An aggressive 65-ball 63 from Susie Rowe made the difference, as Kent beat Essex in the opening round of the 2021 London Championship by 46 runs.

Rowe, who staged a comeback in competitive cricket last summer representing South East Stars in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, was by far the top-scorer from both sides on a pitch that was so green it looked like it wouldn’t know what a mower was if it ran it over.

“It didn’t come on that well,” Rowe said after the match. “There wasn’t much pace in it. You had to really wait for it and watch it. It meant you had to be quite aggressive and quite bold to get runs.”

“It was a tricky one but we got a score that we were able to defend. Essex got off to a good start but we were able to pull it back and come away with a decent victory.”

Essex had finished the 2020 mini-season winless, but came back fighting to turn their match against reigning 50-over County Champions Kent into a real contest – bowling the Horses out for 203.

Essex’s line-up were buoyed by the addition of Sunrisers’ Jo Gardner and Lissy Macleod, more usually found sporting Warwickshire and Berkshire shirts respectively.

However, both were keen to get some 50-over cricket under their belts before the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy begins later this month, and both made crucial interventions for Essex.

With the ball, Jo Gardner (3-37) took out the middle stump of Kent openers Megan Sturge and Sarah Bryce in successive overs, after Kent had reached 65 without loss.

Macleod, after bagging a couple of wickets with her off-spin, then led the charge at the top of the batting order, as Essex raced to 58-0 in their first 15 overs.

But 17-year-old Kalea Moore made the crucial breakthrough, trapping Macleod LBW for 28, while two run outs in quick succession dented Essex’s progress to the target still further.

It was the second spell from England left-armer Kirstie Gordon which really tore the heart out of their chase, though. Gordon – playing in just her third match for Kent after being handed her county cap in the T20 Cup last weekend – struck immediately to see off both Hayley Brown and Katherine Speed LBW, finishing with 4-23 as Essex were bowled out for 157 in 40 overs.

“It was a very green pitch, so we always knew that if we got a wicket there was a chance to get into them and take a cluster of wickets, and that’s exactly what Kirstie did,” said Rowe. “It was needed because at that stage the game could have gone either way.”

This year’s South East Stars squad is yet to be announced, but after today’s performance it would seem to be a no-brainer that Rowe’s name should be firmly on the team sheet when Stars play their opening fixture of the trophy against Sunrisers on 29 May.

11.00 – We’ve arrived at Chigwell for the opening encounter of the 2021 London Championship – Essex v Kent. Essex are sporting their new kit (Top Secret ™️) and a few new faces including Sunrisers Lissy Macleod and Jo Gardner. A good way for them to get some 50-over practice in ahead of this year’s RHF! Trevor Griffin is obviously setting some store by this game as he has braved the cold to be here and watch in person.

11.20 – HYGIENE BREAK! Essex won the toss and chose to bat. Kent are opening with Sarah Bryce, who looks in beautiful touch, and Megan Sturge. They’ve put on 24-0 in the opening 6 overs (Bryce 17*). The weather can’t quite make up its mind so we are alternately freezing and too hot!

11.51 – WICKET! Essex make their first breakthrough. New pro Jo Gardner, in her second over of the day, clean bowls Megan Sturge with a straight one. Kent 57-1 after 15 overs.

12.01 – WICKET! That’s the big one. Sarah Bryce departs for 33 and Jo Gardner picks up her second. The ball hit top of middle stump – perfect! Kent 61-2 and ex-England batter Susie Rowe walks to the crease. PS It’s cold.

12.05 – There is a live stream of the Vipers warm-up match on the Isle of Wight available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1WvEPKnOQ

Personally we don’t think they should be able to use the term “warm-up” when it’s 3 degrees outside.

12.35 – At the halfway stage, Kent have just brought up 3 figures – 102-2 after 25 overs. Susie Rowe is adding some much-needed impetus – she’s on 26 off 25 balls and has already played the shot of the day, a beautiful cut behind square for four. Kent look to be on top at the moment.

12.47 – WICKET! Maxine Blythin feather edges Kelly Castle behind the stumps. Kent 117-3 in the 29th.

