A look at the WBBL table, and a bit about the latest ,match which took place earlier today between Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Sixers. Also a photo gallery.
After today’s WBBL match between Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Sixers the WBBL10 table is more congested than London during rush hour. This post looks both at today’s match and at the competition as a whole.
The above table is courtesy of cricinfo, and a more detailed version can be viewed here.
With the exception of the Strikers, with one win and three losses, every team has four points, and only the Hurricanes, having played a game more than all their rivals are noticeably worse off, while the Scorchers, with a game in hand on everyone and two in hand on the Hurricanes are probably best placed of the sides to progress. Each side plays ten group matches, and at the moment it looks like most, if not all, will have some sort of qualification chance as the competition reaches its business end.
TODAY’S MATCH
Today’s game was largely dominated by one single performance. In a match in no other batter got past 30 (two Englishwomen, Hollie Armitage for the Sixers and Danni Wyatt-Hodge for the Hurricanes scored exactly this number) Ellyse Perry, already the tournament’s leading run scorer heading into this match, scored 86 off 62 balls. Sixers 155-7 proved enough to win by six runs. Perry cemented an already fairly undeniable claim to the POTM award by adding two catches to her 86 runs. Most notable among the Sixers bowlers were Ecclestone, approaching her best form for the first time in this tournament, with 4-0-22-2, and the youngster Caoimhe Bray with 3-0-13-2. Bray has more in common with her idol, Perry, than merely being a pace bowling all rounder: Perry scored a world cup goal for the Matildas, and although Bray has not yet featured in a full squad for the football side, she has played age group internationals in that sport. As is often the case when she is at or near peak form no opposition batter ever looked remotely comfortable facing Ecclestone. The Hurricanes best bowler on the day was leg spinner Amy Smith, with 1-20 from three overs.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
Deeply irresponsible by whoever set a fire here, so close to trees……and they did it again a day later/A muntjac paddling in Bawsey Drain.
An account of the second ODI between West Indies and England, which took place yesterday. Also a large photo gallery.
This post will tell the story of the second ODI between West Indies and England which took place yesterday afternoon and evening UK time (morning and afternoon Antigua time) at North Sound. Before I get to the main body of the post I have small chore to perform:
A CORRECTION TO MY PREVIOUS POST
In my previous post I named Jacob Bethell among England’s debutants in that match. This was not so – he had played five previous matches. The actual debutant I should have named among the four but did not was Jordan Cox, a top order batter and occasional keeper who started his career with Kent and now plays for Essex. In keeping with my policy on such matters I have ensured that this correction cannot be missed.
AN ODD BALANCE
John Turner came in for his international debut, having been in a number of England squads, without quite getting a cap. This meant that England had in effect seven multi-dimensional cricketers (although Cox played purely as a batter he is an occasional keeper) and four bowlers. As any reader of my all time XIs will be aware I am an ardent advocate of sides having a wide range of bowling options if such is possible. However, nine bowling options of varying degrees of seriousness does seem to be overdoing it a touch, especially given that it left the side with a fragile batting order.
LOTS OF OPTIONS, NO PLAN
In the course of the 50 overs of the West Indies innings England skipper Livingstone used all nine of his genuine bowling options. There was no obvious sign of a plan in his usage of his bowlers, and he certainly overused his own mixed spin – 7-0-56-1 is testament to that. West Indies tallied 328 from their 50 overs, a record score for North Sound.
