More discussion about The Hundred in this week’s episode:
Oval Invincibles took a big step to qualification for The Eliminator™ with an 8-wicket win over London Spirit in front of a raucous crowd of over 10,000 at The Oval.
Crucially, the 13-ball margin of victory also served to widen the gap in Net Run Rate between them and their closest challengers – Trent Rockets and Northern Superchargers.
In fact, the only way Invincibles can now fail to qualify for The Eliminator™ (it is not really trademarked… but it so ought to be!) is if they lose their final match and both Rockets and Superchargers win theirs, leaving all 3 tied on 9 points.
This would mean that both Superchargers and Rockets would have to overturn Invincibles’ current Net Run Rate advantage. This is certainly possible, but it would need the Invincibles to suffer something of the order of a 30-run defeat to the Brave, with Rockets and Superchargers winning their games (against Originals and Phoenix respectively) by similar margins.
Invincibles v Brave could make for a very interesting final on today’s showing. Brave have been enormous with the bat; but Invincibles won today’s match with a fantastic bowling performance.
Marizanne Kapp, who returned to the side today, is obviously not 100% fit – she looks to be coming in at half pace, and the only ball she bowled today where she shaped-up to come in hard was a total bluff as she bowled Chloe Tryon with a slower ball. But, save an early no ball likely caused by holding back in her run-up, she nonetheless bowled the best bag of 20 balls you’ll likely see in this competition, finishing with figures of 2-12.
Alice Capsey’s 2-15 would have been a Player of the Match (sorry… “Match Hero”) performance on any other day. The ball that bowled Deandra Dottin in particular was a beauty – straightening sharply to take out middle-and-off.
(The fact that neither Capsey nor Kapp were Match Hero – it was Georgia Adams – just goes to show that batters get all the glory and there is no justice for bowlers in this world!)
Spirit weren’t quite as bad as they had been against Brave at Lords earlier in the competition, when they were bowled out for 93, only avoiding total humiliation thanks to a Brave barrel-full of extras. But they were still quite bad. After a slow start, with just 12 runs coming off the first 20 balls, Heather Knight and Tammy Beaumont gave them a platform, taking them to 79 off 60 balls – on course for around 130; but the rest of the batting lineup totally let them down. (If Deepti Sharma wants to be considered as a genuine allrounder at this level in the shorter formats, which she obviously does, she has to do better than 11 off 14 balls.)
Spirit’s 103 was at least 25 under par, and left the Invincibles batters with a pretty easy job to do, to be honest. Of course, it was a job that still needed to be done, but Match Hero Adams, with support from Fran Wilson (who took a while to get going, but delivered in the end) and Kapp with the bat, pulled them home as only she can – mostly in the direction of cow corner!
I was a little disappointed to see Kapp come in ahead of Capsey, but she showed us how its done, and while I don’t always agree with the computer at the ICC that calculates their player rankings, there is a reason Kapp is up there with the likes of Nat Sciver and Ellyse Perry as one of the world’s best allrounders.
The Invincibles know they aren’t there yet – though they could be in The Eliminator™ as soon as Sunday evening if the Originals do them a favour by beating the Rockets. But they are looking increasingly like contenders who can help give this tournament the exciting finish it deserves.
Jake Perry catches up with Peter Ross and Daniel Sutton ahead of the final round of matches in the Women’s Super Series this Sunday
The final round of the Cricket Scotland Women’s Super Series begins at Titwood this weekend, with the Ross and Sutton XIs locked at four-all in the ten-T20 competition. Their last visit to Clydesdale’s ground produced the highest-scoring day of the contest so far, and after 179 played 154 in the sides’ most recent meeting at Goldenacre, both head coaches are hoping for a similarly memorable end to what has been an excellent tournament overall.
“I think it’s been great,” said Daniel Sutton. “There have been quite a few girls who have shown exactly why they’re Wildcats, and there have also been a few who have shown that they are on the verge of playing at that level, too, which has been excellent.”
