Jake Perry looks ahead to Round Four of the Women’s Super Series.

The Cricket Scotland Women’s Super Series reaches Goldenacre this week, where the fourth round of matches will be played on Sunday. Two wins for the Sutton XI saw them square the series at Forthill, and with a break to accommodate the Beyond Boundaries Scottish Cup quarter-finals coming up next weekend, both they and the Ross XI will be looking for maximum points to take into the final round of the competition in a fortnight. 

The two games played at Forfarshire offered some of the most intriguing cricket of the contest so far. In game one, the Ross XI batters had looked odds-on to reach 200, Ailsa Lister, Becky Glen and Megan McColl all scoring rapidly around Abbi Aitken-Drummond’s 45, but the Suttons did well to claw them back, Abbie Hogg taking 4 for 26 and Priyanaz Chatterji 2 for 24 as their opponents slipped from a ten-an-over score of 97 for 2 to a final total of 136 all out. 

It was still a decent target, made all the more so after two great catches and a fourth-ball wicket from Hannah Rainey reduced the Suttons to 17 for 3, but a partnership of 66 between skipper Katie McGill and the in-form Chatterji was crucial in getting the chasers back on track again. The match-winning hand, though, was played by Samantha Haggo, whose brilliant 28, well supported by Orla Montgomery, saw their side over the line with eight balls to spare. A two-wicket win, but much more than that was the manner in which it was achieved, the cool head of Haggo guiding her younger partner through those closing stages – getting the result is one thing, but the value of this competition in the development of Scotland’s up-and-coming talent has been massive already. 

Similar qualities were also on show in the second game, as Anne Sturgess, Niamh Robertson-Jack and Zoe Rennie refused to throw in the towel despite their team sliding to 40 for 7 in their chase of the Suttons’ modest total of 121. Another fine knock from Katherine Fraser ensured respectability for the Ross XI, too, the off-spinner having earlier taken 3 for 11 as the Sutton XI lost their last five wickets for just five runs. But it was still their day in the end, with Abbie Hogg, Katie McGill, Nayma Shaikh and Charis Scott taking two wickets apiece as the Suttons squared the series at three games all. 

And so to Edinburgh, where, as at Titwood, a new pitch awaits the two teams. The unused surface at Clydesdale produced 637 runs two weeks ago; on a ground both sides know well, it will be fascinating to see what this latest one can produce on Sunday. 

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, Katherine Mills, Emily Cavender, Katherine Fraser, Hannah Rainey, Caitlin Ormiston, Niamh Robertson-Jack, Anne Sturgess, Zoe Rennie. 

Sutton XI: Katie McGill, Priyanaz Chatterji, Ellen Watson, Samantha Haggo, Lorna Jack, Abbie Hogg, Charis Scott, Emma Walsingham, Emily Tucker, Orla Montgomery, Nayma Shaikh, Niamh Muir.

——

Jake Perry is the author of The Secret Game

Twitter: @jperry_cricket / Facebook: Jake Perry Cricket

As part of our 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.

Southern Brave shot down Birmingham Phoenix in full flight at the Ageas Bowl in The Hundred, chasing 141 in just 82 balls, at a Run Rate of 1.71. That’s more than 10 an over in “old money” – by far the best Run Rate posted in the women’s competition to date.

The result puts the Southern Brave top of the table – an increasingly familiar feeling around these parts, with the Southern Vipers currently top of both the 50-over Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and the T20 Charlotte Edwards Cup.

There’s still a long way to go in The Hundred of course, and topping the league counts for nothing if you don’t go on to win the final, but the Brave have really set down a marker with this performance, after the Phoenix posted 140, which looked like a pretty good score, with Amy Jones in particular looking in lovely touch – hitting 42 off 26 balls.

When Amy Jones took a brilliant catch to dismiss Sophia Dunkley for 36, racing from behind the stumps to take the ball on the dive at short fine leg, it felt like a pivotal moment – Wyatt had made a start on 17 but she was running a lot of singles, and it was Dunkley that was really driving the chase for the Brave, having just hit two consecutive 4s off Em Arlott.

