The ECB have confirmed to CRICKETher that the contracted England players will miss the first competitive matches of the 2021 season, the County T20 Cup, due to concerns about the lack of Covid-secure measures in the county game.

The Cup begins this Sunday 25 April, and will run for four weekends in April and May. England players including Tammy Beaumont had previously expressed a strong wish to participate, with many having represented their counties for years.

However, an ECB spokesperson told CRICKETher:

“County T20 cricket is classed as Recreational Cricket and therefore is covered by less stringent COVID-19 guidelines, which in turn creates a higher risk due to the lack of daily monitoring, testing and general adherence to protocols.

The risk of playing recreational cricket is that you have more people coming together from a multitude of different environments – without those elite sport protocols in place – and therefore more complex ‘contacts’ with the public.

Regional warm-up fixtures are played with elite protocols in place so England players are able to play in them.”

The ECB are naturally keen to avoid the risk of any of their players coming into contact with anyone who tests positive for COVID, as this would mean the player would have to be placed in “hard isolation”, and render them unable to train for 10 days.

Interestingly, Kirstie Gordon participated in Kent’s warm-up matches against Surrey last weekend, suggesting that she is not expected to train with the England squad ahead of the India series, and may be facing the imminent loss of her central contract.

The withdrawal of England players from the county game also raises questions about its future status in the domestic structure. In a press conference earlier this month, Heather Knight admitted that regional cricket would remain the priority for her and her side, despite her own sentimental commitment to Berkshire, who she has represented since 2010.

“The county stuff has a slightly different role in the full fixture list now,” Knight said. “The main domestic cricket that we play, and the best standard that’s going to prepare us for England, is going to be the Rachael Heyhoe Flint stuff, so that’s going to be the priority. In terms of playing for Berkshire, as a sentimental thing potentially, but the reality is I’ve got to pick and choose the cricket that’s going to help me best perform for England.”

Having watched a game of The Hundred for the first time this weekend, we have a confession to make: it really was a lot more like cricket than we expected.

To be fair, our friends at the ECB had repeatedly told us this (waves at Beth Barrett-Wild) but we’d been sceptical, partly because all the initial marketing had beaten into our heads that it WASN’T like cricket – it was completely new and different – that’s what all the Facebook ads and Instagram posts were telling us… and we believed them!

The fact that The Hundred is actually “just cricket” is both a blessing and a problem for the ECB.

It is a blessing, because I now think that “normal” fans will come around to it as a game pretty fast; but it is a problem because the rest of the world – the “mums and kids” who “don’t like cricket” – will also realise quite quickly that it is just cricket… and… well… they don’t really like cricket!

To help get over this, the ECB have a huge entertainment push on the cards – they are planning to make the game a spectacle around the field, even if it isn’t quite so entertaining on it.

Which brings us to Katy Perry, and the real reason why the Aussies paid what I believe the kids call “serious coin” to have her at The MCG last year for the T20 World Cup Final. Put simply, Katy Perry was an insurance policy – and one that, like many insurance policies, they didn’t actually need in the end.

Perry’s presence was insurance against Australia NOT making the final. The main concert was scheduled for AFTER the game, so that local fans, 99% of whom were of course Australian, would come (and crucially STAY) in the event of (say) an India v South Africa final.

But the point is, in order to do this, they needed KATY FREAKIN’ PERRY – one of the biggest stars in the world! Getting Ella Henderson* would just not have cut it; and the tournament organisers knew it.

(* No, I’ve no idea who Ella Henderson is either – I just googled who is currently top of the pops!)

Now back to The Hundred, which of course won’t have Katy Perry… or even Ella Henderson. And here’s the bad news: I’m just not convinced that even pulling out all the stops short of that – the juggles, the acrobats, the guys with bats on stilts – is going to make much difference to only thing that really matters – the cricket on the field.

But here’s the good news: the cricket on the field will be good. It will be the best players in the world, and they’ll be playing CRICKET. And the ads can scream all they want that The Hundred “Not Just Cricket”; but they will be wrong – it is “just” cricket; and as far as I’m concerned, that’s just fine.

