Yesterday evening saw the fourth match of the WT20I series between England and New Zealand. The match was played at The Oval, where appropriately enough a new set of gates named after Surrey and England legend Natalie Sciver-Brunt were in use for the first time, having been unveiled the day before. This post looks back at the match.
THE PRELIMINARIES
Both teams made changes. In England’s case the changes were about preparation for the upcoming WT20I world cup in Bangladesh, in New Zealand’s case they were down to desperation. New Zealand won the toss and decided to bat first.
THE NEW ZEALAND INNINGS
New Zealand began steadily but somewhat slowly, ending the six over Power Play on 33-0. That was to be as good as it got for them. Leg spinner Sarah Glenn came on to bowl the seventh over and struck with her first ball, bowling Georgia Plimmer to break the opening stand. Two balls later the new batter Amelia Kerr hit a long hop straight into the hands of Capsey at short midwicket. A splendid inswinger from Dani Gibson accounted for Sophie Devine with the score on 40, and two runs later Ecclestone extended the sequence of international innings in which she has claimed at least one wicket to 34 by bowling Suzie Bates. The next to go was Brooke Halliday who gave Gibson an easy catch off Ecclestone. That was 52-5 and moved Ecclestone to joint third in the all time WT20I wicket takers list alongside Ellyse Perry of Australia. Ecclestone is 25 years old, Perry 33. Green and Gaze now shared the second best partnership of the New Zealand innings, before Green gave Gibson a catch off Glenn for 24 off 25 balls. Glenn then made it two wickets in an over for the second time of the evening when she hurried one through Jess Kerr to bowl her for 1. At 82-7 the Kiwis were utterly in the toils, and although Lea Tahuhu did her best to support Gaze they were unable to increase the scoring rate. The innings ended with Gaze being run out to give the Kiwis a final score of 103-8. Perhaps the single most damning stat relating to this sorry innings by the Kiwis is that Gaze with 25 off 24 balls was the only one of their batters to have an SR of above 100, which is not the sort of thing that wins many T20s at any level.
THE ENGLAND CHASE
New Zealand needed early wickets to have any hope of defending such a small total, and instead were greeted by a barrage of shots from Danni Wyatt and Sophia Dunkley. The opening stand yielded 54 before Dunkley departed for a 16 ball 26. That brought Capsey to the crease, and there was little slowing of the momentum. Amelia Kerr bowled Capsey with the last ball of the seventh over to make it 73-2, and off the first ball of the eighth Wyatt holed out to Fran Jonas off Eden Carson. That brought Sciver-Brunt and Knight together, and the pair looked comfortable all the way. The match ended when Sciver-Brunt on her home ground hit the second and third balls of the 12th over for fours to give England victory by seven wickets with 8.3 overs to spare. Sarah Glenn’s bowling performance deservedly secured her the Player of the Match award. The final match of this series takes place at Lord’s on Wednesday and it is hard to see any result other than another England win.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
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