Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Alice Capsey really is quite good at this crazy little thing called cricket.

Going into this game, despite their midweek loss to Sparks, Vipers were still top of the combined table in the Charlotte Edwards Cup – on course to qualify directly for the final back at the Ageas Bowl next weekend. By the end of it, Stars had turned that around – now, if they win their last game versus Sparks, it’s them that will go straight through to the final… and it’s all thanks to Alice Capsey.

Capsey hit a cool 61 off 46 balls, took 2-9 from just two overs, and snatched a stonking catch, diving forward at midwicket, to dismiss Emily Windsor just at the point when it looked like Vipers might be able to pull off an improbable comeback win.

The only worry for Stars is that she walked off clutching her quad towards the end of the match, having initially injured it trying to turn sharply whilst bailing out of a second run off the penultimate ball of the innings. (Georgia Elwiss ran her out while she was down out of her ground, and clearly in pain, although it would have made no difference not to, as she wasn’t going to face the final ball – but I guess when someone has just done “that” to you, the spirit of cricket be damned!)

In contrast to her previous outing v Lightning, Capsey didn’t get off to the quickest of starts – after 8 overs, Bryony Smith was 42 off 24 balls, whilst Capsey was on just 5 off 13. Capsey didn’t score a single boundary in the powerplay, focussing instead on turning the strike over to Smith by running between the wickets. It wasn’t until Smith was out that Capsey really started to motor, scoring her next 56 runs off only 33 balls, at a Strike Rate of 170.

It is true that Vipers’ bowling was depleted, with Lauren Bell ruled out after coming into close contact with a COVID case, and Charlie Dean off with England… though ironically also having to isolate along with Maia Bouchier, after also coming into contact with presumably the same case. This meant a professional debut for 27-year-old Sussex veteran Chiara Green*, who did a tidy enough job in the circumstances, but was always unlikely to tear through the Stars batting. Vipers were poor in the field too, gifting several boundaries that will have had coach Charlotte Edwards rolling her eyes, in the way that she does!

Nonetheless, the runs still needed to be scored, and Stars scored them convincingly – every single one of their batters (apart from Kira Chathli, who technically batted but didn’t face a ball) reached double figures at a Strike Rate of over 100 – Capsey led the way, but it was a team performance.

With big runs required, Vipers needed to go for it, hence sending in Tara Norris to pinch-hit at the top of the order, alongside Georgia Adams. Capsey, opening the bowling as she did several times in The Hundred, did for them both in her second over – thanks to catches from Kirstie White and Alice Davidson-Richards – and that set the tone for the rest of the match. Despite overtures of a recovery led by Elwiss, no one could quite stick with her, and the Vipers went down to their second consecutive defeat following the resumption of regionals after The Hundred.

Vipers aren’t out of it, of course, and they could yet end up doing to the Stars what the Invincibles did to the Brave in The Hundred – coming through the eliminator and winning the final. But right now the momentum is very much with the Stars and with Alice Capsey in particular.

Six weeks ago, the sports editor of The Guardian asked the editor of this site to write a preview for The Hundred, based around an interview with a player of Raf’s choice. We debated long and hard – Capsey was an exciting prospect, but would she get a game, Raf asked me? I sat at my desk with the Invincibles squad in front of me, and wrote out a team-sheet. “I think so,” I replied, and though it felt like a bit of a gamble, Raf wrote the piece.

But note the caveat in the headline:

Meet Alice Capsey, the 16-year-old schoolgirl *hoping to* star in the Hundred

The past few weeks have changed Alice Capsey’s life for ever – she is no longer a prospect; she is no longer a “hoping to” – she’s a “did”. She’s one of the 11 best players in England – I know it; you know it; and it won’t be news to her either.

There is an argument that her education still has to come first for the next two years, over and above playing for England, but the equation isn’t the same as it was when Sophie Ecclestone was forced to miss the 2017 World Cup to focus on her A-Levels. Ecclestone at that point was still competing for her England spot with Alex Hartley; and furthermore, the future of the women’s game wasn’t quite so secure career-wise as it is now, five years down the line.

There is absolutely no doubt that Alice Capsey is one of the 11 best players in England.

And the 11 best players in England should be playing for England.

——

* Serious men’s county cricket geeks may remember Chiara’s brother Matt, who was on the books at Sussex and Surrey as a youngster, around 10 years ago.

A half-century and four stumpings for keeper-batter Abbey Freeborn proved in-vain as Lightning lost by 28 runs to South East Stars in the Charlotte Edwards T20 Cup at Guildford.