“The overall quality has been fairly high, especially [compared to] previous years, when the batting quality we’ve seen this year hasn’t been there as much,” said Peter Ross. “Teams have chased 150, 160, and we’ve had teams scoring 170, which is testament to the ability of the players and also to the exceptional facilities we’ve been using.”
“Every ground has provided really good quality, high-scoring cricket, and in the women’s game especially, being able to play on such good pitches has allowed us to showcase the skills that the players have worked so hard on developing over these past 24 months.”
“It’s challenged the batters to score quickly, but also the bowlers,” he went on. “In years gone by they had been used to defending 100, 120, whereas now they are being put under pressure to restrict scoring rates, which is a really good thing for them to experience.”
While the batters have often dominated, there have been some exceptional performances from the bowlers, too, with spinners Abbie Hogg and Katherine Fraser leading the way in the averages with twelve wickets apiece.
“Abbie has been excellent for us with her slow left-arm,” said Daniel, “and then the likes of Priyanaz Chatterji, Katie McGill and Lorna Jack have shown why they have so many caps for Scotland, too. They have been consistently good throughout the competition.”
“Abbi Aitken-Drummond has been our best batter so far, which has been a really exciting role for her to fulfil,” said Peter. “She has always had batting potential, but this year she’s really shown that she can do a job at the top of the order as well as in the middle. Megan McColl has been good across the board, scoring runs and always taking wickets, and the same is true of Katherine Fraser, who has been going at six runs an over when everyone else has been going at eight.”
“But it’s also been a good chance for the younger players to be pushed in that environment, too, and it’s shown them exactly where they need to develop to be able to put in the performances they need to at that next level.”
And what of the wider future? The balancing of the teams according to specialism rather than location has led to four evenly matched and hard-fought days of cricket. For both coaches, the way ahead is clear.
“I think this format is the best way going forward,” said Daniel. “There’s probably not enough strength in depth at the moment to facilitate cricket at this level across three regions, so two teams of the best 22 girls playing against each other week in, week out is a good way to do it.”
“Based on the quality of the cricket we’ve had, it would be hard to argue a move away from this,” agreed Peter. “Almost every game has been close, which is a reflection of the teams that have been picked and how balanced they have been.”
“I know that Cricket Scotland want to move towards a three-region approach as they have in the men’s stuff and at some point that will happen, but I think until that point in time you just want to have the highest quality cricket you can – the best cricketers in the country playing against each other on the best facilities we can provide.”
The Cricket Scotland Super Series will be live-scored and streamed via CS Live.
Ross XI: Abbi Aitken-Drummond, Ailsa Lister, Becky Glen, Megan McColl, Emily Cavender, Katherine Fraser, Hannah Rainey, Caitlin Ormiston, Anne Sturgess, Zoe Rennie, Lois Wilkinson.
Sutton XI: Katie McGill, Priyanaz Chatterji, Ellen Watson, Samantha Haggo, Lorna Jack, Abbie Hogg, Charis Scott, Emma Walsingham, Emily McKenzie, Orla Montgomery, Nayma Shaikh, Niamh Muir.
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Jake Perry is the author of The Secret Game
Twitter: @jperry_cricket / Facebook: Jake Perry Cricket
As part of their ongoing coverage of men’s and women’s domestic cricket, The Cricket Scotland Podcast will include a round-up of the Super Series every Tuesday, with analysis and player interviews along with those from other featured games. Follow @ScotlandPod on Twitter for all the latest information.
The Women’s Sport Trust have recently repeated their claim that “revenue generated by women’s sport in the UK is set to grow [from £350m] to £1bn a year by 2030” via “ticket, broadcast rights and sponsorship sales”.
Women’s sport is undoubtedly an investment opportunity, but we also need to be realistic, and it is difficult to see where £1bn a year is actually going to come from.
The (Men’s Football) Premier League – the most valuable domestic sports competition in the world outside the United States – has revenues of about £5bn per year.
Barclays’ title sponsorship of the Premier League brings in just £13m per season, and total match-day income is of the order of £500m; so tickets and sponsorship sales won’t get us far towards that £1bn figure, even if we can match the Premier League.