Congratulations to Wisden’s 5 Cricketers of the Year for 2021: Zak Crawley, Darren Stevens, Jason Holder, Dom Sibley and Mohammad Rizwan. All five fulfilled the criteria of having had an outstanding impact on the English summer, and not having been chosen before; and all five awards were very much deserved.

It is notable however that the selection this year reverts to the traditional all-male list, after a run of 3 consecutive years where at least one woman was chosen, which we had hoped had set something of a precedent for always including a woman going forwards.

There are at least two women who could have been chosen.

One was Stafanie Taylor – a bona fide “all time great”, who faced-down coronavirus fears, at a time when England was seen as the basket-case of the world, to lead her West Indies side on a tour of England without which the women’s international summer would have been lost.

The other was Georgia Adams, who played one of the great innings in domestic women’s cricket history with her 150 versus Western Storm, scored three other 50s besides, and led her side from the front to victory in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy Final at Edgbaston.

Of course, the award is not based on number or stats or votes, still less what I think! It is 100% in the gift of the editor of Wisden, Lawrence Booth – a writer for whom we have enormous respect, and who has done a lot to improve the profile of women’s cricket in Wisden during his term of office.

Yet it is unarguable that both Adams and Taylor had a huge impact on the women’s game last summer, so the question is: is the women’s game on a par with the men’s… or not?

Perhaps the RHF Trophy is worth less than the Bob Willis? Maybe a women’s international T20 series is worth less than a men’s Test series. And yes – both were much shorter; but this is a structural issue – it is hardly Georgia Adams’ fault that she “only” played 7 One Day matches; nor Stafanie Taylor’s that the Windies played just 5 T20s.

Wisden were in a position this year to really challenge the narrative that the women’s game is intrinsically worth less than the men’s.

They didn’t.

And that’s a pity.

It is Saturday 27th August 2005 – Tony Blair is the Prime Minister, McFly are Top of The Pops [Yay! Ed.], and men’s Tests are still being shown live on free-to-air TV.

In the second Women’s Ashes Test at Worcester, England are looking decidedly shaky at 39-4, with Cathryn Fitzpatrick having removed both Charlotte Edwards and Clare Connor. But with Katherine Brunt having taking 9-111 across both Australian innings, England are still in the game – they need 75 to win the match, the series and the Women’s Ashes – the latter for the first time in nearly 50 years. There are no further alarms – Arran Brindle and Lydia Greenway take their time but they get there in the end and England regain the Ashes.

It was the start of a mini resurgence for England – they won the Ashes again in Australia in 2008, and retained them in 2009; but they could only hold the Aussies to a draw at Worcester in ’09; and 2005 remains the last time England won a Test at home.

Since ’05, England have played 7 home Tests, recording no wins, 4 draws and 3 losses – having lost to India in 2006 and 2014, and to Australia in 2015.

Of those, 2014 was the big shock result. England had just turned professional, and were playing a young, inexperienced and largely amateur India side. Everyone expected England to win easily at Wormsley; but pride comes before a fall, with Niranjana Nagarajan taking 4 wickets as England were bowled out for 92, then top-scoring as India posted a first-innings lead. England made a better job of their second innings, passing 200, but India chased the runs with 6 wickets to spare, with Mithali Raj and the then-unknown Smriti Mandhana making 50s.

Now, eight years on, both England and India will meet in the Test arena once again in 2021 – at Bristol this time. Both sides are fully professional now, and no one will be underestimating India on this occasion.

With India having just been handed some humble pie of their own, with a brace of white-ball series losses to South Africa (albeit losses that perhaps look worse on the scorecard than they actually were), the Indians will be pumped to show that they can still lay claim to being the second-best team in the world.

Meanwhile England are palpably excited at the prospect of this match, even if it is a bit of a one-off, with Heather Knight telling us in an interview late last week:

“I remember [the Test at Wormsley] being a real occasion and I think it’s going to be the same this time – playing Test match cricket feels very special and it’s definitely rated very highly amongst the players.”

“There’s been loads of chat about the Test match here at Loughborough this week – all the girls are trying to get their heads around how they’re going to prepare for that Test match – how they’re going to be ready, and what skills they need to work on.”

It should be a good game – there will be plenty of runs on offer at Bristol, but there will be chances for the bowlers too. Perhaps we’ll see one last great hurrah from Mithali Raj or Katherine Brunt? Or a stunning Test debut from Shafali Verma (who has yet to play an ODI, but surely has to be on the card?) or Freya Davies?

