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?

A typical score in a normal, 50-over ODI between the ICC Championship sides is 245. Crudely adjusted for a 31-over game, a par score today would have been 152. England had more than that after 17 overs, and finished on 273-8, which would have been a decent outing in a full 50-over game.

In truth, 31 overs is more like an extended T20 than a shortened ODI, and England treated it as such. Nat Sciver-Brunt hit the fastest hundred ever by an English woman in an ODI, and Maia Bouchier played admirably fearlessly for her 95. I’m normally a paid-up member of the No One “Deserves” a Hundred club, but I’m temporarily resigning my membership here to say that today The Mighty Bouch Deserved a Hundred!

England got off to a shaky start, scoring just 28-2 in the 6-over powerplay, but then Sciver-Brunt and Bouchier exploded, rocketing along at nearly 12 runs per over during the Early Middle and Middle phases. Sri Lanka’s bowlers had no answers. We talk about players “milking” singles sometimes in long-form cricket; but here NSB and Bouch were basically milking boundaries, finding the rope 33 times between them.

At one stage 300 was a possibility, but the run rate fell off a bit in the late middle phase, and it was actually only after NSB and Bouch were dismissed that it went up again, as England’s late middle order continued in T20 fashion – sacrificing 6 wickets in the final phase but getting the run rate back over 8 again.

Bess Heath had license to have a bit of a bash, and grabbed 21 off 14 balls on debut, though there was a certain inevitability about her being caught off a slog-sweep on the boundary out towards cow corner – Sri Lanka had planted not one but two catchers there for a reason! It would be unfair to say that Heath is one-dimensional – she brought out a couple of other shots today, including a reverse slog-sweep – but she needs to watch how Nat Sciver-Brunt plays to take her game forwards into 3 dimensions over the next couple of years.

Now… having just spent several paragraphs raving about England’s batting, I’m about to say something controversial. NSB shouldn’t have been Player of the Match. Hundreds might not quite be two-a-penny, but they are pretty common these days – there have been 15 tons scored for England in the past 5 years. In that time there have been just four 5fers. With bowlers only permitted to bowl a maximum of 20% of an innings, grabbing a 5fer is a much more impressive, and consequently rarer, achievement.

So… yes… I’m saying it: Charlie Dean should have been Player of the Match for her 5fer.

They were proper Off-Spinner’s Wickets too – Dean doesn’t get a lot of turn, but she does get some, and she showed today that you don’t need a lot if you land the ball consistently in the right spot. In life generally, if you keep asking the same question over and over, you’ll not only annoy people, but you’ll likely get the same answer. But spin bowling is a bit of an exception to that rule – you ask the question… then you ask it again… then you ask it again… then you get the answer you want, as a catch is nicked to the keeper or back into your own leaping hands, or the ball shimmies through the gate and onto off stump.

Lauren Filer also picked up another 3fer and a Player of the Series award of a bottle of “I Definitely Can Believe It’s Not Champagne But They Sponsor Us, So… Yer”. Player of the Series was nominated by the Sky Sports comms team, and I can see why Charles Dagnall likes Filer – he doubtless sees something of himself in her – tall and quick and “a bit ‘ard”. But the jury is still out for me. How she fares in India will be a key test, if England are trying to build a team to have a shot at the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh next October. And if she does well and proves me wrong, I’ll be the first to stand up and say it.

And with that, another international summer ends. England have had their ups and downs; but they finish it on a positive note – with 5 more ICC Championship points in the bag, and only denied a 6th by the weather in Northampton, when it would have taken a miracle of saintly proportions for Sri Lanka to have salvaged the game if the rain hadn’t intervened to do so for them.

Perhaps even more importantly, England have started to rebuild for the future. They haven’t found all the combinations yet, and the captaincy succession remains an issue in the shorter term, though it becomes increasingly clear that Grace Scrivens is the answer a little further down the line. But under Jon Lewis they have taken steps they didn’t take under Lisa Keightley, and that is really the story of this summer – the one which would be keeping me awake at night if I was an Australian looking at the next ten years.

This week:

• England v Sri Lanka – the T20 series post-mortem
• The return of Meg Lanning
• England A to tour New Zealand
• Shocking disparities in pay for women umpires

England avenged their defeat to Sri Lanka in the T20 series with a thumping win in the first ODI at Chester-Le-Street, taking just 18 overs to overhaul Sri Lanka’s 106 all out.

