A look at today’s ODI between the Australia and England women’s teams and a look at the current state of the Women’s Ashes series, plus a large photo gallery.,
The Women’s Ashes multi-format series in Australia is nearly done. The ODI and T20I sections (three matches each) are now both done, leaving only the Test Match to play. This post looks at what has happened so far.
TODAY’S MATCH
This morning UK time (late evening South Australia time) the third and final T20I took place in Adelaide. In metaphorical terms England did not merely go off the rails, they careered right to the bottom of the ravine and got smashed against the rocks. At the halfway stage, with Australia having won the toss and batted, it did not look too awful. Australia had scored 162-5, an innings dominated by Beth Mooney, who did not merely bat right through the innings, which on a hot evening would have been impressive anyway, she scored 94 of those 162 runs. That total soon looked positively mountainous, as England began losing wickets right from the start of the reply. At 39-3 with skipper Heather Knight and veteran opener Danni Wyatt-Hodge together England might have had half a chance of getting somewhere close, though that pair would probably have had to do most of the remaining batting themselves. At 48-7 the only question was whether England would avoid their lowest ever T20I score, which stood at 87 all out. Sophie Ecclestone joined Knight and the pair put together the best stand of the England innings. The ending of that partnership, worth 29 by then, was illustrative of one the key differences between the sides – the catch by Georgia Voll, who had earlier helped Mooney to put on 56 for the first wicket, which got Ecclestone was quite simply incredible. A video clip can be seen here. Voll, playing her first international series at the age of 21, has had a fine start, contributing 173 runs at 86.50 and a SR of 108.80 to the ODI leg of the series and 49 at 16.33 and an SR of 132.43. Between that and Beth Mooney playing the best cricket of her life at the age of 31 Australia have barely missed the injured Alyssa Healy from the top of their order. Linsey Smith, who had impressed with the ball and in the field on what was a rare appearance for her (as a left arm spinner she only plays when England deem it right to select two such bowlers) was ninth out at 82, run out by a sharp piece of fielding by Ellyse Perry. Lauren Filer lasted long enough for England to get past 87, but not long enough for England as a whole to match Mooney on her own – when Knight was last out to a stumping by Player of the Match Mooney off Tahlia McGrath’s medium pace the total had reached 90, 40 of them from the skipper. Australia had thus won by 72 runs, and had made six wins out of six across the limited overs element of the series. The points score with the test match to come is thus Australia 12 England 0.
A MISMATCH
The fact that Australia have won all three ODIs and all three WODIs tells some of the story of how dominant they have been, but not all of it. There has been one occasion in the six matches on which Australia have been in genuine trouble: in the second ODI they were all out for 180, which shouldn’t win a 50 overs per side match. They responded by bowling England out for 159. None of the other matches have ever got close. England have a fine bowling unit, though Australia are ahead even there. Batting wise Australia have been far better, but the biggest gulf has been in fielding skill. England have rarely risen above the competent in the field, rather too often have fallen below that level, and whereas Australia have had several show stopping pieces of fielding England have not had one. The two byes that accrued off Linsey Smith’s first ball were illustrative: even though saving runs was no longer relevant to Australia so dominant was their position Darcie Brown raced after the ball, got to it just before it reached the rope, tipped it back into play and saved her side two runs. England have not been at their best at any stage of this series, and against Australia any hint of weakness gets punished.
A look at developments in the Women’s Ashes, an account of an auction and a look at the state of play in the BBL, plus a photo gallery.
There has been a lot of cricket this week and my employers had an auction on Wednesday. This post looks at both things.
AUSTRALIA IN COMMAND OF WOMEN’S ASHES
The One Day Internation segment of the Women’s Ashes multi-format series is now over, and Australia have won all three matches, giving them a 6-0 lead with ten further points to play for. England have to win all three T20Is and the test match that ends the series to regain the Women’s Ashes.
