Southern Brave crushed Oval Invincibles by 89 runs – the biggest margin in the history of The Hundred – via the ultimate team performance: no 50s or 100s; no 4fers or 5fers; just contributions up and down the XI, as the Brave made it 5-from-5 to leave themselves one win away from qualification for the knockout stages. Regardless of what else happens, a win in their next match versus Welsh Fire will guarantee Brave at least 3rd place in the table.

Maia Bouchier and Danni Wyatt-Hodge got Brave’s innings off to a solid enough start, reaching 33-0 after 25 balls, with Bouchier having had the bulk of the strike through that period, facing 17 of those 25 balls and making 21 runs. But it was definitely a platform rather than a big start, little hinting at what was to come.

Brave began to accelerate immediately following the powerplay, with Bouchier hitting a 6 and a 4 off Amanda-Jade Wellington’s first set which went for 13. But her dismissal – holing-out on the midwicket boundary – saw a dip in the trend of their innings which could easily have become a fatal slump, especially after Wyatt-Hodge, who has been Brave’s leading run-scorer this season, decided to charge Phoebe Franklin, presumably guessing that Franklin wouldn’t bowl two slower balls in a row. (She did; Wyatt-Hodge was way too early on her charge down the pitch, and was comprehensively bowled!)

Although neither Laura Wolvaardt (36 – Brave’s top score) nor Sophie Devine (19) really got into 5th gear, they kept pressing as they put on a partnership of 42; before they were dismissed in quick succession – Wolvaardt caught on the ring; and Devine run out after a bit of the “Yes; No; Yes; Nos” with Freya Kemp. Kemp, however, more than made up for it with a rapid 24 off 11 balls as Brave timed their innings perfectly – losing 4 wickets in the final phase, but getting 46 more runs on the board, moving from 115-2 to 161-6 in the final 25 balls.

Interestingly, if this had been a “normal” T20 game, Brave might well have struggled to score many runs off the extra 20 balls – certainly not at the rate they had been going. But for a 100-ball match, it was perfectly timed; and left Invincibles needing a record chase for the win.

To be fair, it was a record chase.. just not the record they’d have had in mind!

We’ve seen a few times already in The Hundred this season that you have to get ahead of the rate if you’re to have any chance in these big chases; but after Sophie Devine removed both Invincibles openers in the space of 4 balls, they could only cough and splutter their way to 17 off the powerplay.

If Invincibles chances were slim after 25 balls, by 50 they were non-existent, after Lauren Bell and Rhianna Southby (who continues to show the value of a specialist wicket-keeper in this competition) combined to have Alice Capsey and Paige Scholfield caught behind off consecutive deliveries; and Invincibles eventually succumbed to the inevitable as their longish tail collapsed to 72 all out.

The result puts Brave back on top of the table, with an enormous Net Run Rate advantage over their rivals; but on the evidence of tonight they won’t need it to qualify directly for the final – they might not have had a stand-out star today, but as a team they look unstoppable.

This week:

• Will form in The Hundred impact on World Cup selections?
• Syd gets cross about the changes to the Blast & One Day Cup
• Why didn’t the ECB release their Ashes review?
• Who is English cricket’s Run-Out Queen?

This week we discuss The Hundred:

• Has it been a success?
• ⁠What changes will the new owners make?
• ⁠London Spirit make a statement at Lords
• ⁠Trent Rockets captaincy

A century partnership between Grace Harris and Cordelia Griffith secured a win for London Spirit in the opening match of the 2025 Women’s Hundred at Lord’s.

This was the 10th partnership of 100+ in five years of the women’s competition (full list here) – and the first ever for London Spirit.

Despite a slightly quieter final 10 balls (2 wickets lost for 12 runs), the pair took Spirit to 175, which is well above a typical score in the Women’s Hundred, as shown by Syd’s “ghost”. To put it in context, last year’s highest total across the whole comp was 158.

Spirit’s total today was particularly impressive given that Georgia Redmayne – their Player of the Match in the 2024 final – departed for a duck, trapped leg-before after missing a straight one from Marizanne Kapp.

Grace Harris was her usual self, rollicking along to an unbeaten 89 from 42 balls. A week ago, she hit 63 not out as Surrey romped home in the final of the inaugural T20 Blast: this was if anything an even more imposing knock, which included back-to-back sixes against Sophia Smale.

