In a piece which was originally published on www.womenscricket.net, women’s cricket legend and Sussex WCA Chairman Don Miles responds to CRICKETher Editor Raf Nicholson’s recent piece on the Super League, ‘Will The Super League Succeed Where The County Championship Has Failed?’, with his own thoughts on that question.

Will The Super League Succeed Where the County Championship has failed?

There are several parts to that question, one, the obvious one, of whether England players will emerge more readily when the Super League is up and running, but there are also built in assumptions.

The first is that County Cricket has been the forgotten area in the women’s game in the UK, unlike the situation in Australia (so we are told anyway) where financial support for the players at State level exists, to cover long flights and hotels. County Cricket has, the title claims, failed to deliver players to the higher level… True the article also states some of the reasons why it believes that to be true.

I would argue strongly that that is not the case. In relatively recent times England have won World Cups in both formats of the game and I relish the memories of the 2009 50-over Cup down under and the T20 match at the Oval where Claire Taylor and Beth Morgan set the crowd alight with one of the finest partnerships ever witnessed in a women’s T20. If not winning England have been there or thereabouts in both 50-over and T20 international competitions. Supporters of all teams in any sport have to get used to the fact there will be good times and lean times, times when the squad plays well and times when… well, it doesn’t.

All this does not mean, of course, that England couldn’t do better. As other blogs have remarked the choice of players – who is in the squad – who could be called in – is one that can occupy hours of discussion and no two people are likely to agree very readily. In fact it has amused me to have a ‘Law’ (‘Don’s Law’) named after me by others typing in this field. I have in recent times claimed that ‘my’ England side has never lost – the simple reason being it has never played. I can’t be the first to have said that however. I claim no  knowledge superior to anyone else (except perhaps some who write in the papers and watch perhaps one women’s game a year) but there is one point I wish to make forcefully.

2017 is getting very close. A decision must be made before Christmas and the choice quite simply is do we go into the 2017 World Cup with the current squad or do we need to blood new players – yes – play them in England shirts in South Africa in the winter and against Pakistan this coming summer.  Don’t ask them in simply to carry drinks! The end of the tour to South Africa will be too late to give any new faces a chance to settle. Players deserve a ‘run’ – a series of matches – in which to show what they can do. In one game, out for two, maybe back in for one game again, does no one’s confidence any good and frankly it is grossly unfair to judge any player on their performances if that’s the opportunity (or I’d say lack of opportunity) they are given.

And for the County set-up currently…

The cash available to a county to support (in the case of Sussex, for instance, last season) seven teams means that players have to put their hand in their pockets not just for kit as you might expect but also for petrol, training sessions, meals out when away from home, and I’m sure there’s more. County Cricket is available to those who not only have the dedication to turn up but also afford the expense (or whose parents can afford the expense). Is this different from any other sport? For instance if your daughter became wild about tennis or golf would the situation be any different? Possibly not, but I do not feel that is any kind of excuse for County Cricket becoming the poor cousin of any Super League (hereafter S/L).

Which, of course, brings me to another assumption within the title of the article. Can we find six sponsors with the necessary cash (approx £400,000 over three/four years if rumours are true)? With a number of the conditions of running this tournament not easy to reconcile with what coaches and players would normally expect; it’s an open question. I can only speculate, having no inside knowledge of anyone’s thoughts who might have that kind of cash lying around. Will it fly(?) it’s a question I hear increasingly around the boundary rope. We must wait and see I guess.

Anyone remember the Super 4s? I have written on this tournament before but it bears repeating. No one was ever really sure the purpose of it. I enjoyed watching the games – don’t get me wrong – but was it an England trial or maybe a chance for established players to make plenty of runs ahead of an international series? When some players were brought in to simply act as fielders, canon fodder for England players whose talents the ECB were well aware of, it seemed the latter. With four teams approximately 48 players were involved. Talk of the S/L suggests 55 players from this country will be required and it would not necessarily be unfair to suggest the S/L will be a diluted form of the S4s. Yes – I know it has been suggested there could be two overseas internationals in every squad but again it’s a question of will there? The WBBL in Australia seems to be getting there slowly but it has not been straightforward. So much of this is “wait and see” which is why I typed on a previous page that things were both ‘exciting and worrying’ in equal measure.