Kirstie Gordon – continuing the long and venerable tradition of Scottish skippers at Loch Loughborough by standing in for Kathryn Bryce – invited Stars to bat after winning the toss, and might soon have been regretting it as Bryony Smith raced to 16 off 12 balls with some thumping strokeplay. Although one thump too many did for Smith, caught at mid on by Grace Ballinger, Alice Capsey continued where Smith had left off with some big hits of her own, as Stars finished the powerplay on 49-1.

Post-powerplay, Capsey settled into more of a running rhythm which took her to to a 28-ball 38 before she was bowled coming down the track to Lucy Higham in the 12th over.

From 80-4, things could easily have drifted for the Stars, but Alice Davidson Richards (41 off 25) and Tash Farrant (35 off 18) had other ideas – taking them to a 175-6 at the close, including two 6s off the first and last balls of the final over by ADR.

Lightning’s reply got off to a tough start, with Beth Harmer caught by Alice Capsey off Tash Farrant for a duck in the first over. This brought Freeborn to the crease, who battered the Stars attack for 61 off 50 balls, but with no one else in the Lightning top-order able to stand up and give her some proper company, the ask quickly began to disappear over the horizon.

Shachi Pai, coming in at 6, had some fun hitting 24 off 18, as did Sophie Munro (17 off 8) but with the required rate already over 13 when Pai entered the fray, the game was already gone, with Lightning finishing 28 runs short on 147-7.

Maia Bouchier and Charlie Dean have earned their maiden call-ups to the England squad which will face New Zealand in three T20s beginning on 1 September at Chelmsford.

Both were mainstays of their sides in The Hundred – Bouchier hit 33* from 19 balls in Southern Brave’s victory against Northern Superchargers; while off-spinning all-rounder Dean regularly bowled for London Spirit in the powerplay.

However, the call-ups are also a testament to the pair’s consistent performances for Southern Vipers over the past 18 months – both played a key role in the side which won the inaugural Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy in 2020, and Bouchier has recently been seen opening for Vipers in the 20-over Charlotte Edwards Cup.

Fran Wilson has been omitted from the squad after sitting out of the India series earlier in the summer.

The full squad is below:

• Heather Knight (Western Storm)
• Tammy Beaumont (Lightning)
• Maia Bouchier (Southern Vipers)
• Katherine Brunt (Northern Diamonds)
• Freya Davies (South East Stars)
• Charlie Dean (Southern Vipers)
• Sophia Dunkley (South East Stars)
• Sophie Ecclestone (Thunder)
• Tash Farrant (South East Stars)
• Sarah Glenn (Central Sparks)
• Amy Jones (Central Sparks)
• Nat Sciver (Northern Diamonds)
• Anya Shrubsole (Western Storm)
• Mady Villiers (Sunrisers)
• Danni Wyatt (Southern Vipers)

Martin Saxon reports

Development Knockout:

Nantwich 2nd XI 85-3 (20; Ashlee Prince 25 retired)

Hayfield 43 (20; Imogen Collinson 10, Prince 2-1, K Conroy 2-10)

Nantwich 2nd XI were the first winners on Finals Day as they comfortably won the final of the knockout competition for division three and four clubs, in what was a clash of two teams in their first year of competitive cricket – both have much to be proud of this year. After an accurate opening spell from Hayfield’s Lily Dalkin-Strube, Nantwich accelerated well in the second half of the innings, with Ashlee Prince to the fore. Prince also took the final two wickets with the ball to apply the icing on the cake to this win, although all of the Nantwich attack bowled well to take a clutch of early Hayfield wickets – Charlotte Neal finishing with one for six with two maidens from her four overs.

Scorecard

Senior Knockout:

Didsbury Swordettes 87 (19.2; Mishel Jeena 24, Roshini Prince-Navaratnam 20, Abbey Gore 3-16, Georgia Heath 2-8, Olivia Horsfield 2-14)

Appleton Tigers 83-9 (20; Emma Barlow 30*, Hannah Marshall 3-7, Rosy Wilson 3-19)

The most tense finish of the day’s three matches came here, as Didsbury pulled off something of a Great Escape to win this competition for the first time since 2016. Appleton required just seven from 17 deliveries but, in an extraordinary finale, they mustered just two more in the face of some impeccable bowling from Hannah Marshall and Roshini Prince-Navaratnam. Even the return to the crease of Emma Barlow, at the fall of the ninth wicket, wasn’t enough to get the Tigers over the line, even though she had earlier scored at a run per ball in reaching the retirement score of 30. Although there may have been spells to rival it over the years, Marshall’s contribution of three wickets for seven runs in three overs, with a wicket maiden in the 20th over, must go down as one of the very best death bowling performances in the history of the league’s cup finals. 