13.01 – WICKET! Scarlett Hughes stumps Kalea Moore and Kent lose their fourth. 131-4 in the 32nd.

13.10 – FIFTY FOR SUSIE ROWE! Rowe brings up her half-century in the 35th over with a boundary – she’s got there off just 51 balls, at a crucial time for Kent. Kirstie Gordon is at the other end now, and crunches a boundary to wrap up the over. Kent 150-4 after 35.

13.25 – WICKET! Rowe skies one to Beth Harmer at point. Harmer has been on fire in the field today – this time, the ball hangs in the air ominously but she takes it successfully. Important to get rid of Rowe, who looked pretty set on 63. Kent now 165-5 with 11 overs remaining of the innings.

13.30 – WICKET! Kent 167-6. Gordon falls cutting lavishly and is caught at backward point. Lissy Macleod has her second victim of the day. Kent falling apart a bit here!

13.35 – WICKET! Megan Belt drives straight to the extra cover fielder and Kent are 168-6.

13.53 – Kent are pushing on here – 194-7 after 46 overs. Essex are getting a bit sloppy in the field – Macleod has just had two relatively straightforward catches put down off her bowling. It looks like Kent will get to 200, which is always an important signifier in this format and (we THINK!) will mean they get maximum batting bonus points.

13.55 – WICKET! Jelfs goes, belting it to deep midwicket. She did well with a handy run-a-ball 19 there. Kent 194-8.

14.00 – WICKET! Kent’s 9th wicket falls with the score on 197. Esmae MacGregor takes out the middle stump!

14.03 – WICKET! Underdogs Essex have bowled Kent out for 203 in the 48th over. That’s a bit of a turn up! MacGregor finishes with 3-for.

15.05 – Play has resumed here at Chigwell! Essex going along nicely – 23-0 after 7 overs, with Macleod and Harmer opening up. We’ve just recorded our weekly vodcast and it will be going up on the site tomorrow, so be sure to keep an eye out for it!

15.10 – THE SUN IS SHINING. THIS IS NOT A DRILL ☀️

15.40 – WICKET(S)! After a good start, Essex have now lost 2 wickets in the space of 2 overs – Macleod LBW to Kalea Moore, and now Jessica Bird disastrously run out trying to scamper a single, but sent back by partner Harmer. Essex 65-2 after 17 overs.

15.54 – WICKET! Oh no – disaster for Essex as ANOTHER player falls to a run out. Beth Harmer pushed the ball out to extra cover, then went for the single but Kelly Castle was having none of it and sent her straight back. Out by a fair way. Kent 85-3.

16:10 – After 25 overs, Essex are 103-3 – ever so slightly ahead of the rate – the game is finely poised.

16:20 – WICKET! Kelly Castle comes down the track to Megan Belt, misses, and is stumped by Sarah Bryce for 27. 108-4 now, after 28.

16:23 – WICKET! Kirstie Gordon comes back and takes a wicket LBW with the first ball of her new spell – gave the appeal 120% and the umpire just couldn’t turn it down. 108-5.

16:27 – WICKET! Rinse and repeat – Gordon has another LBW as Katherine Speed tries to play around her pads and is trapped right in front. 109-6.

16:31 – WICKET! Would you Adam’n’Eve it? Gordon’s got another – Jo Gardner bowled by one that kept low; and Essex are sinking towards defeat.

16:50 – WICKET! Cath Dalton has been leading some resistance for Essex, but she is bowled for 18 by Kalea Moore. 137-8 after 36 overs.

17:00 – WICKET! Play of the day – Hannah Jelfs takes a brilliant diving catch at midwicket to give Kirstie Gordon a 4th wicket. 151-9.

17:05 – And that… as the Americans say… is the ball game – Essex bowled out for 157; so Kent win by 46 runs.

Central Spark Milly Home was the star as Worcestershire beat Berkshire twice on the opening day of the county season at Falkland CC.

On a breezy day in West Berkshire, Home, whose ability to swing a stick has already earned her age group international honours with England on the lacrosse field, hit an aggregate 132 runs across two T20s, to lead the Rapids to a pear* of victories.

