England might have recorded one of the largest margins of victory in their history against South Africa in their opening match last week, but against Bangladesh it was so nearly a different story – a charmed innings of 79 from former captain Heather Knight being the only difference between the teams.

Knight was forced to invoke the “Power of 3 (Reviews)” – dismissed thrice by the on-field officials, she survived each time by appealing to the third umpire.

In the third over of their chase, with England already one down having lost Amy Jones, Knight was given out after the ball squeezed between bat and pad and was taken by the keeper. It was unclear whether the on-field dismissal was for caught behind or LBW – Knight indicating that the ball had hit her pad, suggesting she thought she’d been given out caught, but the TV umpire appeared to think the on-field decision was LBW. Regardless, the TV umpire concluded that there was no LBW case to answer, but also that there was insufficient evidence that she’d hit it to give her out caught, with the Ultra-Edge spike clear but not clearly attributable to the ball hitting the bat. (And if you are confused… welcome to the club!)

Then in the 7th over, with England Tammy Beaumont have joined Jones back in the pavillion, Knight was given out LBW on 8; but was reprieved once more by the third umpire – this time uncontroversially, with the ball clearly missing the stumps according to the ball tracking system.

The third review was perhaps the most disputable. In the fifteenth over, Knight drove towards extra cover and appeared to be spectacularly caught by a low-diving Shorna Akter. Knight (who probably had the best view in the ground) was walking off when the on-field officials asked for the catch to be double-checked, with the third umpire re-adjudicating the decision apparently on the grounds that it wasn’t clear the ball hadn’t touched the turf, even though all the available angles seemed to suggest Shorna’s fingers were underneath it.

Whilst the middle decision was obviously correct, the other two were much less obviously so, and if they’d gone the other way, England could have had few complaints. But Knight survived, and dug in for one of the slowest half-centuries of her career; and although England’s other batters fell one-by-one, a partnership of 79 with Charlie Dean got England the win they needed to go top of the table… albeit partly because Australia dropped a point to the rain on Saturday; because (as I warned on last week’s vodcast) England’s Net Run Rate was only ever going to go down from where it was following the South Africa result, and it is now already lower than Australia’s.

Bangladesh will be pleased to have pushed England so close in a match they definitely didn’t expect to win, but they will also doubtless be disappointed that they got so close to what would have been a famous demon-killing but couldn’t strike the final death-blow.

So often the smaller teams go into these matches with a survival mentality, but Sharmin Akhter got Bangladesh off to a bright start, striking at a run-a-ball early in the powerplay. However, with the loss of a couple of wickets Bangladesh shut up shop and had crawled to 121-5 after 40 overs.

But a strong death phase added 57 runs, 43 of them from the impressive bat of Rabeya Khan, to get them to a total which proved enough to make it tricky for England.

It was a result which told us far more about where England are than the South Africa match, which was very much a self-inflicted implosion on the part of the South Africans. Against Bangladesh, England wobbled badly, got lucky with some DRS calls, but ultimately came through. They now sit atop the table thanks some marginal umpiring calls against a team who expected to win two games in this tournament at best. Of course, the fates always have a part to play in these things; but if England are going to stay on top, they need to find a more convincing way of winning than drawing magic circles in the sand.

I woke up at 5am this morning full of excitement for a day I’d been looking forward to for months – I refer, of course, to the release of the new Taylor Swift album Life of a Showgirl on which the American singer reflects that “oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me”.

I know how you feel Tay! Like… one time back in 2017, I was one of a handful of people schlepping up to oh-so-not-very-glamorous Leicester to watch a Women’s World Cup match between South Africa and West Indies. And let’s put it this way – it wasn’t one of the fixtures everyone was clamouring to cover!

Nonetheless, it turned out to be one of the most memorable matches of the tournament – South Africa bowling West Indies out for 48 on their way to one of the fastest victories in World Cup history, winning with 262 balls to spare.

Appropriately, I was wearing my official 2017 World Cup press polo today, to watch from the sofa as South Africa were again involved in a low-scoring mugging; but this time the boot was on England’s foot, and South Africa were the victims.

England will have been mightily relieved to win the toss and have the opportunity to insert South Africa – there has been big pressure on the team batting first in the opening matches of this World Cup, and we’ve seen wobbles from both India (124-6 at one stage) and Australia (128-5) already this week, whilst Pakistan were skittled for 129.

With Nat Sciver-Brunt having admitted in the pre-match press conference that she wasn’t going to be able to bowl 10 overs, somewhat contradicting what coach Charlotte Edwards had said the day before, England’s selections were driven partly by the need to find some extra overs from somewhere, meaning Alice Capsey and Emma Lamb getting the nod over Danni Wyatt-Hodge, who to be fair has some decent experience running drinks in India, having spent an entire WPL doing it for UP Warriorz in 2024!

But neither Capsey nor Lamb were required, with either bat or ball, as South Africa imploded in the 30° heat of Guwahati.