Few observers could argue that Appleton lost this match through having both a poor beginning and a poor end to their reply – Rosy Wilson’s three early strikes reduced them to 16-3.

Didsbury themselves scored 49 from the first eight overs, with their reliable opening pair of Prince-Navaratnam and Mishel Jeena putting on 33 inside six overs. Abbey Gore, Georgia Heath and Olivia Horsfield all bowled well to peg back the Swordettes, but their final total of 87 proved to be a winning one.

Scorecard

T20 Divisional Competition:

Oakmere Kats 85-6 (20; Natalie Lyons 24*, Nicola Deane 24, Rosy Wilson 2-20)

Didsbury Swordettes 77-7 (20; Rosie Davis 23)

Didsbury, champions of the T20 Eastern Division this year, failed to make it a double as Western Division winners Oakmere won this trophy for the first time. Oakmere slumped to 16-3 early on and, for much of the innings, struggled to accelerate. However, things all changed suddenly when 22 were added in the final two overs, transforming what looked like being a below par total into a target that looked more than defendable, when considering the strength of the Oakmere attack.

Natalie Lyons was instrumental in Oakmere’s late charge with the bat, and she was in the act again with three economical overs at the start of the reply. Rachel Tidd then conceded just eight from four overs in the middle part of the second innings as the required rate climbed. Although 13 came from the penultimate over, with two boundaries for Lucy Smith, it proved too little, too late for Didsbury.

Scorecard

The league thanks hosts Upton CC for taking on the significant task of staging this triple-header Finals Day. Thanks also go to the umpires and scorers and to the spectators from Stockport Trinity CC who provided the music and the PA during the afternoon matches.

—-

Martin Saxon is the Vice Chair and Press Officer of the Cheshire Women’s Cricket League.

“Everyone has a plan,” the boxer Mike Tyson once said… “until they get punched in the mouth by Marizanne Kapp.”

Well… okay… he might not have said the last little bit, but it doesn’t make it any less apt.

Kapp came out to bowl with rain in the air, and Oval Invincibles defending 121. It felt like a good total in the conditions, but not one that Southern Brave would have been massively worried about chasing. But within 6 balls of their reply, the match was basically over – Kapp hanging the ball outside off stump, and a bit of away movement doing the rest.

Danni Wyatt and Sophia Dunkley – who between them had scored almost half of Brave’s runs off the bat (45%, to be precise) – trudged back to the famous pavilion with ducks to their names. Gaby Lewis followed 4 balls later – also for a quacker – but it was already academic: Brave were on the floor, with Kapp having delivered the sucker punch.

It wasn’t meant to be this way. Brave were by far the best side over the group stages – winning 7 games and losing only once. Invincibles, in contrast, won just 4 matches, lost 3, and had 1 washed out. But that’s the deal with finals – what happened in the group stages doesn’t matter any more – you have to put it all behind you, and handle the pressure of the big day; and that’s what Invincibles did.

It feels strange to say, but Brave actually played better overall than the last time they were here at Lords, when they won a terrible game of cricket against London Spirit. They made a good start with the ball, restricting Invincibles to 27 off the first 30 balls. A late partnership between Kapp and Alice Capsey – 34 off 21 balls – swung the pendulum a little way back the other way, but the bell wasn’t tolling yet – not until Kapp stepped up with the opening spell that doomed them.

Allowing bowlers to send down two consecutive “overs” (as the 5-ball “sets” are still officially called, if you read the playing conditions) was hailed as one of the most exciting innovations of The Hundred, because it meant you could keep a bowler on if they were bowling well; but we haven’t seen it that often, especially with quick opening bowlers, whose bodies aren’t used to delivering 10 consecutive balls.

And it certainly didn’t seem like it was the plan today – Shabnim Ismail looked like she was expecting to deliver the second set of 5. But with Kapp having taken the wicket of Wyatt with her 4th ball, and then beaten Dunkley’s edge with the 5th, the dye was cast – Kapp continued, with a second slip ramping up the pressure on Dunkley, who cracked the very next ball.

Despite that, Brave held out until the 98th ball, although their chances of victory were so slim that the TV feed appeared to stop bothering with the “Win Predictor”. A partnership between Fi Morris and Tara Norris adding 33 off 28 balls – a run rate which would have made for an exciting finish under other circumstances – showed that although conditions weren’t great, batting wasn’t impossible… except when facing Kapp, who fittingly came back on right at the end to deliver the crowning moment, bowling Lauren Bell for 4 – the only runs she scored, in her only visit to the crease, in the whole competition.