Except… it wasn’t quite to be! The delivery from which Dunkley had been caught was deemed a marginal no ball on height, and she was reprieved. The pivot itself had pivoted, and although the gods made sure to set the record straight – having Dunkley run-out off a deflection from Abtaha Maqsood at the non-striker’s end a few balls later – the Brave looked good for the win from that moment.

Perhaps having taken confidence from Dunkley that there were some serious runs in this pitch, Wyatt began to relax, just as she did for England at Chelmsford a couple of weeks ago. The straight boundaries at the Ageas were short, but square they were huge, which seems to be the policy for this competition. Nonetheless, Wyatt began to find them with ease – hitting five 4s and four 6s, including a huge maximum to finish the game. Crucially, Wyatt also continued to “run” runs – finishing with 25 “run” runs – 36% of her final score. The Hundred may be all about the big hits, but the singles can be just as important and without those 25 runs the Brave would have had a much harder time overhauling their target.

There are still those who have their doubts about Danni Wyatt – having grown up in the pre-professional era, her technique is not what you’d call classical, and she’s very dependent on the inside-out drive over cover, which feels like such a high-risk shot. She hasn’t got the 360 degree arc of Tammy Beaumont… or the power of Nat Sciver… or the precision of team-mate Smriti Mandhana.

But at the end of the day, there comes a point where you can’t argue with the numbers any more – not just in domestic cricket, but against the very best sides in the world, Danni Wyatt continues to prove again and again that on her day, anything you can do, she can do better.

Two years ago, I wrote a piece entitled One Ball from Lauren Bell. The thesis of that piece, which if anything has been reinforced over the past couple of years, is that although there are a lot of fast bowlers around, Bell is the most exciting because she has the ability to ball that “One Ball” which absolutely no one else can. Combining the pace of Lea Tahuhu, the inch-perfect line of Megan Schutt, and the swing of Anya Shrubsole, it is totally unplayable, as Rachel Priest discovered on that day in 2019.

Two years later, as they say in the movies, Trent Rockets are chasing 133 to beat Southern Brave. They are 75-2 – needing 59 from 37 balls. It sounds like a bit of an ask in traditional women’s domestic T20, but in this shorter format, with Nat Sciver at the crease, the game is starting to feel like the Rockets to lose. The Brave need a wicket, which is why captain Anya Shrubsole has brought back not herself, but Lauren Bell, into the attack – looking for a strike from the strike bowler.

Sciver, meanwhile, is looking to go on the attack, coming down the pitch and using the pace off the ball to hit out. After getting a single off the first ball of the over, and two off the third, Sciver targets the fourth. Looking to thump it over mid on, she opens up her front leg and swings through the ball…

Or rather, she swings through where the ball would have been if it had been a “normal” 70mph delivery from Bell. But this is another ball entirely – rolled off the fingers, it dies off the pitch, leaving Sciver swinging at thin air as the zing bails explode over her stumps.

It was such a different ball to that one from 2019, but it had exactly the same result – one of the best batters in the world was left looking like a chump.

The slower ball is becoming something of an art-form among fast bowlers – it isn’t just about bowling it slower, but keeping everything else about the action the same, so it comes out of nowhere. As the Monty Python boys might have said: Nobody expects the slower ball!

Bell does this by rolling the ball off her fingers – a bit like an orthodox spin delivery – but there’s another way too: out of the back of the hand, like a leg-spinner. You may have seen Katherine Brunt do this, but the master of this art is Freya Davies, as Shafali Verma discovered this weekend. Davies delivers a googly out of the back of the hand, which as well as dying on the batter can also turn into the right-hander off the pitch.

The ball from Davies floats through the air like it has hitched a ride on a hot air balloon, but it is a sucker punch for Shafali, who like Nat Sciver is left swinging in the breeze as her stumps fall apart behind her.

You’ll hear a lot during The Hundred about who the fastest bowlers are – the ones who are pushing 80mph, and targeting numbers beyond that even.

But perhaps… just perhaps… speed isn’t everything.

Almost exactly four years ago, Alice Capsey was at Lord’s Cricket Ground to watch England beat India in the 2017 World Cup final.