Almost all of the Premier League’s £5bn comes from TV, and realistically that’s the only place where most of our £1bn is coming from too.
But where exactly?
The BBC is under enormous budget pressure; while BT Sport’s investors are rumoured to be getting antsy – so those avenues look closed, at least in terms of getting us anywhere near £1bn.
A “new player” is possible, but Netflix are only interested in subscriber acquisition; while Amazon Prime seem to be mainly focused on a long game of destroying the competition. You can imagine Amazon Prime buying men’s cricket, for example, to damage Sky, but it is difficult to imagine them forking out a lot of cash for “women’s-only” deals.
This leaves the aforementioned Sky. Could they squeeze an extra tenner a month out of all their Sky Sports subscribers to get us to £1bn by 2030? Maybe, but Sky are a pretty tightly run ship, and I think we can be fairly confident they know where their sweet spot is – if there was £650m to be found there, it’s a pretty safe bet they’d have already found it, so any increase in subscription prices would almost certainly be accompanied by a drop in the number of subscribers, with no increase in revenue.
It would be fascinating to know in more detail exactly how the Women’s Sport Trust arrived at the £1bn figure. It is a number that has obviously generated headlines and plenty of discussion on social media about how we might spend this windfall, but we need to be realistic.
Women’s sport is going places – it is an opportunity for growth and the success of The Hundred has shown that it is business worth investing in.
But the focus right now needs to be on the core product – the quality of the sport. Ultimately, if we get the product right, the revenue will take care of itself; and while it might not be £1bn a year, it will be real and sustainable.
So let’s stop chasing rainbows; and start chasing balls instead.
Ireland opener Gaby Lewis looks set to become the first Irish women to play in The Hundred, as she replaces Smriti Mandhana in the Southern Brave squad for the Brave’s last group match against Oval Invincibles and the final, for which the Brave have already qualified.
Smriti Mandhana will fly home from the UK in order to see her family before India’s tour of Australia; while her Indian teammate Harmanpreet Kaur will also fly home immediately, having sustained an injury to her quad. Manchester Originals have opted not to replace Harmanpreet.
Smriti has been an important, but not critical, part of the Brave’s success in qualifying directly for the final with one round of group matches still to come, having scored 167 runs at an average of 128, making her Brave’s third highest run-scorer after Danni Wyatt (188) and Sophia Dunkley (186).
Her replacement, 20-year-old Gaby Lewis – whose sister, father and grandfather all played for Ireland – is an opening batter with 62 caps, and a highest international score of 71, scored against the Netherlands in 2019.
Sasha Putt reports from the Ageas Bowl
A sunny day at the Ageas Bowl saw a determined Southern Brave side easily overcome the Welsh Fire, in a game which sees the hosts through to the final and Fire out of contention as they failed to chase down 167 off their 100 balls.
Batting first, the Brave started on the front foot, Danni Wyatt and Smriti Mandhana taking advantage of plenty of bad balls and a lucky reprieve off a no ball to score quickly, early. Wyatt reached 50 off 29 and the Brave made 100 off 62.
Wyatt’s departure for 53 did little to stem the flow of runs, as Mandhana brought up her half-century a few balls later. Full tosses, leg-side deliveries and errors in the field meant she and Sophia Dunkley brought up 150 for the Brave off 91.
A couple of late wickets and two wickets in two balls for Hayley Matthews came too late to help the Fire, who saw the Brave put up 166, the highest score the women’s competition has seen so far.
With a mammoth total before them the Fire were under pressure from the get-go, and excellent bowling from Lauren Bell, Anya Shrubsole, Amanda Jade-Wellington and co kept the Cardiff side to almost a run a ball for their first 40.
Bryony Smith, Georgia Redmayne and Sophie Luff all made it into the 30s, but kept managing to find fielders in the deep to restrict themselves to singles.
The run-per-ball requirement kept growing and growing, and soon the Fire found themselves chasing an unassailable total.