Whatever it will be… we can’t wait to find out!

In what will be a jam-packed summer of international cricket, England are set to meet India in June / July for three ODIs and three T20s, while New Zealand will provide a second opposition in September, playing three T20s followed by five ODIs.

The centrepiece of the summer, though, will be the much-trailed Test against India on 16 to 19 June, which will take place at Bristol. It will be the first non-Ashes Test since 2014.

There is no indication that the India series will be played for points, as is the case with the multi-format Women’s Ashes, so the one-off Test will be exactly that – a winner-takes-all occasion.

According to the current government roadmap, spectators will be allowed at Bristol at 50% capacity (approx 3,750 people per day), while the remaining fixtures – which if all goes to schedule will take place in Step 4 of the roadmap – will be allowed to be played in front of full houses.

The full fixtures are below:

INDIA

LV= Insurance Test Series

Wednesday June 16-Saturday June 19: LV= Insurance Test Match. England v India (Bristol County Ground)

Royal London Series (ODIs)

Sunday June 27: 1st match of the Royal London Series. England v India (Bristol County Ground)

Wednesday June 30: 2nd match of the Royal London Series. England v India (The Cooper Associates County Ground, Taunton)

Sunday July 3: 3rd match of the Royal London Series. England v India (New Road, Worcester)

Vitality IT20 Series

Friday July 9: 1st Vitality IT20. England v India (The County Ground, Northampton)

Sunday July 11: 2nd Vitality IT20: England v India (The 1st Central County Ground, Hove)

Thursday July 15: 3rd Vitality IT20: England v India (The Cloudfm County Ground, Chelmsford)

NEW ZEALAND

Vitality IT20 Series

Wednesday September 1. 1st Vitality IT20. England v New Zealand (The Cloudfm County Ground, Chelmsford)

Saturday September 4. 2nd Vitality IT20. England v New Zealand (The 1st Central County Ground, Hove)

Thursday September 9. 3rd Vitality IT20. England v New Zealand (The Cooper Associates County Ground, Taunton)

Royal London Series (ODIs)

Thursday September 16. 1st match of the Royal London Series. England v New Zealand (Bristol County Ground)

Sunday September 19. 2nd match of the Royal London Series. England v New Zealand (New Road, Worcester)

Tuesday September 21. 3rd match of the Royal London Series. England v New Zealand (The Uptonsteel County Ground, Leicester)

Thursday September 23. 4th match of the Royal London Series. England v New Zealand (The Incora County Ground, Derby)

Sunday September 26. 5th match of the Royal London Series. England v New Zealand (The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence, Canterbury)

Fresh from a somewhat one-sided tour against New Zealand, Tammy Beaumont is looking forward to reviving a much more potent rivalry in the coming weeks – the ongoing feud between Kent and Sussex.

“I’ve been in the Kent-Sussex rivalry for 15 years, and I love it,” she said. “Some of the most competitive and best games I can remember have been Kent-Sussex games. I absolutely love that it’s back, and I hope there’s a few fiery games because I think they’re fun!”

The rivalry, which reached its peak in 2015 when Kent lodged an official appeal with the ECB after their match against Sussex was declared a tie, stems from the fact that between 2003 and 2014 the two sides won every single Women’s County Championship title between them.

Kent and Sussex are due to meet in the T20 County Cup (South East Group) on Sunday 16 May. Sussex’s decision to join the 50-over London Championship this season means that they will also face off on Tuesday 1 June, for the first time since Kent took home the last ever Women’s County Championship trophy back in 2019.

Beaumont’s Kent teammate Tash Farrant said that she was “stoked” that Sussex had joined the London Championship, and added a warning to anyone who might be listening from the Sussex side of the border: “We’re looking for a trophy this season!”

With the international schedule still TBC, and government regulations surrounding the T20 County Cup unclear, it has not yet been officially confirmed that the contracted England players will be able to participate in the competition, which will kickstart the domestic season across four weekends in April and May.

However Beaumont, who has represented Kent since 2007 but was unable to don her county shirt last season due to being kept in the England biosecure bubble, says she is very hopeful that she and her England teammates will get the chance to participate.