A CAPTAIN’S INNINGS
Phil Salt started well for England. Unfortunately Will Jacks and Jordan Cox both went cheaply. Bethell and Salt had a good partnership, before Salt was dismissed for 59 to make it 107-3. Livingstone now joined Bethell. Bethell joined Salt in reaching 50, but shortly thereafter was fourth out at 160. That brought Sam Curran to the crease, being treated by England as a genuine all rounder, but under suspicion in some quarters of actually not being up to the job in either department. With only Mousley of significance as batter among those still to come the onus was on Livingstone and Curran to do most of the heavy lifting. Livingstone and Curran batted sensibly together, and were still in residence at the end of the 40th over. The target at that point was precisely 100, a rate normally considered achievable in modern limited overs cricket. It was now that Livingstone changed gears. The first bowlers to feel the effects of this were spinners Chase and Motie, but the most dramatic sufferers were two of the quicks, Shamar Joseph and Jayden Seales, who each visibly wilted under the Livingstone onslaught. Both bowled wides as well as full tosses (each were trying and failing to nail a yorker), and Livingstone sent two balls clean out of the ground and another into a concrete fixture in one of the stands. Curran, playing a valuable supporting role, brought up a 50 that though in the shadow of Livingstone’s pyrotechnics still came at a run a ball. He was fifth out at exactly 300, ending a match turning stand of 140 with Livingstone. There were 4.3 overs remaining as Mousley joined Livingstone, with the latter on the verge of an extraordinary century. Livingstone reached the landmark, his maiden ODI century, off just 77 balls, and continued on his merry way. He was now in absolutely rampant mood, and precisely two overs after the dismissal of Curran, so with England still having 2.3 overs to spare, he scored the winning run, taking his own score to 124 not out off 85 balls. In total he hit nine sixes and five fours in this spectacular take down of the West Indies.
LOOKING AHEAD
This result means that the sides will head to Barbados with the series locked at 1-1. The West Indies players would of course have preferred to settle the series in this match, but I suspect their board will not be entirely unhappy that the series is level heading to Bridgetown. Livingstone’s amazing innings and the various supporting roles played by Salt, Bethell and Curran should not be allowed to paper over some rather obvious cracks. The England squad is fundamentally unbalanced, and for most of yesterday’s match they looked second best, as they did for the entirety of the first match. I congratulate England on the win, but they do need to look at the balance of future squads, and deepen that batting order. If Livingstone had got out at any stage of overs 41-44 inclusive, as anyone batting like that easily could, it would have been pretty much settled in West Indies favour – it was a much closer thing than the ultimate 2.3 overs to spare suggests.
A look at the early stages of England’s ODI tour of the West Indies and a photo gallery.
An England men’s white ball squad is currently in the West Indies for a three match One Day International series. This series has been arranged because England owe West Indies a favour dating back to 2020, when it was West Indies who travelled to play in England under stringent covid restrictions, and have not been able to repay it until now. This post looks at what has happened so far.
THE ENGLAND SQUAD
England travelled with a necessarily experimental squad, the multi-format players being required for the upcoming tour of New Zealand the start of which overlaps with this one.
ENGLAND’S CHOSEN XI
England named four debutants in the XI – Jacob Bethell, a batter who bowls a bit of left arm spin, Dan Mousley, enough of an off spinner to be described as a batting all rounder, Jamie Overton, making an ODI debut at the age of 30 and down to bat at number eight an known to not be fit enough to bowl, and John Turner, a fast bowler and number 11 batter. The side as a whole was inexperienced, with Adil Rashid, a leg spinner officially listed to bat at number ten, having more career ODI runs than any of his team mates. However, no degree of inexperience could excuse the horror show of a batting performance that was about to unfold.
FAILURE TO ADAPT
West Indies won the toss and put England in to bat. For all that is named in honour of an all time batting great and one of the first players to truly master the art of limited overs batting, the Sir Viv Richards Stadium rarely provides pitches on which batting is straightforward. On that basis one might argue that a total of 204 in 45.2 of a possible 50 overs was not a terrible achievement. However, it was the manner in which the innings developed that was so very disappointing. Virtually every dismissal was self inflicted, and the mistakes leading to those dismissals were all of the same type – essaying cross batted shots on a pitch on which hitting the ball straight was a necessity. One or two such dismissals could possibly be allowed for, but the collective failure/ refusal to adapt to the nature of the pitch was inexcusable. Liam Livingstone and Sam Curran batted best in a poor display, but neither could get as far as 40.
The West Indies was delayed by rain, and then interrupted again by more rain, but there was not enough rain to save England. Evin Lewis played a superb innings which put the ‘efforts’ of the England batters into sharp perspective.
A large part of the problem (and something that the ECB are to blame for) is that the best English white ball players only now play 50 over cricket in an international setting – the English domestic One Day Cup because of when it takes place is basically a tournament for second team and youth cricketers. Thus they approach the game with a T20 type mindset and rapidly become impatient if they are not scoring at high speed. The second match of this series takes place today, starting at 1:30PM UK time.
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