Harris missed last year’s Hundred for Spirit as she was rehabbing from a calf injury, but had a particular reason for wanting to head back to England this time around. Her recent dominance on English pitches this season, across both the Blast and The Hundred, may prove to be strategically important as Australia ponder their squad selection for the 2026 World Cup (including a final on this very ground).

“I did think that I might not make the 2025 ODI World Cup team for Australia,” Harris told me recently. “So I thought in planning ahead it would be great to be able to play in England a little bit more and maybe better. To come over here and play in English conditions against a fair few England players and with England players is very much a good challenge and I’ll get better insights.

“I’m taking my international career one game at a time, but I’m looking to the future and thinking how I can get the best out of myself.”

Meanwhile Griffith, whose 50 from 29 balls is her highest ever score in The Hundred, matched Harris ball-for-ball until she was caught at long-off with 20 balls to go of the Spirit innings. “I felt in a groove there,” Cords said afterwards, describing batting with Grace Harris as “a nice laugh”. That’s an unusual compliment, but maybe having someone out in the middle who can bring a bit of light-heartedness to proceedings during a pressure game at Lord’s is no bad thing.

Someone who doesn’t do much laughing is Marizanne Kapp, whose 77-run partnership with Meg Lanning from 48 balls gave Invincibles hope in a mammoth run-chase. As Syd’s graph shows, the highest-grossing phase of the match for either side was actually Invincibles’ late-middle phase:

This was the point at which Lanning and Kapp were really taking off, as they strategically targeted the shorter boundaries on the Grand Stand side of the ground. “We didn’t talk numbers at all. It was literally about where our boundaries were, and what pockets we were going to target. It was pretty difficult with the slope and the wind and the bigger boundaries, you had to only hit to one side of the ground,” Lanning said afterwards.

But Invincibles had been too slow to get going – Lanning started with 12* off 17 – and it was that slow start which cost them this opening match of the 2025 Women’s Hundred. A lesson, perhaps, as they look to their next match on Saturday at The Oval.

On the CRICKETher Weekly:

• Essex out of the One Day Cup
• England player availability
• The Hundred hits more problems

In the end, the first ever Vitality Blast Finals Day weekend was the story of the haves and the have-nots of women’s cricket.

Let’s start with Saturday. The disaster of Tier 2 Finals Day at Northampton has been well documented by Polly Starkie: a chaotic affair where there was no indoor seating for written press, one coffee truck which closed as the final was just getting underway, players apparently being randomly ejected from dressing rooms, and a lack of effort made to properly cover the square when rain fell during the first semi-final.

This was Finals Day done on the cheap, with no thought given to the player or the spectator experience. Here’s Polly and I talking about in on this week’s CRICKETher Weekly:

Contrast that with Sunday at The Oval, where the Tier 1 event was a roaring success. 5,761 fans showed up (a record for a women’s domestic T20 game), many sporting pink Vitality bucket hats, on a day of fireworks, face-painting and a twist on the traditional Mascots Race: a Mascots Hungry Hippo competition.

Kirstie Gordon, whose Blaze side lost the semi-final against Bears after winning the last Lottie Cup at Derby a year ago, was well-placed to contrast 2025 with 2024:

“[Derby] was a bit of a shambles wasn’t it? There was no food van. Fair play to everyone at The Oval and the ECB for today’s event. We’ve had a really good crowd in, it looks like there’s loads of activations going on round the venue for the kids and all sorts. That’s awesome. You look at the success that The Hundred’s had and it does all these things – that’s how we can start pushing that into days like this.”

In typical Kirstie fashion, she also found the time to express support for her Tier 2 counterparts, who hadn’t been quite so lucky:

“It’s a bit sad to hear that the Tier 2 final yesterday had a bit of a non-event with similar things [to Derby] – we need to start filtering that [The Oval event] down and make it a showcase event.”

Issy Wong was Player of the Match in that first semi-final, but hot on her heels was Sterre Kalis, who struck 45 from 33 balls after becoming perhaps the first player ever to feature in back-to-back Finals Days for two different sides.

Kalis explained after the semi-final that she had hot-footed it down from Northampton to London in an Uber on Saturday night: “I’m still Yorkshire’s player, but at the same time I want to try and win this with the Bears as well.”