I covered the first match in an earlier post. The second match was from an England perspective the most disappointing of the series – the bowlers did superbly to dismiss Australia for 180, only for the batting to fold miserably to 159 all out and defeat by 21 runs.
The third match, which took place overnight UK time, started well, with four Australian wickets down fairly quickly, but the middle and lower order wrested the initiative back, Ash Gardner leading the way with her maiden international ton – 102 off 102 balls – with Beth Mooney and Tahlia McGrath each scoring 50s and Georgia Wareham giving the total a final boost with a spectacular 38* off 12 balls. This led to a final total of 308-8 for the Australian Women. England were never really in the hunt, and ended up losing by 222 runs. Player of the Match Gardner was involved in the most spectacular moment of this innings, the dismissal of Sophie Ecclestone. Ecclestone went big, and looked for all the world to be scoring six when Gardner leaped high to catch the ball, and then had the presence of mind to realize she was about to land beyond the boundary, throw it back up, run in and catch it again. A video of this dismissal can be seen here.
THE AUCTION
The January auction, a small one of 386 lots, featuring vintage radios and clocks, militaria, some very well preserved 1970s posters and a few other bits got underway at 10AM sharp on Wednesday. A malfunction on the part of easyliveauction, one of the two online platforms we use, caused an early halt – the problem, which was definitely at their end, was not resolved for some hours – after just over 300 of the lots had gone under the hammer. However, up to that point it had been very successful, with many items exceeding estimates by considerable amounts. Along the way, lot 169 went to me. This lot was a collection of stuff relating to a trip to Normandy run by the Southern Railway in 1934, in a tour company paper wallet. It used to be commonplace for railway companies to also operate ferry services, enabling the whole route to be booked through themselves, and ensuring that the boat departure would mesh well with the arrival of the train at the nearest station. I end this section with a gallery devoted to this item…
I always try to produce detailed galleries for items I am thinking of bidding for, to avoid any suggestion that I might be hiding things from potential rival bidders.In this case it stretched to ten images.The remaining images in this gallery were taken at home this morning.
THREE BBL KNOCKOUT SLOTS CONFIRMED
There are just three group fixtures left in this year’s BBL. With today’s match between the two Sydney outfits, Sixers and Thunder, ruined by the weather we now know that Hobart Hurricanes (played nine, 15 points) are winning the league stage, whatever happens in their final group fixture against Melbourne Stars. Sydney Sixers are second and Sydney Thunder are third, both sufficiently clear of fourth for these spots to be certain. None of the remaining five teams are entirely ruled out of qualifying yet, although tomorrow’s two matches will winnow down the possibilities. It will be Sunday’s match between Stars and Hurricanes that will finally settle it. There is nothing at stake in that game for the Hurricanes – they as mentioned are qualifying as winners of the league stage even if they lose that match, whereas for Stars it will be a chance to complete a Houdini act – they started with five straight losses and they have a legitimate chance of qualifying.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
Birds flying in an approximate V formation……this close up suggests that they are a species of goose.
A look back at the weekend’s action in the 2023 ODI World Cup – a somewhat fortunate two points for Pakistan, two rather more well earned points for Australia and an utterly dominant display by hosts India in today’s table topping clash with South Africa. Also a large photo gallery.
Since I last posed there have been three matches at the ODI Cricket World Cup: New Zealand v Pakistan, Australia v England and India v South Africa. This post looks at these matches and at the state of play in the tournament.