And where will the S/L sit in the player pathway? One would assume beneath the Academy, or is it the England U-19s, or is it…? A purpose other than simply a higher level of competition needs to be sorted out. As already noted, there is an argument the S4s was a higher level, but it suffered from  “what is it all about?” The S/L could go the same way if its purpose and position on the pathway is not clear.

Much is made of these “Player Pathways” in the modern jargon of most sports and cricket is no exception. Essentially you have a pyramid shape with an indication to players at the bottom how they might climb the ladder to the next stage, and ultimately to the top. In our case ‘England’ is at the tip of the pyramid. As the ancient Egyptians knew full well pyramids don’t work too well unless they have a very strong foundation. In women’s cricket, where do most people start playing the game? Well maybe at school but there are few who encourage girls to form their own teams although a particularly talented pupil might find themselves playing for one of the boy’s XIs. It’s more likely to be at club level. This is where the major problems lie it seems to me. There are a few strong clubs and a number of much weaker ones.

This is not a problem in itself as surely the object should simply be to get as many of the female persuasion as possible playing the sport, whether they have any desire or not to climb the pyramid. My feeling is the ECB has a responsibility (and ultimately it will be in ‘England’s’ interest) to encourage participation at the base of this pyramid. This seems somewhat lacking. Let’s take a specific example. You may be aware if you visited the home page recently that I drove to Kibworth to watch four teams fight it out for the National Club Championship. Chatting to the coach of one team I discovered that seven of his players didn’t feel strongly enough about club cricket, even though it was the final and a chance of some silverware, to turn up. While there may have been legitimate reasons for one or two it seems unlikely there would be for seven. One, indeed, chose instead to play for a men’s team that day. I should add a footnote here that the four U-13s and the two U-15s who replaced the regulars fielded valiantly during their match against Bath, despite an onslaught from an in-form Sophie Luff, and no criticism should be levelled at them for the inevitable defeat!

If this is indicative, and it seems likely, of the value players themselves place on the bottom of the pyramid there could be problems aplenty for England in a few years time when current top players decide their day is done.  And there’s plenty of volunteers working at club and county level, as well as Cricket Board support that is highly variable around the country.

To sum up, and I guess I should before you all drop off, I don’t feel, and never have, that County Cricket has failed anyone. It has done its best despite grave financial stringencies and has provided winning England teams in the past. I feel sure it could do so again. If I may dare to offer advice to those in higher places, make sure the pyramid is supported at the bottom, at club and then county, or there is always the risk of the entire edifice falling down.  And let’s not take the ‘trickle down’ excuse. It has never worked in economics so I can’t see why it should here. All that trickles down is the feeling a few are being supported at the expense of the many.

Despite the obvious pit-falls, let’s hope 2016 is exciting and not worrying. Whichever, I can’t wait to get back to that boundary rope again.

In a move that we’ll admit perhaps surprised CRICKETher more than it should have done, Clare Connor reached for the shotgun yesterday; and with it despatched England “Performance Director” and Chief Selector Paul Shaw back to the obscurity from which he came.

CRICKETher has had little real interaction with Shaw over the years, but the customary nod and a smile with which he always greeted us around the circuit bear witness to something which we’ve heard time and again: he was (is!) a thoroughly bloody nice bloke.

But we can not allow this to distract ourselves from the fact that under his leadership, the England team have gone backwards – falling into the pack while the Australians hurtle ahead.

The twin Ashes triumphs of 2013/14 were the highlights of his reign; but even as giant strides towards professionalism were being made off the field, victories on the pitch merely papered over cracks that were in retrospect already all too apparent by the 2013 World Cup in India – brittle batting; over-reliance on the Brunt/ Shrubsole bowling axis; and a chaotic selection process on the fringes of the team that quite literally drove players away from the game.

The current England squad is very-much of Shaw’s making, bearing in mind that his previous role was heading-up the Academy. There’s a lot of potential, but there are too many players that England struggle to get the best out of – the Danni Wyatts… the Amy Joneses… even the Heather Knights and the Sarah Taylors.