After a bit of a loosener of an opening over from Lauren Bell, Linsey Smith picked up the ball at the other end, and within two deliveries she had South Africa in trouble. Natalie Germanos on comms called it “the big wicket”, because… that’s what she always says! But on this occasion she was right, with captain Laura Wolvaardt being the first dismissal – a classic Linsey Smith Caught & Bowled.

In her following over, Smith took another – Tazmin Brits, bowled by a drifting quicker delivery that ended up somewhere between an arm-ball and an inswinger.

By the time the 3rd wicket fell, leaving South Africa in what looked like real trouble at 17-3, Charlie Dean was not so much celebrating in the England huddle as shaking her head in disbelief, whilst I texted a friend that South Africa must have been wishing they had selected Tumi Sekhukhune so they could just send her in to block out the next 45 overs.

The wobble was well and truly happening, as it had for both India and Australia; but unlike those two, South Africa could not pull out of the skid they were in. One by one, they fell, mostly to pretty basic bowling – simply bringing the stumps into play, and letting the ever-increasing pressure do the hard work.

Only Sinalo Jafta (22) made it to double-figures, and she should have been stumped by Amy Jones on 8 – a relatively straightforward chance, of the sort which you’d generally expect Jones to be taking in her sleep.

It was one of two or three mistakes from the England keeper, who for the first time since she took the gloves following the retirement of Sarah Taylor, might be starting to feel some selection pressure, at least in terms of her keeping, with the brilliant form of Rhianna Southby. Southby was always capable of moments of brilliance, but is now backing them up with the more bread-and-butter sustained spells of competence which you need from a keeper in 50 over cricket – hence her “selection” as a non-travelling reserve for this tournament.

In the end, South Africa were bowled out for 73. It was 25 more than West Indies had made in Leicester that day in 2017, but I don’t suppose that even if it occurred to any of them (and several of them were there that day, including Wolvaardt and Marizanne Kapp) it was much consolation. Oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be South Africa, and this time was one of those times.

Having got themselves into the position they did, it was important for England to go out and back up the bowling with a 10-wicket win, as South Africa had done in 2017. There were obviously a few nerves, and Marizanne Kapp threatened to  make it interesting with her usual fire. England didn’t go particularly hard, and in terms of runs scored, the teams were even-stevens at the end of the powerplay – England on 39 where South Africa had been 38; although of course the difference was that South Africa had lost 5 wickets!

In what could turn out to be a critical moment in England’s progress through this tournament, Amy Jones was dropped by Masabata Klaas off her own bowling, just as she was looking to accelerate. Jones is a Confidence Player™ and if she’d gone then, there could have been ramifications well beyond this match; but she went on to finish strongly on 40* hitting back-to-back 4s off Ayabonga Khaka as England reached for the… well, it is hard to call 73 “the stars”, but you can only chase the total you are chasing, and England will be heading now into a run of (theoretically!) easier games against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan with some momentum behind them.

Batting Rankings

Bowling Rankings

by Martin Saxon

As has been so often the case in recent years, there was a new name on the Cheshire Women’s League trophy this year. There has only been one instance of a team retaining the title in the last 13 years, and in this time, as many as eight different clubs have topped the table. 

For the first time, the Championship was won by Wilmslow club Lindow, completing their remarkable rise through the league structure, with their women’s first team having been champions of division 4 as recently as 2019. Heidi Cheadle grabbed many of the headlines throughout the season, scoring a league record 777 runs, including four centuries. Lindow’s varied and exciting young bowling attack also played a significant role though. 

Lindow didn’t have it all their own way, losing two league matches along the way, and you now must go back as far as 2013 to find the last time that a Division 1 team went through a season unbeaten. Chester Boughton Hall finished second and Leigh third. 

In the highly competitive top division, it was always going to be a good team who were relegated, and here Stockport Georgians well and truly pulled off a great escape, winning all of their last three matches when their position had looked more than precarious prior to this. It was Nantwich who eventually ended up with the wooden spoon, and they will be replaced in next year’s top flight by Northop Hall.  

The joint highest wicket takers in Division 1 were Chester Boughton Hall’s Carys Lambe and Oakmere’s Sarah Worsdale, with 18 each. 

Lindow’s successes continued as their second team won Division 3 East, while the only teams in the hardball leagues to finish with an unbeaten record were Runcorn in Division 4 West and Whalley Range in Division 4 East. The feat was also repeated by three of the six winners of the Division 5 softball competitions: Widnes, Sale and Macclesfield. Didsbury were unbeaten champions of the senior T20 competition. 

There were also significant achievements for league clubs in external competitions. Leyland became the first Cheshire League team to win a national competition by landing the Plate prize in the ECB’s National Knockout.  

Five of the league’s Division 1 teams were chosen – alongside three from the Lancashire League – to play in the Thunder Cup, a new competition for the north-west of England, organised by Lancashire CCC. Significantly, the final of this competition was played at Old Trafford, surely the first time that a women’s club match has been played at the Test ground? It was Stockport Georgians who emerged triumphant here, beating Leigh by eight wickets in the final. 

