The Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 is underway. It was due to be staged in Bangladesh but was then moved at the last minute to the United Arab Emirates, although Bangladesh are still officially tournament hosts. In this post I look at what has happened so far in the matches I have been able to follow.
THE EARLY STAGES OF THE TOURNAMENT
Australia, winners of six of the previous eight editions of this tournament, are as expected looking formidable once more. The extraordinary number of genuine all rounders they have in their squad (including the two recognized wicket keepers, who opened the batting together – Healy getting the gloves, Mooney playing as a pure batter – they had no fewer than six such players in their XI – Ellyse Perry, Ashleigh Gardner, Tahlia McGrath and Annabel Sutherland, all in the top seven of the batting order, and all well capable of bowling their full four overs, are the others) means that rather than struggling to cover all bases they have a positive embarrassment of riches. Effectively they were taking to the field with a team of about 15 – seven front line batters including the keeper, and eight front line bowlers – the four all rounders listed and four players chosen specifically on ground of their bowling skills.
England were fairly impressive in disposing of ‘hosts’ Bangladesh – their 118-7 from their 20 overs is the highest team total thus far recorded at Sharjah, where the pitches have been low and slow, and runs have been at a massive premium, and was enough for them to win by 26 runs. To give you an idea of the nature of the Sharjah surface, England picked four specialist spinners – Linsey Smith, Charlie Dean, Sophie Ecclestone and Sarah Glenn, and Nat Sciver-Brunt’s four overs of medium pace were the only overs by anyone other than those four for them. Further commentary on this is provided by Danni Wyatt-Hodge’s innings – the recently married (hence new, hyphenated surname) opener scored 41, but even she, normally exceptionally quick scoring, was barely striking at 100.
India suffered a humiliation against New Zealand in their opening match, going down by 58 runs. They were sloppy in the field (though far from the only offenders in this regard – a shedload of catches have gone down this tournament), with at least two very easy catches going down and a good 20 runs being conceded through poor ground fielding, and very poor with the bat. They were better today against Pakistan, but again there were lapses in the field, and they were overcautious with the bat, eventually getting home with only seven balls to spare, doing little to reduce the massive negative net run rate the NZ game left them with. This is important because they also have Australia in the group which almost certainly means that the other sides are fighting over one semi-final slot. Sri Lanka have yet to grow out of their dependence on Chamari Athapaththu – once the batting all rounder fell cheaply in their opening fixture they never looked like making a contest of it. South Africa were impressive – left arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba took four cheap wickets for them, and their opening pair of skipper Laura Wolvaardt and Tazmin Brits knocked the target off without being parted, each topping 50 in the process.
Dubai has been a better venue for cricket than Sharjah, which I am not convinced is still up to international standard, but even there the 160 that New Zealand posted against India is a massive outlier – 120 would still be respectable there, and 130 would be make the side scoring it favourites to win.
PHOTOGRAPHS
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