The result confirms what was predicted before the tournament – firstly that the Brave were by far tournament favourites, boasting a plethora of international talent in both the bowling and batting department. It also showed the Fire did not have the required star-power to wrest control of the game, especially in the bowling department.
This was most prevalent when the Fire found themselves unable to restrict or dismiss Mandhana or Wyatt, who swept spinners comfortably and punished bowlers who were off their length.
Following the game, Hero of the Match Mandhana found plenty of praise for all of the Brave’s attack: “The bowlers deserve to celebrate a lot – we’ve won a lot of matches because of them.”
Both teams now welcome a London side for their final game, with the Oval Invincibles travelling to Southampton and Cardiff welcoming the London Spirit. The Brave will look to keep their strong form going, whilst the Fire face a potential dead-rubber if the Spirit lose their next game.
Sasha Putt reports
Before the tournament began, the Manchester Originals were one of the favourites to make the playoffs of the inaugural Hundred. They boasted a strong spin attack anchored by Sophie Ecclestone, and a batting line-up full of international talent.
But five matches in, the Originals find themselves seventh in the table with the worst Net Run Rate in the competition at -0.391. (This is, at least, something of an improvement – it was considerably worse than that before their first victory against the Southern Brave.)
But why has the team struggled in recent weeks, and what can be done to enable the Old Trafford side to finish the tournament strongly?
A key weakness has been an inability to capitalise on key moments and take control of the game. This was clearly displayed in the first game of the tournament against the Oval Invincibles, where the Originals had put up a good total of 135 and were taking early wickets. The win-predictor had the Invincibles at 7% after 35 balls: surely Manchester’s game to win. Then came a slew of dropped catches and missed opportunities, allowing Dane van Niekerk and Marizanne Kapp to rally and take the game.
Manchester’s first home game saw a similar collapse. Excellent bowling from Ecclestone, Emma Lamb and Laura Jackson reduced the Birmingham Phoenix to 113 from their 100 balls. The Originals proceeded to record the lowest score of the tournament so far, managing 93 in their innings, with only two batters getting into double figures.
These two games have illustrated the problems Manchester have had so far, both with the bat and ball. In the loss to Birmingham, Harmanpreet Kaur was criticised for her slow scoring, making 49 off 47 balls. However, criticism belongs with the rest of the Originals’ top order. Until their game against the Southern Brave, Kaur had three out of five of the top scores for Manchester, and her 49* is the second highest score in a losing effort. The rest of the top five averaged below 20 at that point. Ecclestone has been the standout bowler, with a run-per-ball (rpb) of 0.91. Of the other Manchester bowlers to have played in all four games, nobody else features in the top 30 for the tournament.
Things were looking dire a few days ago. The Originals’ stars were performing, but their supporting cast failed to provide the backup needed to bring them over the line. Then, against the Brave, came the much-needed injection of fresh talent. Hannah Jones bowled excellently, removing Danni Wyatt, Smriti Mandhana and Anya Shrubsole at a rpb of 0.85. With Kaur out of the side for the game, the pressure was on for their top order to perform. As the rain came down, up stepped Lizelle Lee and Emma Lamb, bringing them to 97/1 after 70 balls, well above the D/L target of 81.
Manchester’s win in that game was the blueprint of how the team was expected to perform, but the big question is if this is sustainable for the rest of the tournament. Aside from Ecclestone, the Originals’ usual crop of bowlers haven’t performed as well as they would have liked, which places a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Jones to continue her form. This could partially be the result of a squad dominated by spinners, which may work at Old Trafford but runs into problems when playing away.
On the batting side, although Lee and Lamb batted well against the Brave, Lamb still averages 10 across four innings, with only two top-six batters averaging above 20. Kaur’s strike-rate of 109.47 is low, but her resilience at the crease should create the platform needed for the more explosive bats to put runs on the board later in the innings – unfortunately it has mostly failed to do so thus far.