Then aged 12, she had been playing age-group cricket for Surrey for less than 4 years. She could have had little idea that just a few short years later, she would be walking out to open the batting on the very same ground, in a moment that will go down in cricketing history – the first ever competitive women’s domestic match to be played at the Home of Cricket.

Even a week ago, when I interviewed her for The Guardian, she was caveating her answers with the suggestion that she might not even make it into the Oval Invincibles’ starting XI. Having watched her shine for Surrey and South East Stars in 2020 and 2021, I felt pretty sure that she would be. Fortunately, Invincibles coach Jonathan Batty agreed with me.

On Sunday, in front of 13,537 fans at Lord’s, Capsey outshone a host of established international stars – including England captain Heather Knight – in a sparkling, confident innings of 59 from 41 balls that announced her presence to a load of journalists, not to mention the aforementioned fans, who previously didn’t even know her name.

That’s the kind of stage that The Hundred has given her.

“It’s really special, especially to do it at the Home of Cricket,” she said, still dazed as she spoke in the post-match press conference. “At the moment I’m just trying to take it all in. To get a performance like that is mind-blowing.”

“There were a few nerves, but I just wanted to express myself, stay true to how I play, and do a job for the team.”

On the question of her newly-found fame, she displayed the level-headedness that you feel will take her far: “I wasn’t really expecting it! But I’ll take it all in and continue to keep focusing on myself and pushing my game forward.”

Perhaps the most important thing about Capsey’s innings was that it followed on from her premature dismissal in the first match of the tournament, in front of another rollicking crowd at The Oval on Wednesday evening. On that occasion, after slamming her first ball to the boundary, she fell second ball attempting a ramp shot – sending it straight into the hands of the keeper.

Another player might have been cowed – might have gone into her shell second time around. Not Capsey. “I want to keep expressing myself, playing my shots, and get us off to a good start,” she said. “At The Oval it didn’t come off, but on another day it might have come off. And it [the ramp] is one of my strengths, so I’ll keep playing how I’m playing, and try not to get too fazed.”

Capsey is already confident enough to have openly expressed her desire to “open or bat in the top order for England in all formats”. Nothing is certain in cricket (just ask Sophie Luff), but it doesn’t seem a stretch to suggest that this won’t be the last time we see Capsey play an innings like this one.

And if that England cap does come, those 13,537 fans, not to mention the handful of journalists sat up in the Lord’s Media Centre, will be able to look back and say that they were there on the day that a future star was born.

The first “London Derby” of The Hundred ended with a big win for the Oval Invincibles versus the London Spirit at Lords.

The scorecard will tell you the Invincibles won by 15 runs; but this flatters the Spirit, after Dani Gibson and Charlie Dean had some fun slogging 27 off the last 10 balls, with the game essentially already lost.

There were two factors in the Invincibles’ win. The first, of course, was “Match Hero” Alice Capsey, who hit 59 off 41 balls in an 80-run partnership with Dane van Niekerk. Having won the opening game for her side with a half-century of her own, DvN was happy to play second-fiddle this time around, not even scoring at a run-a-ball, but giving Capsey the support she needed to play the key innings for the Invincibles.

The ramp may be the shot from Capsey that catches the eye… and occasionally the wicket-keeper’s eye, as it did on Thursday when she ramped straight into Ellie Threkeld’s gloves behind the stumps… but she actually scored the bulk of her runs straight today, in the arc between midwicket and mid off, picking the “holes” in the field to go safely over the top of the ring. It’s exciting cricket to watch, though it is certainly not risk-free, and she was eventually caught with 12 balls still on the clock.

So it really helped that Mady Villiers (again) and Jo Gardner both chipped in at the end for the Invincibles too – they might have only hit 8 and 9 respectively, but crucially it was off 3 and 4 balls – Strike Rates of over 200 – exactly what’s needed at the death in this quickfire format.