That’s the challenge for the new coach, whoever he (or, sadly less likely, she) is – they will come into the role knowing they have some serious talent at their disposal, but they will nevertheless have their work cut out to turn things around in time for the World Cup, which in sporting terms really is just around the corner in 2017.

The Loughborough power grab which has seen Paul Shaw assume sole responsibility for England team selection is far from unprecedented in the world of sport.

In football as we know, the manager invariably acts as a sporting dictator in on-field matters; and this arrangement generally works pretty well – the players know who is in charge… and so do the fans, the media and the board when the team’s performance doesn’t live up to expectations! Indeed it is this which provides a degree of accountability within the system – if England Rovers lose The Ashes Cup, the crowds chant, the press pillory… and the chairman loads the shotgun!

So whilst this may not be the way we’ve traditionally done things in cricket, preferring the more collegiate approach of a selection panel, the football-style “managerial” system now in place for England Women isn’t necessarily wrong.

However, it can only work if it is accompanied by the kind of checks and balances provided by the robust (if mostly informal) structures which are in place in football; and this is where things potentially start to get problematic.

Thus far, Paul Shaw seems to have largely avoided any degree of accountability. He managed to drift through the summer without anyone actually knowing he was in charge of selection; and the one time he sort-of-agreed to speak to the press after the defeat at Worcester, we were told this was only on the condition that we softballed him. (Such agreement was not collectively forthcoming; and it didn’t happen!)

And since The Ashes, mainstream media interest has waned to a whisper, with even the couple of ill-informed calls for resignations that we did hear focusing on the captain instead of the admiral.

Of course there is always the shotgun, which was used on Mark Lane a couple of years ago, but Clare Connor has a lot on her plate right now, with the Super League, contract renewals, World Cup planning… you name it – the last thing she wants is to have to spend valuable time looking for a new head coach against the wishes of her skipper!

In short, Paul Shaw is largely unanswerable in practice right now. Going forwards, this needs to change. Shaw needs to be made available to the press at the very least at the end of each series, and he must accept, if the team’s performance justifies it, that hard questions will be asked. Will he enjoy it? Of course not! But he has all the power now… along with it, he has to accept some accountability.

This year’s County Championship and T20 Cup have recently concluded – in what looks set to be the last domestic season of its kind ever.

This time next year the inaugural T20 element of the Women’s Cricket Super League will have taken place – assuming all goes according to plan over the next few months.

In a recent interview Clare Connor outlined the rationale behind the Super League as follows:

“We wanted a competition that would excite and engage new players and new fans that would be a good shop window for women’s domestic cricket in this country. A competition that could eventually drive commercial income through TV and sponsorship revenues and a competition that would give us another platform other than international women’s cricket to grow the profile of the game. Women’s domestic cricket doesn’t achieve that.”

The suggestion is that the current domestic T20 competition has failed to secure the interest of the public in the same way that England Women have in recent years.

If that is the case, it is surely at least partly the fault of the ECB.

This season the following things have occurred:

1. T20 Finals Day – one of the most exciting days in the domestic calendar, which in previous years has attracted a crowd of several hundred – was cancelled ahead of this season, the winner of the T20 Cup this season being calculated simply based on who had scored the most points in the initial four rounds. No explanation was offered as to why the change was made, and CRICKETher are still not entirely clear about the rationale behind this.

2. On the final day of T20 games, it came down to a three-way tie between Yorkshire, Sussex and Kent on points, after all three won their final games. The winner would be decided by Net Run Rate… but who was it? Frantic calculations by Martin Davies from Women’s Cricket Blog initially suggested that Yorkshire had won… until the official scorecards were published on Play Cricket 24 hours later, and it was shown that Sussex were in fact the champions, by the tiniest of margins (0.02).

Was anyone from the ECB on hand to do the required calculations on Sunday evening? No – the whole situation was farcical.

3. Sussex were presented with the T20 Cup after their final 50-over game against Berkshire, by Tim Shutt of the Sussex Cricket Board. The ECB once again showed their commitment to the domestic competition, by… sending no representative to the presentation whatsoever.