There has been much debate about whether Kalis’s back-and-forth this season between Bears (where she is on loan) and Yorkshire (where she is a contracted player) is exploiting an unfortunate loophole in the loans system, which was actually designed to allow fringe Tier 1 players the chance to get some cricket instead of sitting on the sidelines.

But one thing you can’t dispute is Kalis’s commitment – to Yorkshire, to Warwickshire, and to women’s cricket. The Dutch-born Kalis doesn’t have the chance to make big bucks by representing her home nation in World Cups, so she takes her chances where she can get them, even when that means paying an exorbitant amount to take a taxi 70 miles down the road in order to play four matches in two days.

It’s difficult not to contrast that with the notable absence of England players Nat Sciver-Brunt and Amy Jones from what was designed to be a showpiece event in the new women’s calendar.

I’ll quote Kirstie Gordon again here: “That was their choice not to play today.” And when pressed on exactly whose choice (the ECB’s or Amy and Nat’s), she clarified: “The players’ choice.”

The ECB’s hastily-issued statement 10 minutes later explaining that both players had been “rested… to manage schedules and workload” was too little, too late: Kirstie’s responses, in a tone which conveyed her disdain about the decision, told the real story.

Surrey, of course, were the real winners this weekend, romping home in the final against Bears by 5 wickets with 20 balls to spare, in front of a raucous home crowd. If you want to talk about haves and have-nots, it’s worth a look at a recent report into the financial health of domestic cricket in England & Wales, which puts Surrey right at the top of a new Financial Performance Index. This season, they funded three bonus contracts for their women’s team, in addition to the funding provided by the ECB.

So where are we with women’s cricket, after the first big test of the ECB’s decision to rejig the domestic system in order to align with the men’s counties? Yet again, it seems that taking a big leap forward for one group of players hasn’t yet permeated downwards throughout the rest of the game.

It’s up to all of us, even as we celebrate the big, glorious steps forward, to continue to hold power to account on behalf of the ones who are still being left behind.

This week:

• Polly Starkie on the shambles of Tier 2 Blast Finals Day
• Surrey triumph in the Tier 1 Blast – but a good day for Issy Wong
• Sophie Ecclestone’s odd interview with Sky
• England v India Test at Lord’s… but it’s only 4 days

In the end, it was too much to ask the Bears to do it twice – after winning their semi-final, they were well beaten by Surrey in the final of the T20 Blast, in front of a very partisan crowd of home fans at the Oval. The scoreboard repeatedly flashed-up demands to “Cheer for Surrey” and an official crowd of over 5,000 did. Entreaties for Bears fans to do the same fell somewhat flatter.

Despite the return of umpteen England stars, this was a poorer match than the “Zombie Rubber” between these two sides 10 days ago, when Surrey hit 204 and Bears 179 in reply. That day, Kira Chathli was the star, smashing 65 off 31 balls. Relegated to No. 7 below the big England names, she did at least have the satisfaction of striking the winning runs.

But the real star was Grace Harris, who showed why she is the Harris with 50-odd international caps for Australia to sister Laura’s none. Her 63 off 33 balls may have been at a lower Strike Rate (190) than Laura’s 25 off 11 (SR 227) but by going deep Grace ensured that she earned every pretty penny that Surrey paid for her services in this campaign.

Batting first, Bears made the best possible start off the first delivery of the match from Alexa Stonehouse, with Meg Austin showcasing the finest Austin drive to come out of Birmingham since the Austin Allegro. (Don’t @ me – my dad bought one in ’79 – I know it was possibly the worst car of all time!) It was a gorgeous stroke – probably the shot of the day. But Austin was bowled by Stonehouse the very next ball, and from that point you felt the writing was on the wall.

Issy Wong top-scored for Bears for the second time on the day. The difference between her scores versus Blaze (59) and Surrey (31) was basically the difference between the teams, but that isn’t to hold her in any way responsible for the defeat – she did her job across both games, and had arguably the best day of her career.

Laura Harris did plunder Stonehouse for the most expensive over of the day – the 18-run 13th – but although it helped get Bears past the 150 mark which is the… bear minimum these days, it wasn’t enough to trouble Surrey, who have been the team to beat throughout this competition – losing just once in the group stages – and proved the same today.