“I’m hopeful that it’s early enough in the season that we can play some county games,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time I played a county T20, so I’d love to be part of that – I’m desperate to play!”

Two and a half years ago, in the wake of the 2018 season, key figures at the ECB sat down and pondered the future of women’s domestic cricket. Clare Connor’s plan for a 50-over version of the Kia Super League had fallen by the wayside ahead of the 2017 World Cup. Australia’s domestic competitions, the WNCL and WBBL, were now both fully professional, and the ECB desperately needed to find a way to catch up. They looked on enviously at the state system, which gave Cricket Australia 7 obvious team units to focus on – a much easier (and cheaper) ask than attempting to professionalise the 38 counties of England. And they hatched a plan to abolish the county system as we knew it.

We first reported the ECB’s plans in January 2019, when they came to light publicly. Back then, we were led to believe that the plan was for a radical restructuring of county cricket whereby the Women’s County Championship would continue, but with a top tier of 8 professional counties, with no relegation or promotion. The other counties would sit beneath this, as “feeders” for the professional counties.

But the plan, as it turned out, was even more radical than we had envisaged. As the 2019 season progressed and more details of the plans came to light, it gradually became clear that the ECB’s plan was for an “eight-team semi-professional competition structure” which mirrored that of the The Hundred – with team identities separate to county identities. Surrey would not be permitted to continue to host the Surrey Stars, and Lancashire would have to become North West Thunder.

The ECB wanted women’s domestic cricket to move away from the county model altogether. Women’s county cricket would become defunct; it would disappear. And because the new structure would be semi-professional and would involve a huge amount more investment than the Women’s County Championship ever received, nobody would really mind.

By the end of the (truncated) 2020 season, the first without the Women’s County Championship, it was already clear that this was a colossal misjudgement on behalf of the ECB. But, slowly but surely, something else has also become apparent: the ECB’s plan to abolish women’s county cricket has failed.

It has failed literally. This season (Covid-permitting), the T20 County Cup will be played across four weekends in April and May, as a kickstarter to the 2021 women’s season. The ECB had granted the T20 Cup a two-season stay of execution back in 2019, but given that the 2020 version had to be canned due to the pandemic, it would have been easy enough to axe it in 2021. But it is very much still with us.

There is also the small matter of the two “rebel” 50-over County Championships which will be played in 2021, outside the auspices of the ECB: the London Championship, and the East of England County Championship. After a nervous start in 2020, these competitions look to be here to stay. Importantly, Clare Connor’s alma mater Sussex have recently announced their intention to join the London Championship. The addition of another former “powerhouse” of the County Championship can only give the competition more kudos. It could well signal the beginning of other counties also following suit and choosing to continue with 50-over cricket.

As this suggests, the ECB’s plan to abolish county cricket has also failed philosophically. It turns out that telling players who currently represent their counties that they should simply “go off and play club cricket” doesn’t actually work – county cricket is the zenith, and club cricket (especially in some areas of the country) is too weak to offer a decent substitute. When South East Stars captain Tash Farrant is telling us in an England press conference that she is counting down the days until she can don her Kent shirt again, you realise the significance of county cricket to the players who participate in it. Regional cricket cannot hope to replace deeply-held county loyalties for the foreseeable future, if it ever does.

And the ECB’s plan has also failed structurally. Yes, we have a brilliant new regional system in place, with 41 domestic contracts, and full-time Directors of Cricket, coaching teams, and support staff now being paid to support those players (huge credit to the ECB for all this). But many of the Directors of Cricket view the county game as a significant part of the new regional structure. South East Stars is one example. “Those county games will be where [Director of Cricket] Richard Bedbrook and [Head Coach] Johann Myburgh will be looking to see which girls perform, leading into the regional stuff and picking our XI from that,” Tash Farrant said recently. We are aware of a number of other Directors who feel similarly.

As this season progresses, and the county game acts explicitly as a feeder into these new regional teams, it’s going to become harder and harder for the ECB to argue that county cricket doesn’t have a place in the regional era. Also, the ECB explicitly discussed the role of county cricket in their post-Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy review. The fact that the T20 Cup is still going ahead, and that the Regional Directors are apparently not being discouraged from shouting about the importance of the county game, suggests to me that the ECB are fully aware that their plan to decouple women’s domestic cricket from the county structure has not succeeded, and have quietly taken it on the chin and backed down.