This is all in addition to the ridiculous way in which the 50-over Cup was decided this season, whereby Yorkshire were able to win the entire Championship by refusing to play 3rd-placed Sussex, with nothing in the regulations to prevent this from happening.

Sadly all these things are indicative of the fact that, despite all the progress made at international level in recent years, very little attention (or finances) have been devoted to advancing the domestic game.

The Super League is an exciting prospect. If it succeeds where the County Championship has failed… if indeed it does bring in sponsorship revenue and grow crowds at domestic games… it will be at least partly because of the time, money and effort invested in it by the ECB.

It just seems a shame that it has taken this long for the domestic game to be given any kind of priority.

More evidence of a WBBL player recruitment crisis has emerged with the signing by the Adelaide Strikers of former Southern Star Shelly Nitschke.

Nitschke was a very good international player who played over 100 matches for Australia in the 00s, scoring over 3,000 runs and taking more than 150 wickets in her career.

But Nitschke is 38 years old and hasn’t played a serious competitive match since her retirement 4 years ago, in 2011 – a period in which she herself frankly admits (in this interview) that there have been “big changes”.

Of course, there is precedent from the Men’s BBL, with Shane Warne playing into his cricketing dotage; but Warne is an All Time Great™ for whom the term “Box Office” was practically invented; and with every respect to Nitschke’s significant achievements in the game, she nevertheless isn’t quite in that league.

Let’s be clear here: the Strikers can market this for all they want as a coup for the WBBL, but the truth is that it is really further evidence of a dearth of genuine talent available, as Cricket Australia wakes up to the fact that 8 teams really was two too many.

Supporter of women’s cricket Richard Clark explains why we need to move on from Double-Headers.

It’s amazing to think that it’s only six years since the first T20 “double header” took place in this country, during that summer’s World T20 Championships. The semi-finals and finals were all played in that format, of course, with England winning the tournament, beating New Zealand at Lords in the final.

But six years is a long time, and perhaps now is the right time for a re-think, and to consign the double-header to history.

There’s no “revisionism” in this. The double-header games were a fantastic innovation at the time. In fact I’d say they were essential for the women’s game. They brought the one thing that otherwise would not have happened, and which is crucial to any sport – live TV coverage. It’s a simple fact that neither Sky, nor any other TV company would have covered stand-alone women’s games at that time. Crowds in the grounds may have been sparse for those matches, but for the development of the women’s game, at that moment in time, TV was more important than bums on seats

Indeed, I would go as far as to say that England’s semi-final against Australia, in particular, was the most significant match in women’s cricket history. Claire Taylor and Beth Morgan’s pursuit of the Aussies’ daunting total remains, pound for pound the best one-day run-chase I’ve ever seen. Mike Selvey, for one, credits it as his moment of “conversion” to women’s cricket. Without TV coverage it would have had little or no impact.

Fast forward six years. This summer has seen Sky televise every day of the Women’s Ashes live. The crowds at Taunton, Bristol, Chelmsford and Hove (Worcester was nigh-on a sell-out too, until the weather had its say) have proved that there is now an audience for the game that perhaps wasn’t quite there even two years ago. Whether that can translate to other series is debatable at best, but Women’s Ashes cricket, at least, is now “marketable” in its own right. The TV excuse for needing double-headers is no longer there.

The only damp squib of the series was the final game in Cardiff. Yes, of course, that was partly down to Australia already having taken the spoils, but would it have been any different had that not been the case? After all, the series was only decided three days earlier. Had that game been played at, say, Headingley, and marketed as the potential Ashes decider and, dare I add, the only opportunity to watch England – including Yorkies’ Brunt, Hazell and Winfield – and Australia north of Worcester, who is to say what sort of ticket sales might have been achieved?

From a personal point of view, too, the cost of going to a double-header is prohibitive for my family of four, and I also don’t particularly want to subject my children to the “beer snake culture” as the day progresses. I actually want to watch (and be able to watch) good, and affordable, cricket. And I suspect I’m not alone. I suspect, in fact, that the Women’s Ashes is coming to represent that for an increasing number of cricket lovers.