Nonetheless, it felt like the Invincibles were perhaps slightly short on 132-7, and they were going to have to bowl well to get the win. Which brings us around to the second factor, which was some quality work with the ball. Shabnim Ismail and Tash Farrant both opened the bowling with 10 balls straight apiece, and they nullified the Spirit’s opening batters in the powerplay. Naomi Dattani, who can be such a destructive player when she finds the middle of the bat, just couldn’t make it happen today, and finished with 8 off 14 balls. Even Deandra Dottin couldn’t make the impact she’d have wanted, also hitting at under 100… albeit only just with 14 off 15. And it was downhill from there really for the Spirit.

Heather Knight is usually the player to rely on in a chase, and she did her job today with 40 off 29, but she didn’t get the support she needed, as the Invincibles bowlers kept turning up the pressure. Chloe Tryon, having bowled very well earlier in the day, couldn’t get bat on ball today – when she was eventually dismissed for 9 off 16, it felt like a mercy-killing. Even more so than in T20, you can’t afford to take your time in this format – you really need to be going at a Strike Rate of 100 from the off and accelerating from there – there is little leeway to go at a Strike Rate of 50-something and hope you can make it up later if you stay in because even if you do accelerate later, you’ve already lost too many balls.

So it is the Invincibles that make the early running in the tournament, with 2 wins from 2. It is very early days of course, but it is also a very short tournament – games are coming at a million miles an hour, and momentum will be key. Right now, the momentum is with the Invincibles.

This week, we discuss:

• England A v Australia A during the Women’s Ashes: how will it work?
• The Hundred (Women’s Competition): off to a flyer?
• Jemimah Rodrigues – the innings of the competition so far
• Is this a breakthrough moment for women’s cricket?

Jake Perry looks ahead to Round Three of the Cricket Scotland Women’s Super Series

Forfarshire is the place to be this Sunday, as the Ross XI takes a 3-1 lead into Round Three of the Cricket Scotland Women’s Super Series at Forthill. After last weekend’s run-fest at Clydesdale, both they and the Sutton XI will be looking for more of the same in what has already been a hugely successful initiative. 

Every one of the 637 runs that were scored at Titwood provided a ringing endorsement of the aims and objectives that lie behind this new competition. Choosing the squads according to the balance of their players as opposed to their geographical location has seen three out of the four matches go to the wire – except for the very first game of the series, none has been a walkover, and while the Ross XI left Glasgow with two victories, their opponents know that that scoreline could very easily have been reversed. 

That was thanks in no small part to some of the younger batters on display. Fifteen-year-old Emma Walsingham, fresh from her unbeaten 123-ball 160 in the Under-18 Regional Series, impressed again with 42 not out in game one, while the confident hitting of Niamhs Muir and Robertson-Jack ensured the Suttons went down fighting as the second match drew to its conclusion. 

But it was the contribution of the more experienced players which was most striking – in all senses of the word – of all. Priyanaz Chatterji was outstanding, her 27-ball 56, featuring eleven fours and one six, so nearly seeing her Sutton side to victory in game two, while Charis Scott and Ellen Watson also scored their runs briskly at the top of the order. Watson’s opening partner Lorna Jack picked up from where she left off in Arbroath to move into second place in the batting averages with 117 runs at 29.25: her return to form is good news both for the series and for Scotland. 

Topping those averages is Abbi Aitken-Drummond, whose scores of 44 and 49 powered the Ross XI’s chase of 154 in game one then charge to 170 straight after. Becky Glen, Megan McColl and Katherine Fraser played important hands, too, and while Ailsa Lister was out for a duck in the morning, her never-say-die instinct to attack saw her set the tone in game two by scoring eleven of the twelve that came off the first over of the match. 

And it is that which has characterised these early stages of the competition most of all. The positivity and flair with which both sides have batted, facilitated last weekend by the excellent Clydesdale surface, is a hugely encouraging sign for the future. With a question mark hanging over international cricket for all but the very biggest nations in the short term, here is a mechanism which is allowing Scotland’s players the opportunity to both test and truly express themselves. Sunday promises to be another fascinating instalment.

The Cricket Scotland Super Series will be live-scored and streamed via CS Live. 

Team news: Katie McGill returns for the Sutton XI, replacing Niamh Robertson-Jack, who moves to the Ross XI in place of the unavailable Molly Paton. 