As her team-mates celebrated, Kapp took a moment to herself – perhaps to say a brief prayer of thanks – before joining them. She’s won stuff before, of course, including the KSL with the Surrey Stars in 2018; but in front of 17,000 people at the Home of Cricket, this was perhaps the biggest win of all. Certainly none came with her name quite so emphatically stamped upon them as it was today.

The Hundred’s “Strategic Timeouts” have been much derided throughout the short history of this tournament. Often, it has seemed as if they add little or nothing to the action, simply serving as a moment when, amongst other things, journalists can grab an extra cup of tea (ahem). Many captains – including Oval Invincibles skipper Dane van Niekerk – have readily admitted to forgetting that the timeout even exists.

But today’s strategic timeout – called by van Niekerk after 45 balls had been bowled – served a crucial purpose for the Invincibles.

At that point, Birmingham Phoenix needed 57 from 55 balls, with 8 wickets in hand and two set batters at the crease: Amy Jones on 29* and Erin Burns on 22. Oval Invincibles looked dead in the water.

Five balls later, Tash Farrant took a screamer of a catch over her left shoulder, diving full stretch running round from mid-off. Burns departed, and so the rot began.

So what exactly did DvN say to her team in the timeout? Tash Farrant relayed the short but rousing speech after the match. “If we get a few wickets we can get on a roll. Go down with a fight. Do not leave anything out on this pitch.”

It proved to be prescient: Phoenix went on to lose 8 wickets in 44 balls, falling 20 runs short of their target.

Admittedly, Phoenix were up against it with a batting line-up that even their coach Ben Sawyer described as “inexperienced”. With Shafali Verma back home in India, Katie Mack was promoted to the opening spot (she lasted 3 balls), while poor Marie Kelly entered the fray for the first time in the tournament with the score on 66 for 4, just after her captain had walked off the pitch with her head in her hands – hardly a gesture that inspired confidence.

“It does make it difficult, it’s not ideal,” Sawyer admitted when asked about the absence of Verma after the match. “If she’d have been here and knocked a few out it might have been a little bit different.”

Meanwhile Georgia Elwiss convinced Sawyer that she was fit to play in the must-win match, but was bumped down the order to number 8 to protect her thumb (which was heavily bandaged). By the time she came to the crease at 84 for 6, it was too late for her to have much of an impact on the game.

Perhaps the main fault, though, lies with Amy Jones. The Phoenix captain looked in delectable form, stroking effortless boundaries, all the way up until that strategic timeout. Soon afterwards, she drove the ball straight into the hands of van Niekerk at extra cover.

Her wicket really was the crucial one, and she knew it, pulling down her helmet over her eyes in disbelief before trudging off the pitch. Perhaps more than anyone else in the English set-up right now, in this “new normal” of big crowds in The Hundred, Jones needs to learn how to bat like nobody is watching, even when 12,000 people are doing just that.

The contrast with the calm, level-headed approach of van Niekerk as she made key decisions about when and how to best use her bowlers in defending an under-par target was marked. That included being willing to hand Alice Capsey a “ten” at an important moment, just after Capsey had taken a fantastic catch off her own bowling above her head to see off Elwiss – rather than potentially introducing Mady Villiers, whose returns this tournament have been poor.

Overall, it hasn’t been an easy year for Dane van Niekerk. She missed South Africa’s series against Pakistan and India with a back injury, and she publicly admitted at the start of this tournament that she is still struggling with fitness issues. It is also never straightforward as an overseas player to be asked to come in and bring together a team filled with players who don’t know you or each other very well, in a very short space of time. DvN, though, has done just that.

Farrant was full of praise for her captain. “She’s brilliant. Her super strength is really is how passionate she is about the game and how passionate she is in every situation. As a captain you know that she really cares about this team – it’s a franchise team, we’re new as a group, but having a captain that really cares about their players, we feed off her.”

As I write this, Oval Invincibles are doing a well-deserved victory lap of their home ground, and being given a standing ovation by over 12,000 spectators. I can’t recall seeing anything quite like that in England since the 2017 World Cup final (just one more tick box on the ever-expanding list of Reasons Why The Hundred Has Been Special For Women’s Cricket).

Talking of finals at Lord’s… there’s another one this weekend, and Oval Invincibles will – against all odds – be playing in it. Take a bow, Dane van Niekerk – you’ve certainly earned it.