It’s time to let it stand on its own two feet.

“Every loser wins…” sang EastEnders’ Nick Berry. But then again “Wicksy” (as he was known on screen) never played international cricket – if he had, he would have known that “Every loser loses” and it hurts like hell too. (Just ask Charlotte Edwards, or any of the rest of the England team, right now!)

Nevertheless it is a paradox that every sport needs its losers, because without them there can be no winners – if England hadn’t lost the Women’s Ashes, Australia could not have won them!

As the Women’s County Championship draws once more to a close, there will be joy for the winners; but spare a thought too for the losers: those like Scotland and Lancashire, who are already relegated but play on for pride; or those like one of either Nottinghamshire or Warwickshire and Essex or Durham, for whom the tears are still to come.  They might not be writing their names into the history books this weekend… but it would have been awfully difficult for the winners to have won without them!

In the wake of England’s Ashes defeat, certain voices in the media have wondered if it is time for Charlotte Edwards to stand down as England captain. CRICKETher dissents from this point of view – there is quite simply no alternative. But it is nevertheless apparent that many of the problems identified with the current regime are very real indeed.

On the field, England’s approach to the game is one-dimensional and they never seem to have a Plan B.

Furthermore it is abundantly clear that a number of batsmen don’t have their heads in the right places, with good players becoming bunnies as soon as they pull on an England shirt.

Meanwhile, selection is confused. We have a core of players who are pretty-much undroppable; while the rest struggle to find a role – in and out of the lineup and up and down the order – one minute a specialist boundary fielder, the next an opening batsman!

This has created a situation where a number of squad members are said to be deeply unhappy, with at least one believed to be on the verge of quitting.

All of these issues come down to one thing: management.

While Meg Lanning has credited Southern Stars Head Coach Matt Mott with playing a huge part in their Ashes success, England don’t even have a Head Coach – they have a Director of Elite Performance. When Paul Shaw was appointed to this post, the ECB talked it up as a more all-encompassing role than Head Coach, but it subsequently seems to be the case that at least in terms of the England team, it really isn’t.

If England are not to regress further over the next two years leading up to the 2017 World Cup, this needs to change.

They need a proper Head Coach with the moral and “legal” authority to challenge the status quo, to offer a fresh perspective and renewed leadership both on and off the field. This person has to be appointed from outside the “Loughborough Bubble” which probably means they will have to come from abroad and from The Other Game; but in both cases, so be it.

Make no mistake, it won’t be an easy job… but somebody’s really gotta do it!

In the wake of England’s poor performance this Ashes series, which culminated in the final T20 at Cardiff yesterday, The Independent’s Stephen Brenkley has directly called for Charlotte Edwards to step down as England captain.

In a piece published this morning, Brenkley states:

“The time has come when Edwards…must think seriously of letting somebody else have a go. No, more than that, she should step aside as England captain.”

“England now probably need a younger player who is more at home with the rhythms of the new, modern women’s game and may indeed have ideas about how its rapid progress can be accelerated still further.”

While Brenkley’s critique is not unjustified – England should leave no stone unturned in their analysis of what went wrong this series – he comprehensively fails to answer the key question: If Edwards steps down as captain, who is there that could replace her?

Of the 18 centrally-contracted players, only six are senior enough to be plausible candidates to take over: Anya Shrubsole, Katherine Brunt, Heather Knight, Sarah Taylor, Jenny Gunn and Lydia Greenway.

Shrubsole and Brunt are probably out of the running simply because it is widely recognised that it is a difficult ask for a bowler, especially a pace bowler, to both captain and bowl effectively.

Heather Knight is the most obvious candidate for the job. She was made vice-captain just over a year ago, prior to England’s series against India last summer, and it is no secret that in the eyes of the England management this was done with the intention of her taking over from Edwards at some point in the future.

But is now really the right time? Knight has had a poor series with the bat. She has made scores of 12, 38, 38, 14, 5, 4 and 1*. Adding to the pressure on her by making her step up to the captaincy would surely be extremely counter-productive.