NEW ZEALAND v PAKISTAN
DLS SAVES PAKISTAN
Pakistan won the toss and elected to bowl first, a type of decision that has a terrible track record at this tournament. That did not look like changing when New Zealand were batting – at the end of the 29th over I tweeted that a total of 400 was on for the Kiwis, and 21 overs later when their innings had run its course they were 401-6. A combination of an amazing innings from Fakhar Zaman, solid support from Babar Azam and good reading of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern situation by Pakistan saved them from a poor decision at the toss. With rain threatening Pakistan started to seriously increase their scoring rate from the end of the 15th over onward, and by the time of the first intervention, in the 21st over they were 10 runs ahead of where they needed to be according to DLS. When the second and final interruption came midway through the 26th over they had increased their advantage to 20, and emerged with the two points when the rest of the match was rained out. It was well judged by Pakistan to get themselves significantly ahead of where DLS said they needed to be – there have been some famous mishaps involving DLS calculations, such as Mark Boucher studiously blocking a ball with the rain already falling in the belief that his side were already ahead on DLS, when they actually needed a single off that ball to get ahead. At the same time I feel that the Kiwis were hard done by – I don’t think that had the match been allowed by the weather to go the distance that Pakistan would have pulled off this chase would have been over 50 runs more than the biggest successful full distance chase of the tournament so far.
AUSTRALIA v ENGLAND
ANOTHER “WE’RE GOING TO BOWL” DISASTER
At 8AM UK time yesterday Jos Buttler won the toss at this match, and moments later uttered what has become something of doom laden phrase at this tournament “we’re going to bowl”.
This was not actually by any means one of England’s worst efforts of the tournament, though that is more a reflection of how bad they have been than of how good they were on the day. However, even with the bowlers showing up and restricting Australia to 286 from their 50 overs, it was never terribly close, and the final margin of 33 runs flattered England rather than Australia.
INDIA v SOUTH AFRICA
TOTAL HOME DOMINANCE
India were playing a world cup match at Eden Gardens, Kolkata for the first time since 1996 (that game was a disgrace for India in two ways, first they were totally outplayed by Sri Lanka, and second it was called off early and awarded to Sri Lanka because with India over 100 adrift with just two wickets left the “fans” rioted rather than suffer the closing stages of a defeat). Today’s match was billed as a clash of the titans, featuring as it did the two best teams of the tournament to date. India won the toss and chose to bat first, virtually a mandatory decision when facing South Africa (just ask Jos Buttler and Tom Latham, both of whom made the wrong decision in this situation)…
Rohit Sharma played some beautiful strokes early on, while Shubman Gill hit four fours and a six on his way to 23, but also allowed 18 dot balls to be bowled to him. India scored 91 off the first 10 overs and a huge total looked on. However, South Africa looked to have fought back quite well when India finished on 326-5 from their 50 overs. Virat Kohli equalled Sachin Tenulkar’s career tally of 49 ODI hundreds, while Suryakumar Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja provided some late hitting.
South Africa started their reply badly and it never got any better. Ravindra Jadeja followed his batting cameo by claiming five wickets with his left arm spin, while everyone else also bowled well. South Africa scraped up a beggarly 83 in 27.1 overs, going down by 243 runs, the biggest margin of defeat South Africa have ever suffered in any ODI (some of the sides from South Africa’s first incarnation as a test nation between 1889 and 1971 took some absolute thumpings). India had batted well, but it was the bowling that was really notable in this performance. Usually batting sides try to find a bowler or bowlers they can target and see if they can force the bowling side into using minor bowlers, but when an attack features three top class pacers and two top class spinners all of whom are in good form this is rather difficult to do.
HOW THE TOURNAMENT IS SHAPING UPSO FAR
India are now looking extremely likely to win the tournament – their performance against South Africa today was simply awesome, and was the second successive time they had bowled an opposition team out for under 100 while defending, a detail which might make Sri Lanka feel a little less ashamed of their own capitulation a few days ago. South Africa are qualified for the semi-finals and are likely to hang on to second place, meaning that they are most likely to face Australia in the semi-finals. The fourth semi-final slot is up for grabs between Afghanistan, New Zealand and Pakistan (listed in alphabetical order for the avoidance of prejudice). Bangladesh, England, Netherlands and Sri Lanka are battling for the minor places, with 7th and 8th in the group gaining qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy. Personally I reckon that England deserve to finish the tournament precisely where they currently are: stone last. That would force them to make the necessary wholesale changes.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
Four goldfinches together is not the commonest sight.A hare enjoying a comparatively pleasant November afternoon.
