, there is something of the cart pushing the horse, but it keeps things simple, and it actually doesn’t matter much anyway because we are looking at the results comparatively.

By Martin Saxon

After another closely fought season, Didsbury emerged as champions of the Cheshire Women’s Cricket League for the first time since 2019. The South Manchester club achieved the feat despite having only one of the 15 highest run scorers in division one, which was their captain Roshini Prince-Navaratnam, who was also the league’s leading all-rounder this year. Instead, much of their success was due in no small part to their bowling attack – besides Prince-Navaratnam, Hannah Jones, Hannah Marshall and Zara Matthews all had fine seasons.

2022 champions Leigh had to make do with second place, despite more runs from Rachael Walsh and the bowling efforts of Kasey Bentham and Sophie Heaton. They beat Didsbury by bowling them out cheaply in the first encounter between the teams, but Didsbury reversed this in a thrilling last-ball finish in the second match. Had that match gone the other way, or finished as a tie, Leigh would now be celebrating retaining the title.

Nantwich and Stockport Georgians finished third and fourth respectively in the first division, and for both clubs, this represented their highest ever finishes. Georgians had the highest run scorer in their Australian wicketkeeper Heidi Cheadle.

Upton finished in eighth and last place in the top-flight, finding the going difficult after their promotion from division two. They recorded just one league win and are set to return to the second division next year, despite having the league’s leading wicket taker, Lily Scudder.

After missing out on promotion last year by a single point, Lindow made no mistake this year by winning division two with a 100 per cent record. As well as celebrating their arrival in the top-flight, Lindow broke new ground for the league this year by becoming the first Cheshire League club to reach the semi-finals of the Women’s National T20 Knockout.

The only other divisional winners to end with a perfect record were Buxton in Division 3 East, Runcorn in Division 5 Mid Cheshire and Aston in Division 5 South.

One of the league’s most noticeable features is just how unpredictable and competitive it remains. Only one club has retained the first division title since 2012, while no club has accomplished the treble since 2013. That said, Didsbury came extremely close this year, winning the T20 Divisional Competition to add to their League Championship success, but losing by one run to Nantwich in the Senior Knockout final.

TROPHY WINNERS

This week:

• ECB’s response to ICEC – talking the right talk but will they walk the walk?
• Will we get an England Test at Lord’s?
• Domestic salaries: why we need to level up
• South Africa v New Zealand & why NZC’s lack of a pathway is coming home to roost

Chasing a lowish total in the RHF Trophy final, Southern Vipers lost their top order cheaply, but came back from the dead thanks to a rearguard action led by top scorer Emily Windsor, to lift the title at Northampton.

Oh no… hang on… that wasn’t today… it was two years ago – chasing 183, Vipers were 109-7, but Windsor and Tara Norris brought it home with an unbeaten stand of 78, with 2 balls to spare.

It was actually a lot less squeaky this time. Vipers were 109-5 when Windsor came together with Freya Kemp, but whereas last time they had ground-out the runs they needed, this time they cruised to victory.

Two years ago, it didn’t feel like Windsor was the kind of player who could have gone at over a run a ball for 15 overs. She was someone who had evolved up in the old county pathway, where keeping your wicket intact was prized above all, and her run rate in 2021 reflected that – 47 off 97 balls – a strike rate of 48.

But times have changed, and Windsor has changed with them. From 109-5 today, Vipers needed another 92, and they got them at well over a run a ball, with Windsor finishing on 57 off 53 – a strike rate of 108 – more than double that of two years before.

She even did it without the feeling that she was really going for it. The ropes weren’t in miles; and the outfield wasn’t particularly quick, though it was in notably better nick than it has sometimes been at this ground by the end of the season. But she pushed and prodded, guiding the ball into the gaps – taking the boundaries when the ball had the legs, and running hard when it didn’t.

Freya Kemp also deserves a lot of credit for holding her nerve, and resisting the temptation to play the big shot which could have been her… and the Vipers… downfall. Given that there wasn’t a lot of batting to come, her 32 off 35 balls was almost as important as Windsor’s innings.

It so nearly wasn’t to be for the Vipers today. Josie Groves looked to have turned the game with 3 wickets in 8 balls, including the two set batters, the Georgia’s Elwiss and Adams. Quite how Groves got the ball to flutter like the first butterfly of summer, past the bat of Georgia Adams, I’ll never know. Possibly Groves won’t either. It looked set to be her day, and I even had the headline ready – Get On The Grovey Train – a much better headline than the one you’ve just clicked on too!

Groves didn’t deserve to be on the losing side today. Neither did Grace Ballinger who opened the bowling with more dots than the morse code – 5 overs in the powerplay, 3 maidens, and just two runs. Nor did Marie Kelly, who has been on the wrong end of the result in all 3 domestic finals this season.

It has been a cruel summer indeed for Blaze, who headed the table in the Charlotte Edwards Cup, and were at the top of the ladder in the RHF Trophy until literally the very last moments of the season, with Vipers overtaking them by a cat’s whisker on Net Run Rate in the final round of games in the group stages.

So the Vipers juggernaut thunders on. They lost games this summer, most notably to Sunrisers in the season-opener at the Ageas back in April. But when it mattered, they dug deep, and never more so than today. We’ve made a choice in cricket – the “winner” isn’t the best team through the season, as it is in football, where the league rules all – it is the team which handles the pressure of the big moments at the climax. And once again, that was the Southern Vipers – in 2023, cricket belongs to them.

This week:

• Raf tells Parliament how to fix women’s sport
• Sunrisers shine & Diamonds decline in the RHF
• We get cross about the lack of a Blaze home ground for the RHF Eliminator
• England v Sri Lanka ODIs reviewed
• What next for Bess Heath?