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WNCL: A bright start for the Meteors at home in Canberra

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By Helen Maynard-Casely

We’re in the grip of a heat wave here in Australia and while the humidity rises at the coast, the heat never feels quite as oppressive in the drier air of the capital. The cicadas were in full song, clinging to the trees around Phillip Oval to herald Australian Capital Territory Meteors take to the field hosting Victoria in round three of the 2025/26 WNCL season.

This tie was probably the one least affected by losing players to the WPL, with only Meg Lanning and Millie Illingworth missing from the Victorian team sheet. Lanning has had limited impact on the WNCL this season so far, and Illingworth yet to have a run out – hence Victoria were probably very hopeful to break the spell of losses and get match points on the board.

ACT coaches had escaped the complications of those on WPL leave, though strike bowler Holly Ferling remains injured and in a moonboot after surgery. But overall ACT had great grounds to expect a win today, after showing good fight in a narrow loss away to last year’s finalists Queensland in the round before the long break in the season.

Player of the match Annie Wikman leads the successful ACT Meteors team from the side, flanked on the right by captain Carly Leeson.

It is a cliche, but the Meteors really did get off to a bright start to today’s match, with Nicole Fultum getting an inside edge that found the stumps off opening bowler Zoe Cooke first ball. This was followed a few deliveries later with Victorian captain Sophie Molineaux doing sinisterly the same thing. In the third over Cooke managed to trap Sophie Reid LBW, and the Victorian innings was in tatters at 3 down for only 6 runs.

Victoria saw some reprieve from total obliteration via a gritty 9th wicket partnership of 53 by Rhys McKenna and Molly Strano. Mckenna, who went on to put on 62 at a run a ball, looked in solid form – bringing up her 50 with a 6 lofted down the ground. But the team will be smarting that it could have been more – Hasrat Gil was just getting settled when she was run out at the non-striker’s end, courtesy of Anesu Mushangwe getting fingers to the ball sent down the ground by McKenna. Veteran Strano had also looked in good touch, before punting a full toss from Amy Hunter to the waiting mitts of Georgia Elwiss at mid wicket.

The Victorian innings was brought to an end at the beginning of the 37th over – ACT captain Carly Leeson had brought herself in to bowl, and the change up caused McKenna to not angle her shot down enough, allowing Mushangwe to take a low catch at mid-wicket, all out for 161. Cooke and Amy Hunter were the pick of the ACT bowlers, both netting 3 wickets with steely economies.

Low totals, it is said, can be tricky to chase down, and ACT had a few stumbles along the way. A quickfire 50 off 51 balls from Leeson did much to steady the nerves, at times it looked like she was orchestrating the fielding placements more than Sophie Molineaux. As they shuffled the field in response to one Leeson shot, she would then place the next neatly in the hole just left, leaving Victorian fielders scuttling back. Leeson, however, was felled the next ball after achieving the half century – caught off of Tess Flintoff’s pacy full toss. This was the third in a series of wickets, Bowlder and Elwiss departing previously for only 4 runs scored, leaving two new batters (Grace Lyons and Annie Wikman) and still 86 runs to get. But this was only the 15th over, and the ACT batters used this to their advantage. Wikman in particular built a lovely innings, able to sit back and pick out the boundaries when suited her. This culminated in a stylish reverse sweep to the boundary the 34th over to finish off the chase, and left Wikman on 62 not out, rewarded as player of the match.

The Meteors will be very happy with their first home game of the WNCL season, picking up a win and a bonus point to boot. The one concern for Thursday’s match will be Grace Digham who had to retire hurt while supporting Wikman’s batting, she pulled up after stealing a single which looked like a hamstring issue. Victoria still are in negative points after five matches played, will be onto yet another plan to try and fashion a win.

Be Alert! More cricket incoming on Thursday, when the next match of the round takes place.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country, and here is writing about a game played on Ngunnawal country. She acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.

WORLD CUP: England v Pakistan – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

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To be fair to the ICC, no one really “decided” to co-host a World Cup in Sri Lanka in October. Given the political situation between India and Pakistan, they needed somewhere in the vicinity of India, and there weren’t too many other options. (The UAE was one I guess, but the heat was almost too much for 20-over cricket during the T20 World Cup last year, so it would not have been a good one for 50-over games.)

Nonetheless, if you were going to pick a month not to host these matches in Colombo, this would have been it: Colombo gets an average of 19 rainy days during a typical October – more than any other month of the year. For comparison, Manchester typically gets 17 rainy days in October – we’d literally have had less chance of rain if we’d scheduled these games at Old Trafford!

After England’s match against Pakistan was rained off, we’ve now had 3 “No Results” from 7 games so far in Colombo in this World Cup. The “winners” on this occasion were England, who you’d imagine would almost certainly have gone on to lose a 50-over game, having been reduced to 79-7 – totally unable to cope with Pakistan’s military-medium-paced seamers keeping the stumps in play.

With England’s openers dismissed cheaply again (Tammy Beaumont didn’t play a shot, while Amy Jones might as well not have done, to balls that nipped back in) social media was alive with calls for one or both of them to be dropped / dropped down the order. But given what subsequently transpired, with all 7 of England’s top order batters dismissed bowled or LBW, I’m not sure shooting Jones and / or Beaumont really solves the problem.