The same could be said of Sarah Taylor, whose inconsistency with the bat is a real concern for England going forward. The burden of keeping wicket combined with coming in at number 3 is surely enough to be going on with. Taylor may be brilliant behind the stumps, but she is no future England captain.

Jenny Gunn is the only player bar Edwards amongst the contracted 18 who has ever captained England, having done the job on three previous occasions, most recently in West Indies in 2013. Yet she has played only two of the seven games this series, and in any case at 29 must surely be in the autumn of her career. The same could be said of Lydia Greenway (now aged 30), who alone of England’s top 5 has had a reasonable series with the bat.

Gunn or Greenway would be interim captains at best, and one thing England do not need in this crucial two-year rebuilding period leading up to the 2017 World Cup is a stop-gap captain.

A final point: Brenkley suggests that, while Edwards should step down as captain, she “still has plenty to offer as a batsman”. Indeed. Yet sources close to Edwards have made it plain in the past that she simply will not carry on for England purely as a batsman. If she retires as captain, England lose her altogether. Considering her contribution this series – she has outscored every batsman in the side bar Greenway and Natalie Sciver – not to mention over the last few years more generally, can they really afford to do that?

It is right and proper for a full post-mortem of this series to be carried out by the ECB; England certainly have not covered themselves with glory. But to get rid of the England captain when there is no one who is currently capable of replacing her would be the height of irresponsibility.

CRICKETher believes that Edwards should stay firmly where she is.

Dead Rubber Bump

Dead rubbers are funny things – sometimes they bounce, as the Southern Stars did in their last series against England in Australia, where they romped home in the last two T20s despite having lost the Women’s Ashes; and other times they don’t, as when a clearly exhausted Australian team collapsed to one of their heaviest ever T20 defeats in Durham at the end of the 2013 tour.

Yet if this was a bounce, it wasn’t a very convincing one – really more of a bump. England’s openers bowled very well once again; but the batting was as fragile as ever and if anyone really believes this lumbering victory gives them Momentum Going Into The World T20™ then I’m afraid they need their head examined.

Lauren Can’t Win-Field

Lauren Winfield is a fine batsman who has scored oodles of runs at county, averaging 63 in domestic cricket this season. Obviously she is clearly struggling in an England shirt, but her tame (virtually identikit) dismissals at Chelmsford and Hove were indicative of mental not technical flaws in her game.

England seem to wonder why players like Winfield and Amy Jones bat at international level like they are afraid to say boo to a mouse; but maybe it is because they constantly stand on the precipice of being dropped, and that’s a scary place to be!

So cutting Winfield today was the worst thing England could possibly have done – reinforcing all those negative preconceptions going on in her head; and perpetuating the cycle of mental failure which bedogs her. It England man-management at its absolute worst; and especially crazy given the dead rubber nature of this game.

Sciver Owes Shrubsole

Nat Sciver took home career-best figures with both bat and ball today; but in the latter case she really owes a lot to Anya Shrubsole. England’s swing-star set the trap for the Aussies with her opening 4-over spell of 4/11, leaving them under severe pressure. Sciver then reaped the rewards as the Southern Stars looked to hit out, as first Ellyse Perry played-on off a pretty nothing delivery, and then Blackwell, Harris and Coyte all got caught as they attempted to force the pace through the final third of the innings.

Perry Ms Consistent

Ellyse Perry scored 16 off 21 balls today and took 1 wicket – it certainly wasn’t a match-winning performance. In fact, looking back over the whole series, Perry didn’t really produce the archetypal “match winning performance” at all. Her best displays were either overshadowed by others – Lanning in the ODIs and Jonassen in the Test – or in a losing cause, at Taunton.

And yet when all the numbers had been totted-up, there she was – at the top of the table with both bat and ball, having scored more runs (264) and bagged more wickets (16) than anyone else, to take the Player of the Women’s Ashes Series award for a second consecutive time.

Being a great all-rounder isn’t actually about the “great” performance – it is about consistency; and that is what Perry brings in bottles to this Australian team. The ICC are shortly supposed to be publishing new “combined” rankings for women’s cricket – if Ellyse Perry’s name isn’t at the top of the all-rounders list… then there is something wrong with the list!