Every time Bears grabbed a wicket, it must have felt like battling the hydra – cut off a Wyatt-Hodge and a Capsey comes in her stead; cut off a Capsey and a Harris comes in her place. With Surrey batting right down to Alexa Stonehouse at 10, Bears’ only hope was to bowl them out; but on this pitch, that was too much of an ask.

As the final 4 crossed the rope, there was applause from the crowd, and a scramble to get around to the one small part of the ground from which you could see the presentation – the fans who had paid money to come through the gate seemingly ignored in terms of witnessing the raising of the trophy.

But it perhaps tells us something more that by far the biggest cheer of the day came almost an hour later, from the fans that had stayed behind to watch the conclusion of the football on the big screens below the stands, as Chloe Kelly kicked home the winning penalty in the Women’s Euros. The final score: football 1, cricket 0.

There are three sides to being a top cricketer – talent, mentality, and graft – and there have been times in Issy Wong’s career when it has felt like she was all talent, but almost disdainful of mentality, let alone graft.

That was not the Issy Wong we saw in today’s T20 Blast semi-final, as Birmingham Bears beat the Blaze by 2o runs.

Perhaps the most revealing moment was not Wong’s 59 runs at a Strike Rate of 155, or her 4 wickets at an Economy Rate of 4.4, but a chase around the boundary that culminated in a dive to deny what looked like a certain 4. It didn’t take talent or mentality – just graft, to make the yards and cut off the runs. This was a new Issy Wong – one who has perhaps realised that graft might be the boring one, but it is the one you can most easily change – the one that can turn a good cricketer into a history-maker. Just ask Heather Knight.

Wong’s game began early, after Grace Ballinger had bowled Davina Perrin in the second over – Perrin again seeming slightly overawed by the big occasion, giving her wicket away to a skyer on the ring. Wong coming in at 3 always feels more in hope than expectation, though she generally doesn’t hang around either – she’ll swing until she misses, scoring runs until she gets out. But you could sense that there was something slightly different about her demeanor here – a bit more circumspect, but a bit more determined.

With Bears having lost two wickets in the powerplay, Wong led the fightback in a partnership with Sterre Kalis worth 64 runs which gave Bears the platform they needed to push on to a winning score. The job still needed finishing, but the platform largely built by Wong, which took Bears to 98-2 after 12 overs, meant they could afford to lose 6 wickets in the rest of the innings without any change in their momentum.

Having continued to score at 8+ an over, Bears finished on 163-8. It wasn’t a huge score – bearing in mind especially that their final opponents, Surrey, scored over 200 at this ground last week. But it was a few more than the 156 which has been a typical score in the Blast this season; and it gave them something to defend if they bowled well.

Blaze’s batting order is pretty stacked down to Sarah Bryce at 6; but the real threat felt like Tammy Beaumont – if Bears could get Beaumont early, they were in with a shout. Enter (again) Issy Wong. Having started with a wide (her only one of the match) she bowled Beaumont with a beauty through the gate with her third legal delivery. Beaumont had that slightly perplexed look that Mike Gatting made famous after being bowled by Shane Warne’s Ball of the Century; and Bears were pumped.

Wong wasn’t finished though – the very next ball was a fierce bouncer to Scotland captain Kathryn Bryce, which Bryce couldn’t quite sway out of the way of in time, gloving a catch to Nat Wraith behind the stumps.

As with Wong’s contribution with the bat, the job wasn’t done in those two balls – Blaze maintained parity and were even ahead for a period in the early middle phase. Bears still had to work for the win. The key remaining wicket was Georgia Elwiss, who is at her best with her back against the wall grinding down a grindable total. And she could have been the match-winner for Blaze, until a slightly un-Georgia Elwiss moment of madness – trying to force the pace, she charged Georgia Davis and was stumped for 53.

Millie Taylor, whose career has reached escape velocity with Warwickshire this season following her move from Vipers, did more than her share with 3 wickets and a catch, including a lovely off break (turning the other way from her stock ball) to bowl Sarah Glenn through her legs. And then… who else but Issy Wong came back to finish it off at the end – a fine rolling catch from Amu Surenkumar on the boundary giving Bears the win and the chance to face Surrey in the final.