Ross XI: Abbi Aitken-Drummond, Ailsa Lister, Becky Glen, Megan McColl, Katherine Mills, Lois Wilkinson, Katherine Fraser, Hannah Rainey, Catherine Holland, Niamh Robertson-Jack, Anne Sturgess, Zoe Rennie. 

Sutton XI: Katie McGill, Priyanaz Chatterji, Ellen Watson, Samantha Haggo, Lorna Jack, Abbie Hogg, Charis Scott, Emma Walsingham, Emily Tucker, Orla Montgomery, Nayma Shaikh, Niamh Muir.

——

Jake Perry is the author of The Secret Game

Twitter: @jperry_cricket / Facebook: Jake Perry Cricket

The Cricket Scotland Podcast will include a round-up of the men’s and women’s league action from across the As part of our 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.

So, it’s finally upon us – and after all our concerns about accreditation, we were indeed in the press box on Wednesday night for the first ever match of The Hundred.

What did we make of it all? Here’s some initial thoughts…

The crowd

Kate Cross’s post-match with the BBC said it all. “It’s the loudest, biggest crowd that I’ve ever played in front of on home soil – including international cricket”, she told Isa Guha.

It’s important to be historically accurate. Despite a boast by the ground announcer (which was repeated by Sky), 7,395 is NOT a record crowd at a domestic women’s match, in England or otherwise.

In the modern era, 12,901 fans were in attendance at the MCG for a WBBL match on 2 January 2016.

On the other hand, given that we were excited about 1,000 people showing up to the first KSL game, a crowd of almost 7,500 should go down as a BIG win for The Hundred. And it felt pretty amazing to be a part of it.

It’s cricket

When it came down to it, no one really paid any attention to Becky Hill’s “set” between the innings – they were too busy grabbing another ice-cream before play restarted. That tells you something important: they wanted to watch the cricket.

Ultimately, this was a cricket match between two teams of world-class players. If it wasn’t quite our sport at its finest from start to end – there were a few dropped catches that the Originals will want to swiftly forget about – it WAS a thriller, as Dane van Niekerk dragged her side over the line despite the WinViz predictor being very firmly not in her favour for almost the entirety of the run chase.

Say it quietly, but is it possible that the ECB have worried too much about gimmicks, influencers and musical acts… at the expense of offering decent money to the women’s players, who will be the ones who make or break the success of this competition?

The TV coverage

After all the talk about gender parity, it struck a bum note to have two people (Tuffers and Vaughan) doing the vast majority of the BBC TV commentary who clearly had no idea who any of the non-England players were. We’ve got nothing against male commentators reporting on women’s cricket – but when they wouldn’t be able to pick out the players in an ID parade, that’s when you’ve got problems.

The BBC’s misspelling of player names also didn’t help matters. The small things really do matter when you want a tournament to make a statement about gender parity in sport.

The gimmicks

Thumbs Up:

*The at-ground graphics, whereby players introduce themselves over the loudspeaker as they walk out to bat. Useful, and fun.

Thumbs Down:

*Having to look at opposite ends of the TV screen to see runs, wickets and the number of balls left. Seemed to us to make it MORE complicated to understand, not less.

*The umpire white cards, held up at the end of each “five” balls. Budget didn’t seem to stretch to providing proper laminated cards, and it looked a bit odd to have the umpires waving bits of notebook paper in the air.

*The Mady Villiers avatar. Rob Key did his best, but…

The jury’s out

The crowd was amazing, but the “newness factor” needs to be accounted for. The big question is, once the shiny novelty has worn off, will people still care about Oval Invincibles and the rest?

There’s still a way to go to prove that The Hundred is an advance on where we’d now be with the KSL, had it been allowed to continue growing.

There was also little sign of the “united team brands and identities” with the men which we’d been promised. None of the male players showed up at the ground to watch the game – OK, maybe Covid was a factor (?) but could they not at least have tweeted to show their support? (I’ve just checked and I can only find one player from either of the men’s teams who did so – kudos to Sam Billings.)

Overall positivity rating:

7/10. Solid start but still a long way to go.