The top-ranked bowler in the inaugural edition of The Hundred was Amanda-Jade Wellington, who produced arguably the best performance by a Wellington since The Duke’s famous victory over Napoleon’s XI at Waterloo in 1815. With 13 wickets, Wellington was not quite the leading wicket-taker in the group stages, but her outstanding Economy Rate of well under 6 runs per (traditional, 6-ball) over lifts her above Sammy-Jo Johnson (15 wickets) and Tash Farrant (14). It is remarkable to think that Wellington wasn’t even the Brave’s first choice leg-spinner – they originally selected Amelia Kerr – but on what we’ve seen this summer you’d have to think that if she was English she’d be an automatic pick for the national team, so why she isn’t even in the Australian squad is a mystery even Columbo couldn’t solve.

With none of England’s automatic white-ball bowling picks making the “Top 10”, Tash Farrant and Kirstie Gordon were the leading English bowlers. Anya Shrubsole (11th) and Sophie Ecclestone (19th) did both make the top 20, but neither Katherine Brunt (23rd) nor Sarah Glenn (29th) did. While it is true that you might not want to read too much into a short tournament where a bowler only has 20 balls to make a mark, sometimes you’ve also just got to hand over the microphone and see who can sing, and in that sense Farrant (14 wickets) and Gordon (13) in particular do perhaps continue to make a case for themselves?

The leading English non-internationals were Lauren Bell (9th, with 10 wickets at 6.91) and Alice Capsey (10th, with 8 at 5.24). England have long bided their time on Bell, waiting for her physiological development to catch up with her talent. If she was Australian, she’d have earned her first cap years ago… but also now be on her third potentially career-threatening injury. England’s theory was always that if they waited, they’d have a superb bowler for 10 years, not just 10 months; but it finally looks like it might be time for her to step up to that next level as the wicket-taking “strike” bowler England don’t really have at the moment.

As for Capsey, her fearless performances with bat and ball, in front of these huge crowds, suggest that England have a proper gem on their hands. Although Heather Knight recently tried to pour cold water on the idea of her breaking into the England team any time soon, the calls will only grow – especially if England get smashed about by Australia this winter. My only concern is that England will end up selecting her initially as a bowler, batting her down at 7 or 8, which is not where she needs to be. Her future – and England’s – is for her to be opening the batting; and given that England are not going to change their batting line-up before the Commonwealth Games, I’d rather wait a year than see her introduced in the wrong role.

Bowling Ranking = Wickets / Economy
Economy recalculated as 6-ball overs

In the final year of the Kia Super League, Jemimah Rodrigues placed 2nd in our KSL Batting Rankings – in the first year of The Hundred, she has gone one louder, topping the table with 249 runs at a Strike Rate of 151. During that 2019 KSL season she started slowly, with scores of 4, 20 and 2, before finding a rich vein of form which included two 50s and a 100. In The Hundred, despite her indifferent recent form for India, she was straight out of the blocks with 92 not out against Welsh Fire, going on to score two further 50s.

Unsurprisingly, with the very best Australians and New Zealanders deciding to pass on The Hundred this year, a cluster of England stars occupy many of the top spots, led by Sophia Dunkley. Since being given a regular spot, and perhaps more importantly a clearly defined role, in the England side, Dunkley looks like a woman who has found a high gear she never knew she had. When I told a group of people at a county match four-or-five years ago that I thought Dunkley would be the next permanent England captain, even her mum looked at me like I was slightly mad. At the beginning of this season, people were still saying the idea was a long call. It doesn’t feel like one now.

The highest ranked non-international is Eve Jones at No. 5. Her success isn’t quite the surprise some seem to think it is – she has 3 County Championship 100s under her belt – and yes, that’s a big number in the old County Championship, mostly played on club pitches with huge boundaries. She also placed 4th in last year’s RHF Batting Rankings. But she has certainly continued to develop her game as one of the older “new” pros, finding the boundary 37 times in the tournament’s group stages – topped only by Jemimah, who did so 42 times.

The other leading non-internationals were Georgia Redmayne, whose performances in The Hundred would have been a factor in her recent call-up to the Australian squad for their series against India… although Cricket Australia were conspicuously careful not to say so in their press release!

And then there is Dani Gibson, who has probably more than anyone else changed the course of her entire life in the last 5 weeks. Previously primarily considered a bowler, whose late teenage years were blighted by serious injury, she has set herself on a new career path as a serious batting allrounder, hitting 108 runs at 180 – the highest Strike Rate of anyone in the top 20. Heather Knight – who usually sticks quite rigidly to established hierarchy – bumped her up the order when Spirit needed quick runs in the final match, and you’d have to say she is now a shoe-in for England’s ‘A’ tour to Australia this winter, which she was probably only on the fringes of selection for a month ago.

Batting Ranking = Runs * Strike Rate