There is still a good chance that the Originals can meet expectations in the latter stages of the tournament and give their younger talent some vital experience that they can take into next year’s competition. The final three games will be a good indicator of whether this side is over-hyped or merely suffered a few setbacks and lapses in concentration.
To succeed, the push has to come from the players surrounding Manchester’s top performers, who need to show that they can support an innings when one of their stars is firing. If they do, the Originals can turn a poor season into an average one and finish with four wins.
This week we’re once again focusing on #TheHundred :
Southern Brave sent out a clear signal in Saturday’s match at the Ageas Bowl, beating their nearest rivals Northern Superchargers by a mammoth 7 wickets with 13 balls remaining (D/L method). If all goes according to form, these two sides will be meeting again at the final in two weeks time… and on Saturday’s showing, you’d have to say that there is only going to be one winner of the inaugural Hundred (Women’s Competition).
The celebrations from Sophia Dunkley and Maia Bouchier in the middle as Dunkley hit the winning run, simultaneously bringing up her half-century, signalled that this win meant a great deal. If Brave have been following Syd’s Table Analysis Software (TM), they will know that even with 5 wins from 6, they are not yet quite mathematically guaranteed qualification – but with it now a 99% certainty, you’d forgive them if they spent Saturday evening with a few celebratory beers in the dressing room.
Dunkley’s 50* from just 28 balls, at a strike rate of 179, makes her only the fourth English player (after Danni Wyatt, Alice Capsey and Nat Sciver) to rack up a half-century in the tournament. Dunkley’s calling-card has always been her ability to make runs in domestic cricket – she did it in the Women’s County Championship, she did it in the Kia Super League. She now has an England spot nailed down, but her approach hasn’t changed, as demonstrated when – walking out at 5 for 2 – she slammed her first ball (from Linsey Smith) for six.
“The way I play, I want to be aggressive and put the pressure back on the bowlers – I think that’s one of my strengths and I back myself to do that,” she said after the match. “I’m trying to keep it the same old and bat how I’ve always batted and be positive and stick to my strengths, and don’t go too far away from that.”
Dunkley was made Match Hero, but credit should go to Maia Bouchier too, who made 33 not out from 19 balls and helped make what could have been a tricky chase look easy. The pair spent years batting together in age-group for Middlesex – Dunkley described today’s partnership as “rolling back the years” – and their easy communication helped them run hard in a chase when quick singles mattered.
They were assisted by some shoddy fielding by Superchargers. Dunkley was put down twice on 14* by Alice Davidson-Richards, who shelled two return catches off her own bowling – the second one admittedly a tough chance above her head. Another culprit was 19-year-old Bess Heath, who clearly isn’t enjoying being pushed out of her natural wicket-keeping role. Given that Lauren Winfield-Hill isn’t even England’s “back-up” keeper anymore, it seems bizarre that she has taken the gloves in this tournament. Why not let Heath do what she does best, instead of trying to “hide” her in the field?
Another strange captaincy decision came when, at another crucial moment in Brave’s run chase, Winfield-Hill handed the ball to left-arm seamer and debutant Rachel Slater, asking her to bowl balls 41 to 45. The ground announcer failed to recognise her, introducing the bowling change as “Katie Levick”; five balls later, Slater might well have been thankful for the pseudonym – tonked for 15 runs by Dunkley. Before her “five”, Brave needed 46 from 35 balls; afterwards, the equation was 31 from 30 – a walk in the park for a pair of established batters.
Slater was always going to be nervous, playing her first tournament match in front of 7,500 spectators – so why choose that point to introduce her? Interestingly, Dunkley admitted afterwards that she had deliberately targeted Slater. “I’ve never faced her before, I looked at footage yesterday and this morning,” she said. “Being a first game debut, it was the end to target. The bowlers they’ve got are quite experienced so we tried to be tactical about that.”
The Southern Brave “party line” is a consistent one in post-match pressers right now, and Dunkley repeated it again on Saturday: “I don’t think we’ve had a proper complete performance yet throughout the competition.” This message is clearly coming from coach Charlotte Edwards, who is nothing if not a perfectionist. And yet, if this is really is Brave putting in “incomplete performances”, you have to pity the team who come up against them when they do manage that illusive “complete” one.