It was a win created by England’s new-look bowling attack – not just in terms of the two debutantes, Lauren Filer and Mahika Gaur, but also leg-spinner Sarah Glenn, who has been very-much a T20 specialist in her England career thus far, having played only played a handful of ODIs whilst racking-up 50 T20 caps. All 3 finished up with 3-fers, with Glenn doing so at an economy rate of just 2.5.

Gaur and Filer make an interesting combination because they are such very different propositions for a batter. Apart from the occasional (largely ineffective) short one, Gaur aims to keep the stumps in play every delivery; whereas Filer is looking to bowl shorter and wider, with a little bit more pace to try to hurry the batter into a mistake. Whist the vast majority of Gaur’s deliveries were hitting the stumps; the bulk of Filer’s were missing.

Both proved effective today against a Sri Lankan line-up whose confidence seemed to rapidly drain away once Gaur had dismissed Chamari with a ball the pitched on middle and danced off the seam, away from the left-hander, to hit off. Two overs later, Gaur proved it was no fluke, bowling a very similar ball to Anushka, with pitched on the right-hander’s off stump and dived back through the gate to hit middle. Brought back with Sri Lanka 9 down in the 30th over, Mahika pulled the trick off a third time to wrap-up the innings.

The pattern here of course is that it is one trick; but it is a very good trick that ought to make even the best batters wary. There will be answers – getting forward being the most obvious – but that seriously limits the batter’s options, and it definitely something some will find it difficult to adjust to, having become accustomed to playing late, as you can usually do in the women’s game.

Filer’s tactics are much more overtly aggressive – with that extra pace and lift, she’s looking to bully the batter into making an error, and that worked today against Sri Lanka’s middle order, as it did a couple of times in her only other international appearance prior to today, in the Test against Australia earlier this summer. But she needs to develop more of an armoury, or she is going to get worked-out by the top players, who will just wait of anything slightly off line and then crash it to the fence; and given that her line strays a fair bit, that’s 8-12 an over she’s going to go for. (Even today she was England’s most expensive bowler.)

Mahika will get the headlines – people love an ingénue – but Glenn was really the pick of the bowlers today. It is a big call to play her as the only specialist spinner in Ecclestone’s absence – most would have gone with Charlie Dean, especially as she offers a little bit more of a solid batting option.

(Though I guess Alice Capsey might take issue with that, arguing that she too is a specialist spinner, and it does look like the plan was for Capsey to play as a “proper” all-rounder and bowl 10 overs today.)

Glenn delivered though, bowling with pinpoint accuracy and working her arsenal of top-spinners to deceive the batters on bounce, meaning playing across the line to her is a risky move, especially because she is attacking the stumps, so if you miss… she hits – either stumps or pad.

With the bowlers having done their job to such effect, all England’s batters needed to do was not do anything stupid, and the game would be won in time for an early tea, which is pretty-much the way it went down.

Emma Lamb and Tammy Beaumont played painstaking cricket for the first 5 overs, and I did wonder if somebody had dared them to try to win it in 50 overs; but then in the 6th over, Tamy flipped the switch and we were suddenly hurtling along. Tammy got to 32 before she was dismissed – it looked like she hadn’t noticed the slip that had been put in for the new bowler, sending a catch straight to her. Emma Lamb then actually did do something stupid – trying to play a T20 shot, when there is a reason she has played just one T20 for England!

Heather Knight looked much more in control than she does in T20s these days. Somehow knowing that she doesn’t have to go at a run a ball, and she can actually leave the odd one, allows her to relax and… go at a run a ball! (It makes no sense, but then not a lot does if you stop to think about it!) She might have a trip to the headmaster’s study though, after arguing with Sue Redfern on her way back after being given out caught behind (fairly, as far I could tell from the replays on the big screen) and then running out of time on the review.

It didn’t matter much though – England only needed a handful by that point, and they got them with no further alarms.

So, the order of the universe is restored, at least in terms of ODIs, and England are back on top, with some exciting new bowlers to give us all hope. If they can do the same again twice next week, the T20s will all be forgotten, if they aren’t already. We shall see…