There is really nothing to be ashamed of in this U-turn. The ECB got it wrong; they have realised this, and are no longer ploughing ahead regardless. But it is an important reminder that county cricket remains valuable, to the system and the players. Even as we praise the new regional structures, let’s remember they were built on the solid foundations of county cricket: the format that refuses to say die.

The ECB’s Managing Director of Women’s Cricket, Clare Connor, has said that the possibility of a Test versus India this summer “holds real excitement” .

BCCI Honorary Secretary Jay Shah, tweeted on International Women’s Day, March 8th, that a one-off Test between England and India would take place later this year.

Speaking today at a Q&A hosted by The Cricket Society Clare Connor said that England’s summer schedule was still being finalised but that they were in conversation with multiple boards, including South Africa, New Zealand and India.

The situation is complicated by the fact that South Africa are currently on the UK government’s “Red List”, meaning the players could not enter the country without a prior 10-day quarantine period in a third country.

Connor went on to say that she was hopeful the ECB would be in a position to make an official announcement about the international schedule in the next couple of weeks.

The ICC have announced a significant expansion to the World Cup and T20 World Cup, with the 50 over tournament expanding from 8 teams and 31 matches in 2025, to 10 teams and 48 matches in 2029.

TheT20 World Cup will expand from the current 10 teams, to 12 teams and 33 matches from 2026.

Together with the new “Champions Cup”, which will involve the top 6 teams, a major international tournament is scheduled to be held every year going forwards.

ICC Chief Executive, Manu Sawhney, said:

“We have a clear focus and commitment to an ambitious long-term growth plan for the women’s game. We have been building momentum around the women’s game for the last four years investing in global broadcast coverage and marketing to drive fan engagement.”

“This decision to expand our women’s events builds on these foundations and allows us to give more member countries greater opportunities to compete on a global stage. This means that more teams will also get the opportunity to compete in the qualification pathways for the respective ICC events over the coming years.”

England strolled to another comfortable victory in the 3rd T20 by 32 runs, to take the rubber 3-0. Tammy Beaumont pocketed the Player of the Series cheque for $1,000, and Katherine Brunt drank up the Player of the Match champagne, after taking 2 wickets in the first over of New Zealand’s reply to England’s 128; but for me, “Sergeant” Fran Wilson was the key that unlocked England’s win today.

The home commentators described England as having “limped” to their total – but although they did lose 9 wickets, that really wasn’t the case at all, as the upwards trend line on England’s Manhattan shows.

Wilson, who came to the crease with 8 overs remaining, made 31 off 23 balls – the highest score, at by far the highest strike rate, of the match. Perhaps the only criticism you could lay on Wilson was that, like Tammy Beaumont in the 3rd ODI, she trusted England’s tail a little too much, and didn’t farm the strike as much as she might have done, facing under half of the 48 balls she spent in the middle.

That’s picking nits though. In order to understand Wilson’s contribution, just imagine what might have happened if she’d gotten out early – her 31 runs were almost exactly England’s margin of victory; and without them, England probably would have been bowled out too, which would have put the momentum squarely with New Zealand to win this match in very-much the fashion they did the 3rd ODI.

Indeed, at one stage it looked like they would win it in exactly the fashion they won the 3rd ODI – with Satterthwaite and Kerr set at the crease and going at pretty-much a run a ball, a repeat performance was on the cards, with the White Ferns ahead of the worm.

But neither Kerr nor Satterthwaite were able to stick around this time, and New Zealand fell away to 96 all out.

Fran Wilson wasn’t even supposed to play today – she only came in because Heather Knight sat out with a “minor” hamstring injury; and all the fuss in this series has been about getting an opportunity for Sophia Dunkley, who did indeed get her shot today, having not faced a ball in the first two T20s.

Dunkley didn’t disappoint either, making 26 off 29 balls, including the only six of the match; but it was Wilson’s contribution – just calmly getting on with it, running the singles hard, on a day when boundaries were the exception rather than the rule – which allowed England to build a winning total, which the White Ferns just didn’t have the batting to match.