Jake Perry looks ahead to the start of the Beyond Boundaries Women’s Scottish Cup, where holders Carlton face a tough home tie against the side that finished just behind them in the Women’s Premier League, Stewart’s Melville.
The Beyond Boundaries Scottish Cup gets underway this weekend, with four quarter-final ties to decide the teams going forward to Finals Day on 5 September. The tie of the round is at Grange Loan, where newly-crowned Women’s Premier League champions Carlton meet runners-up Stewart’s Melville, the only side to have beaten them in their victorious campaign earlier this summer.
A month has now passed since the league was decided, but while a number of players from both teams have been involved in the ongoing Women’s Super Series, there has been plenty of other action to keep their competitive edge keen.
“We’ve had a few matches,” said Carlton skipper Annette Aitken-Drummond. “We’ve played a few ESCA T16 games and a lot of the players have been playing in the Super Series as well, so there have been quite a few games to keep things ticking along. But we’re really looking forward to getting stuck into our first cup match at the weekend.”
While Carlton’s title win was comfortable in the end, that one blemish on their record adds extra spice to the upcoming encounter. Stew-Mel’s defence of their total of 176 for 8, a score powered by a 91-run opening stand between Catherine Holland and Emma Walsingham, withstood the pressure of a brilliant late comeback from Samantha Haggo and Charis Scott, and while the challenge of Holland’s team fell away as the season progressed, Annette is expecting a similarly testing encounter.
“It’s a very tough game for us to have first up,” she said, “but we feel we’ve got the players who can go out and do the job for us. They have obviously got some good players too, but we’re going to give it everything and hopefully get to that Finals Day.”
And while the year began with the league as the main target for the current cup-holders, thoughts have inevitably turned towards what would be an historic double.
“If we could go out there and become the first women’s team to do the league and cup double, that would obviously be a great achievement,” said Annette. “It’s something that we have chatted about and it’s something that we have our sights set on, so fingers crossed it starts to come together at the weekend.”
Another intriguing tie is at Nunholm, where Dumfries & Galloway take on West of Scotland, who finished the WPL season with a near-identical record. West’s final position was skewed by the COVID-cancellation of their first two rounds of matches, however, and Charlotte Dalton-Howells’s side will be keen to make the most of their opportunity to salvage something special from what has been a particularly frustrating year.
Royal High Corstorphine visit Craiglockhart to take on George Watson’s College in a repeat of the opening match of the league season. That ended in a comfortable win for Megan Taylor’s team, who went on to have an up-and-down sort of campaign, mixing fine wins with narrow losses. While injury has robbed them of Ikra Farooq, they are still capable of beating anyone on their day, and despite the abundance of young talent who have made their mark for GWC, the Barnton team are likely to have too much firepower for them again.
The final tie of the round is at Myreside, where Watsonians meet Grange, the side with whom they combined in the WPL this year. A third-placed finish was the result after three excellent wins saw them draw level on points, if not run-rate, with Stew-Mel in the final standings. It will be particularly fascinating to see how this game pans out – for two of Edinburgh’s oldest clubs, a first-ever trip to Finals Day is now guaranteed.
Beyond Boundaries Scottish Cup Quarter-finals – 8 August (Reserve Day 15 August):
Watsonians v Grange (at Myreside)
Dumfries & Galloway v West of Scotland (at Nunholm)
Carlton v Stewart’s Melville (at Grange Loan)
George Watson’s College v Royal High Corstorphine (at Craiglockhart)
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Jake Perry is the author of The Secret Game
Twitter: @jperry_cricket / Facebook: Jake Perry Cricket
As part of their ongoing coverage of men’s and women’s domestic cricket, The Cricket Scotland Podcast will include a round-up of the Super Series every Tuesday, with analysis and player interviews along with those from other featured games. Follow @ScotlandPod on Twitter for all the latest information.
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