Speaking to CRICKETher afterwards, Home reflected:

“We got two wins, which is what we wanted. The first game we batted second, the second game we batted first, so it’s nice to know we can set and chase.”

“Because of COVID this winter we haven’t been able to train together, so we’ve had one-to-ones with the coaches. We’ve been working on hitting the ball straight with a lot of power – being forceful, using your feet, and backing yourself. I got lots of hitting in, so it was really nice to come to the middle and feel ready for the season.”

“I’m on loan from Warwickshire, so it was nice to open the batting – that gave me a bit of freedom to be able to bat for the 20 overs, and it was a good wicket, so it was nice to get a few runs.”

In the first match, Berkshire set off with some real intent, as Emily Cunningham – on her first day out of quarantine following her flight back from New Zealand – hit a quick 12 off 8 balls, using the pace of Emily Arlott to find the boundary twice in the first over. Mia Rogers (30 off 37) and Ash Muttitt (17 off 21) built on that start; but Berkshire were undone by a spell of 4-15 in just 3 overs from loopy offspinner Flora Bertwhistle, eventually limping to 102-7.

In reply, Milly Home (44) and Georgie Macey (nee Adcock) (33)** set off at a rate of knots, putting on 87 for the first wicket to take Worcestershire within touching distance; and although a mini-collapse followed, with Amanda ‘Steamer’ Potgieter taking 3-6 in two overs, the final result was never really in doubt by that stage.

Batting first in the second game, Worcestershire lost Macey for a first baller, LBW to Freya Johnson; but from then on it was all about Home, who carried her bat for a smashing 88* off 63 balls, supported at the other end by captain Chloe Hill (34). A slightly frantic run-a-ball 16 from Clare Boycott at the death helped set Berkshire an imposing 156 to chase.

Given the first result, it felt like a long shot; but perhaps freed by that knowledge, Ashley Muttitt and Amanda Potgieter, who came together in the 3rd over, kept up with the rate for the bulk of the innings, only falling behind when Worcestershire eventually brought on England Academy fast bowler Arlott towards the end. Muttitt and Potgieter both passed 50 – Muttitt making 51* (her highest ever score in a competitive county match) and Potgieter 61*, as Berkshire finished on 149-2 – just 7 runs short.

—–
* Sic!
** At the time of writing, the scorecard on Play Cricket has Home and Macey the wrong way around in the first game.

The ECB have confirmed to CRICKETher that the contracted England players will miss the first competitive matches of the 2021 season, the County T20 Cup, due to concerns about the lack of Covid-secure measures in the county game.

The Cup begins this Sunday 25 April, and will run for four weekends in April and May. England players including Tammy Beaumont had previously expressed a strong wish to participate, with many having represented their counties for years.

However, an ECB spokesperson told CRICKETher:

“County T20 cricket is classed as Recreational Cricket and therefore is covered by less stringent COVID-19 guidelines, which in turn creates a higher risk due to the lack of daily monitoring, testing and general adherence to protocols.

The risk of playing recreational cricket is that you have more people coming together from a multitude of different environments – without those elite sport protocols in place – and therefore more complex ‘contacts’ with the public.

Regional warm-up fixtures are played with elite protocols in place so England players are able to play in them.”

The ECB are naturally keen to avoid the risk of any of their players coming into contact with anyone who tests positive for COVID, as this would mean the player would have to be placed in “hard isolation”, and render them unable to train for 10 days.

Interestingly, Kirstie Gordon participated in Kent’s warm-up matches against Surrey last weekend, suggesting that she is not expected to train with the England squad ahead of the India series, and may be facing the imminent loss of her central contract.

The withdrawal of England players from the county game also raises questions about its future status in the domestic structure. In a press conference earlier this month, Heather Knight admitted that regional cricket would remain the priority for her and her side, despite her own sentimental commitment to Berkshire, who she has represented since 2010.

“The county stuff has a slightly different role in the full fixture list now,” Knight said. “The main domestic cricket that we play, and the best standard that’s going to prepare us for England, is going to be the Rachael Heyhoe Flint stuff, so that’s going to be the priority. In terms of playing for Berkshire, as a sentimental thing potentially, but the reality is I’ve got to pick and choose the cricket that’s going to help me best perform for England.”