A look at goings on in the Ashes series so far, a brief glimpse ahead to the rest of it and then a longer look at an (IMO) much needed potential Great Reset of English Cricket. Also some photographs.
This post looks at England’s start to the 2021-22 Ashes series and at what might be done going forward.
THE GABBA
After a rain ruined build up England won the toss and chose to bat. The chosen XI was Burns, Hameed, Malan, *Root, Stokes, Pope, +Buttler, Woakes, Robinson, Wood, Leach. Batting first was the right call, and the XI looked well chosen though it was surprising that neither of the veterans Anderson or Broad got picked (inserting the opposition at the Gabba has a shocking history). Unfortunately, the tone was set for England by Rory Burns who shuffled across his crease to the first ball of the series and made a leg stump half volley look like a swinging yorker – bowled for a duck, England 0-1 one ball into the series. Although Pope, Buttler and Woakes all showed some fight, England never looked like posting a big enough total, and were all out for 147. Robinson, Woakes and Wood all bowled decently, Leach was rusty after playing little recent cricket and took heavy punishment, Stokes was not fully fit and did little. Warner and Labuschagne both batted well but were overshadowed by Travis Head whose place in the XI had been questioned in some quarters. Australia’s number five scored an amazing 152, getting his team to a final total of 425, a lead on first innings of 278. England then had their best period of the series to date, ending day three on 220-2 with Malan and Root in the 80s. Unfortunately both batters fell right at the start of day four, and thereafter the innings was a procession, and England in the end mustered only 297, leaving Australia 20 to win. They lost one wicket just before getting there, which enabled Labuschagne to become the first non-opener to be 0* (0) in a test match – on every previous occasion this happened the target had been one and had come off one ball.
ADELAIDE
Adelaide is one of the most beautiful of all cricket venues, set amidst the city’s northern parklands and with St Peter’s Cathedral part of the backdrop, along with the river Torrens. It is also known for being a batters paradise, and if the ball does anything there it turns. Australia had lost Hazlewood to injury and Cummins because he was identified as a close contact of a covid-positive after eating at a restaurant the night before the game. Steve Smith of sandpaper infamy was thus elevated to the captaincy, while Michael Neser and Jhye Richardson filled the vacant fast bowling slots. England, in defiance of logic, common sense and Adelaide history went in without a specialist spinner and with four right arm fast medium bowlers backed up by Stokes.
Australia won the toss and decided to bat (in view of their circumstances and the nature of the Adelaide pitch a decision to bowl would have made Ponting’s insertion of England at Edgbaston in 2005 look like a stroke of genius!). England bowled accurately, but were consistently half a yard or so too short to be maximally effective with the result that the ball went past the edge of the bat many times but the batters had little real trouble. Additionally, one of the few genuine chances created by England was squandered when Buttler dropped an absolute sitter offered by Labuschagne. Australia ended the opening day on 221-2 from 89 overs (England’s over rate, which had already cost them their match fees at Brisbane was once again an utter disgrace). Ominously skipper and part time off spinner Joe Root got a few balls to turn when he bowled a spell on this opening day.
In the early part of the second day (today) England fared reasonably well, and the fifth Aussie wicket fell at 331. However, Steve Smith was still at the crease, and wicket keeper Alex Carey proceeded to score a 50. Michael Neser on debut at no8 scored a rapid 35, Smith fell just short of a century (93, trapped LBW by one from Anderson that kept low). Mitchell Starc and Jhye Richardson then shared a brisk, carefree partnership for the ninth wicket, before Richardson snicked one from Woakes and was caught behind. Woakes had shown the problem with selecting him overseas because “we want a number eight who can score runs”, namely that he is ineffective overseas in his main role: bowling – before being gifted that wicket which triggered a declaration at 473-9 Woakes had conceded 100 runs without ever posing a threat.