2025 TEAM HONOURS

by Helen Maynard-Casely

A timelapse of the milky way making its way across the sky of the Southern hemisphere.

One thing you will notice is that in the cacophony of stars, those celestial bodies you would normally recognise fade a bit, as the great mass of others become brighter – it is not that anything has dimmed, you just get to see all the stars a bit more. A good metaphor for the coming Australian domestic cricket summer.

The crossover of the seasons is upon us, as Autumn’s grasp and muddy fields take hold, finals have reached their dramatic conclusions in the UK. Down in the Southern half of the globe training camps are reaching their fruition and first game nerves are taking hold. With that, the curtain will rise on the 2025/26 season of the Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) on Wednesday.

Those unfamiliar to Australian domestic women’s cricket may not be so aware of the league, which like the Sheffield Shield weaves around other adventures in the domestic and international cricketing calendar. Though mainly state based, the WNCL includes a seventh team in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Meteors. In deference to the geography of Australia, there are not ‘home and away’ fixtures – but each team does play each other twice within each round, so seven rounds in total will play out with each team given a bye over the course of the season.

Why cacophony of stars metaphor? Well the established Australian internationals will struggle to make it out for their state teams teams (despite the fanfare of Ellyse Perry’s return to the NSW Breakers), with neat overlaps of the WNCL rounds occurring between every major international calendar date in their season. Hence, the chances for others to find their luminance.

Rounds one and two are squeezed in before the pomp and circuses of the domestic 20/20 season, and will be missing the Australian internationals as they warm up and compete in India for the 50 over World Cup. There’s then a long break in proceedings as the Spring challenge and Big Bash roll into town, so that the WNCL doesn’t recommence until 2026. The two January rounds will overlap with the Women’s Premier League in India, where Australian International stars are in high demand, keeping them from State duties. February’s two rounds will then overlap with the Australia v India multi-format tour. The last round (and the final, between the two teams that finish at the top of the table) will be in mid-March, when the Aussie team will have jetted to the Caribbean for the next multi-format international adventure. So without the ‘big’ players – who will rise to prominence?

Who to watch in 25/26? (you’ll note that in the team pages, despite now in the 8th year of full professionalism of the WNCL, not all the women even have a picture on their state page… sigh)

QLD Fire – It is only perhaps a matter of time before Charli Knott becomes a fixture in the international side, but until then we can marvel at her domestic outings. Jess Jonassen will lead a side that has kept together pretty well from last season, stats demonstrate that their success last year derived from an all-round team performance.

NSW Breakers – The success of the breakers last year can be traced to batting powerhouses Tahlia Wilson and Annika Learoyd, who both had terrific seasons and topped the number of runs in the competition respectively in 24/25. They will be back for more – and will be ably assisted by Katie Mack who has moved from the ACT Meteors into the side. The young sensation of WBBL10, Caoimhe Bray has also scored a contract with the side. NSW breakers look formidable and up for keeping their mitts on the trophy.

TAS Tigers – After a run of titles, Tasmania will be hungry to get back to the top, and with the most experienced captain in the competition, Elyse Villani, they no doubt have the leadership to get back there. They have recruited Scotswoman Kathryn Bryce, along with Courtney Sippel who will only add to their team strengths.

SA Women – Amanda-Jade Wellington topped the table of wickets over last season’s WNCL by a margin of 6, she also bowled A LOT – 117 overs (only topped by NSW’s Sam Bates). Bridget Patterson, the quiet achiever (and nonchalant celebrator) of Australia domestic cricket takes the gloves and along with Courtney Webb will lead the batting. SA are always a challenging team to beat, and were the ones to arguably keep Tasmania out of the final last season. They will continue to be a thorn in the side of the others.

VIC Women – With six of their contracted players due to be away from the WNCL on national duties, Victoria will probably struggle to make headway. But Molly Strano is back at her home state, and as ever it will be hard not to see a certain M Lanning make an impact in her 50 over element.

ACT Meteors – Georgia Elwiss returns to play for the Meteors this season, and steps neatly into the senior play position left vacant by Katie Mack. She will be supported in building runs by Olivia Porter and Zoe Cooke, along with newly contracted locals Stella Wilde and Rachel Carroll.

WA Women – WA will be looking to improve their table spot this season, and of the table last year, and bringing Heather Graham over from Tasmania would have seen the most excellent way to start this. But with Grace Harris’ injury Graham has now been drafted into the national side, which will be a blow for WA for rounds one and two at least. The team though has much young talent, an exciting trio in Innes McKeon, Rebbecca McGrath and Maddie White will be fun to see develop over the season.

Round 1 fixtures – ACT Meteors with a bye

That’s the preview. Think of it like lying back on a grassy bank, taking in a deep breath and filling your lungs with the damp grassy scent. Open your eyes, see the stars above you. Enjoy.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country and acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.