Having watched a game of The Hundred for the first time this weekend, we have a confession to make: it really was a lot more like cricket than we expected.

To be fair, our friends at the ECB had repeatedly told us this (waves at Beth Barrett-Wild) but we’d been sceptical, partly because all the initial marketing had beaten into our heads that it WASN’T like cricket – it was completely new and different – that’s what all the Facebook ads and Instagram posts were telling us… and we believed them!

The fact that The Hundred is actually “just cricket” is both a blessing and a problem for the ECB.

It is a blessing, because I now think that “normal” fans will come around to it as a game pretty fast; but it is a problem because the rest of the world – the “mums and kids” who “don’t like cricket” – will also realise quite quickly that it is just cricket… and… well… they don’t really like cricket!

To help get over this, the ECB have a huge entertainment push on the cards – they are planning to make the game a spectacle around the field, even if it isn’t quite so entertaining on it.

Which brings us to Katy Perry, and the real reason why the Aussies paid what I believe the kids call “serious coin” to have her at The MCG last year for the T20 World Cup Final. Put simply, Katy Perry was an insurance policy – and one that, like many insurance policies, they didn’t actually need in the end.

Perry’s presence was insurance against Australia NOT making the final. The main concert was scheduled for AFTER the game, so that local fans, 99% of whom were of course Australian, would come (and crucially STAY) in the event of (say) an India v South Africa final.

But the point is, in order to do this, they needed KATY FREAKIN’ PERRY – one of the biggest stars in the world! Getting Ella Henderson* would just not have cut it; and the tournament organisers knew it.

(* No, I’ve no idea who Ella Henderson is either – I just googled who is currently top of the pops!)

Now back to The Hundred, which of course won’t have Katy Perry… or even Ella Henderson. And here’s the bad news: I’m just not convinced that even pulling out all the stops short of that – the juggles, the acrobats, the guys with bats on stilts – is going to make much difference to only thing that really matters – the cricket on the field.

But here’s the good news: the cricket on the field will be good. It will be the best players in the world, and they’ll be playing CRICKET. And the ads can scream all they want that The Hundred “Not Just Cricket”; but they will be wrong – it is “just” cricket; and as far as I’m concerned, that’s just fine.

Congratulations to Wisden’s 5 Cricketers of the Year for 2021: Zak Crawley, Darren Stevens, Jason Holder, Dom Sibley and Mohammad Rizwan. All five fulfilled the criteria of having had an outstanding impact on the English summer, and not having been chosen before; and all five awards were very much deserved.

It is notable however that the selection this year reverts to the traditional all-male list, after a run of 3 consecutive years where at least one woman was chosen, which we had hoped had set something of a precedent for always including a woman going forwards.

There are at least two women who could have been chosen.

One was Stafanie Taylor – a bona fide “all time great”, who faced-down coronavirus fears, at a time when England was seen as the basket-case of the world, to lead her West Indies side on a tour of England without which the women’s international summer would have been lost.

The other was Georgia Adams, who played one of the great innings in domestic women’s cricket history with her 150 versus Western Storm, scored three other 50s besides, and led her side from the front to victory in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy Final at Edgbaston.

Of course, the award is not based on number or stats or votes, still less what I think! It is 100% in the gift of the editor of Wisden, Lawrence Booth – a writer for whom we have enormous respect, and who has done a lot to improve the profile of women’s cricket in Wisden during his term of office.

Yet it is unarguable that both Adams and Taylor had a huge impact on the women’s game last summer, so the question is: is the women’s game on a par with the men’s… or not?

Perhaps the RHF Trophy is worth less than the Bob Willis? Maybe a women’s international T20 series is worth less than a men’s Test series. And yes – both were much shorter; but this is a structural issue – it is hardly Georgia Adams’ fault that she “only” played 7 One Day matches; nor Stafanie Taylor’s that the Windies played just 5 T20s.

Wisden were in a position this year to really challenge the narrative that the women’s game is intrinsically worth less than the men’s.

They didn’t.

And that’s a pity.