Before a thunderstorm brought an early close to proceedings England lost both openers, Burns to Starc and Hameed to the debutant Neser (the bowler’s second delivery in test cricket). Malan and Root were in occupation, with England 17-2.
Australia are 18 wickets away from going 2-0 up in the series, and in very little danger of being beaten whatever happens in the next three days.
LOOKING AHEAD 1: THE REST OF THE SERIES
England are in deep trouble and have boxed themselves into a corner by sending home the Lions players en bloc, including Bracey who had just scored a battling hundred in the Lions last innings and Foakes, England’s best keeper. They have also left themselves little choice but to persist with Burns and Hameed since the only back up opener they have averages 11 in tests in 2021, 18.80 outside his one big innings at that level overall. They cannot go without a spinner again, and I also think they need to pick Wood for the rest of the series so that they have some genuine pace available. For the MCG I would select: Burns, Hameed, Malan, *Root, Stokes, Pope, +Buttler, Robinson, Wood, Leach, Anderson. At the SCG I might rotate Broad in for Anderson. The final match will be played at Bellerive Oval, Tasmania and much remains to be seen before thinking about that one.
LOOKING AHEAD 2: TIME FOR THE GREAT RESET
Before any of the suggestions I am about to make can be acted on one thing has to happen: Chris Silverwood, an unmitigated failure as England head coach, has to be given his P45.
Of the batters I would retain only Root and Stokes from the current squad. The bowling situation looks better, but although I advocate for him to be given this series I believe that like Bess and Ali before him Jack Leach has had his confidence ruined by the hamfisted way in which he has been managed and going forward would look to the younger spinners.
Openers: unless Burns and Hameed go really well in what is left of this series I would want two new openers, and I see five who merit consideration for that role: Hasan Azad, Sam Evans, Tom Haines, Jake Libby and Rob Yates.
Number three: Tom Abell, with Bracey in reserve. I would also be strongly inclined to name Abell as captain right from the start – Root is not a good captain, while his batting is indispensable.
Nos 5,6,7: Stokes will occupy one of these slots, Ben Foakes will be at six and keeping wicket (he averages 38 to Buttler’s 31 in FC cricket and is a far better keeper). Ollie Pope will usually be the third of this trio, either batting down at seven or up at five, with Stokes in the slot he doesn’t get (I want Foakes at six to reduce the chances of him having to bat exclusively with the bowlers).
The fast bowlers: Woakes in England remains in contention (I kept an open mind about him succeeding overseas, knowing him to be much improved of late, but his bowling has been toothless so far this tour). I want at least one of Archer, Stone and Wood in the side, fitness permitting. If none of these three are available then Brydon Carse or Saqib Mahmood (the latter is not express, but he is quicker than the common run of English seamers) would be considered. Henceforth only one of the two uber veterans can ever be in the side at a time. Robinson has earned his spurs and would be part of the squad and most likely the final XI.
The spinners: I would establish a spinner’s camp, the first members of which would be Matt Parkinson, Jack Carson, Amar Virdi, Dan Moriarty and Liam Patterson-White (the last named is almost good enough with the bat to be classed as an all rounder, and would combine well with any of the first three should two spinners be warranted. England’s handling of spinners has been shocking in recent years, and needs to change.
A new look England to front up against the next test match opposition, the West Indies might have an XI of: Haines, Yates, *Abell, Root, Pope, +Foakes, Stokes, Robinson, Archer/Stone/Wood, Anderson and Parkinson, or if feeling bolder still, select two of the expresses to go with Robinson and Parkinson (assuming they are fit).
Making such huge changes is high risk, but persisting with the current non-working test set up means accepting the certainty of further failure in the premier format of the game. I prefer letting the dice fly to resignation.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
On Tuesday morning I had my booster jab, and since it has to be injected into an upper arm the choice of T shirt is important – can’t really go wrong with this one!Proof.
aspiblog 