From a Pakistan perspective, they were robbed blind. Their tactics were simple but effective – keep the seam and the stumps in play, and let the ball do the rest – and the high-fives the coaches were giving each other in the dugout as each wicket fell, were well deserved. I predicted… admittedly slightly mischievously… that Pakistan could actually be the “4th” side in the semi-finals at this World Cup – partly due to not having the punishing travel schedule everyone else has; but also because they can be an effective side in the right circumstances – they are well-drilled in the basics, and sometimes that’s all you need. They didn’t deserve to come out of today with just a single point.

Women's World Cup – Qualification Analysis 🏏

— CRICKETher (@crickether.com) 2025-10-15T16:40:32.129Z

As it stands now, England  remain unbeaten and atop the table. The “Magic Number” for qualification is now 9 points (India and New Zealand are yet to play each other, so they can’t both get 9) meaning England need to win just one of their 3 remaining matches to guarantee a semi-final spot. They barely deserve it, but baby… that’s show-business cricket for you.

EXCLUSIVE: New Zealand Cricket Defend No Women’s Tests In The New Future Tours Programme

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New Zealand Cricket have confirmed to CRICKETher that they have no immediate plans to reintroduce women’s Test cricket, after the ICC issued a new FTP which appeared to rule out any Tests for the White Ferns until at least 2029.

The new FTP – available here – shows a significant increase in scheduled Tests, with Australia, England, India, South Africa and the West Indies all agreeing to play multi-format series. West Indies will be participating in the format for the first time since 2004.

The new FTP leaves New Zealand out in the cold, as the only top-six nation who refuse to support women’s Test cricket.

A spokesperson for New Zealand Cricket told CRICKETher: “We haven’t got any plans to re-introduce Test cricket for the White Ferns at this stage.”

New Zealand’s recent victory in the T20 World Cup had sparked hopes that New Zealand Cricket might be persuaded to change their stance, but it seems not.

The spokesperson added: “Our thoughts are that we’re better to concentrate our current resources and investment on T20I and ODI cricket in order to grow the women’s game in New Zealand.”

“The limited overs formats have proven to be very effective in terms of attracting and retaining young players, which is a significant factor in the health of the women’s game here. In time, this will provide a bigger base from which talented players will emerge to ultimately play for the White Ferns.”

“Focussing on formats which include ICC global events (such as World Cups) is our preference for now.”

The spokesperson did offer a small glimmer of hope – concluding: “Never say never.”

Sadly, that might not be soon enough for Suzie Bates & co.

THE HUNDRED: Spirit v Fire – “If she’s going to lose her shoes but bat like that, who cares?”

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Welsh Fire beat London Spirit by wrapping up the fourth highest run-chase in the history of The Hundred, reaching their target of 151 with five balls to spare in what was, largely, a one-woman undertaking:

Battling erratic shoelaces, and at one point a shoe which actually flew off as she hared down the pitch, Hayley Matthews finished on 78 not out from 46 balls – Sarah Bryce’s 21 being the next highest contribution.

More importantly, Matthews was there at the end to propel Fire’s chase over the line, turning an unlikely-looking 50 runs off 25 balls into 26 off 15, 16 off 10, and finally a nice-and-relaxing 10 off the last 9, after just clearing the long-on boundary off the 91st ball – the first of Deepti Sharma’s final set.

“If she’s going to lose her shoes but bat like that, who cares? Maybe I’ll try it!” captain Tammy Beaumont said afterwards.

“I’ll teach her how to!” Matthews joked back.

Matthews did get lucky a couple of times – most notably when she pulled a catch to Eva Gray at deep midwicket on 35*; Gray couldn’t quite hang on and ended up parrying it over the rope. But, largely, it was an intelligent innings under pressure, with exactly the right balance between taking enough risks to keep up with the hefty rate, and then dialling it down when that was no longer necessary:

Matthews knows how to manage run-chases single-handedly under extreme pressure – she’s been doing it for West Indies for about a decade – so for Fire it was a case of cometh the hour, cometh the woman.

London Spirit clearly realised she was the key wicket – hence why Georgia Redmayne refused the easy run-out of Phoebe Franklin off the 90th ball, instead opting to attempt to throw down the stumps at the bowler’s end (it was too wayward to have any effect).

A word, too, for Freya Davies’s efforts with the ball, which ensured that Fire did not feel the absence of Shabnim Ismail through injury too acutely. After a tight opening set in which Meg Lanning managed to score just one run from five deliveries, Beaumont’s decision to bring Davies back to bowl balls 41 to 45 proved inspired:

“She’s such a utility bowler, she can bowl at any phase brilliantly,” Beaumont said. “I felt like we let them get away from us a little bit – I wouldn’t normally bring Freya back as early and I just had that gut feel and I had to do it then. For her to come off then so brilliantly really shifted the game.”

Davies removed Heather Knight and Meg Lanning within the space of three balls, and a total which could have been catastrophic proved within reach… just. No doubt there was a certain amount of karmic satisfaction for Davies, who was not just bowling at her former teammates but against the captain who was responsible for her being dropped from England last summer.

Spirit return to Lord’s on Sunday for their top-of-the-table clash against Oval Invincibles: time to see if they can bounce back from what might be a difficult loss to take.