A look back at England Women’s last home match of the summer and a photo gallery.
As I write this post the England and West Indies men’s teams are locked in a test match battle at Trent Bridge. England Women played their last home match of the summer (they have a series in Ireland to come before heading over to Bangladesh for the T20 world cup) on Wednesday evening.
SETTING THE SCENE
England Women had won every match against Sri Lanka in the first part of their home season, and went into Wednesday night’s fixture having won all three ODIs and the first four T20Is against New Zealand. England had never previously won as many as 13 matches in a home season, which is what they were looking to achieve. They found themselves batting first…
THE ENGLAND INNINGS
England started badly, and at 87-6 they looked in big trouble. Heather Knight and Charlie Dean put on 54 together for the seventh wicket to dig England out of this hole, and a couple of good blows by Sophie Ecclestone at the end boosted the final total to 155-7. This was enough to require New Zealand to score their highest total of the series to win.
THE NEW ZEALAND RESPONSE
New Zealand were in the game for good while, and even kept Sophie Ecclestone wicketless, ending a run of 34 international innings in which she had claimed at least one scalp. However England never really looked in danger during this innings, and some good death bowling meant that the final margin in their favour was 20 runs.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
Broad beans – a little too large for comfort but……the inside of the pods were fluffy which suggested that they weren’t beyond hope – and indeed they were fine.This is some breed of diving duck that I have not been able to identify as yet.Another shot of the diving duck, as it came up from another dive.birds and a ‘bird man’
A look back at yesterday’s WT20I between England and New Zealand and a photo gallery.
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.
Over the weekend I followed the whole of one classic T20 match and the first innings of a very one sided One Day International (I missed the second innings as there was a family get together happening in Wells Next The Sea which I wanted to be part of). This post looks at both games.
THE MENS T20 WORLD CUP FINAL
This match would see history made whoever won it – India and South Africa, the two teams to make the final were both undefeated, and no side had ever gone through a Men’s T20 world cup undefeated. India batted first and their innings had its up and downs. The dominant feature was Virat Kohli’s one and only major innings of the tournament. They ended up with 176 to defend. South Africa batted well in their turn. They seemed to have settled the matter decisively when the 15th over, bowled by Kuldeep Yadav was butchered for 24 runs reducing the requirement from 54 off six overs to 30 off five overs. This virtually forced Indian skipper Rohit Sharma to turn to his best bowler, Jasprit Bumrah. The 16th over was economical, but no wickets fell, so South Africa still looked favourites. The 17th over kept India in contention, and saw them claim the vital wicket of Heinrich Klaasen. For the 18th over Sharma rightly opted to use Bumrah’s last over, hoping to close things out then. Bumrah not only kept it tight as always, but also got rid of Marco Jansen, which meant that with the required rate starting to become genuinely alarming for them the South Africans had only David Miller of their recognized batters left. Arshdeep Singh bowled the crucial 19th over, and by the end of it South Africa needed 16 off the last over, though Miller was at the strikers end. Hardik Pandya bowled the final over, and off the first ball thereof Miller went for a big shot down the ground and Suryakumar Yadav took a brilliant running catch to all but seal the match. Number nine Kagiso Rabada did his best, but another catch by Suryakumar Yadav off the penultimate ball of the match accounted for him, and South Africa needed nine off one ball to win. Nortje scored a single off the final ball and India won by seven runs (176-7 plays 169-8). In spite of South Africa’s reputation in global tournaments it has to be stated that THIS WAS NOT A CHOKE – India bowled superbly in the closing overs, and held a couple of excellent catches. This match was settled by good Indian cricket, not bad South African cricket. Scorecard here.
NEW ZEALAND WOMEN IN A SPIN
This was the second match of a three match ODI series between the England and New Zealand women’s teams, taking place at New Road, Worcester. New Zealand found themselves batting first as they had in the first match in which they were thoroughly hammered. At 114-3 with Amelia Kerr set and Maddy Green looking impressive as well they had a chance of a competitive total, but then the world’s number one and two ranked Women’s ODI bowlers, Sophie Ecclestone (left arm orthodox spin) and Charlie Dean (off spin) made their presences felt. Dean started the rout by pinning Green LBW, then Ecclestone got Brooke Halliday for six and Lauren Down for a duck, both clean bowled. Dean then got the big wicket of Amelia Kerr, caught and bowled for 43. Then a catch by Natalie Sciver-Brunt off Ecclestone accounted for Kiwi keeper Isabella Gaze for a duck, and three balls later Ecclestone clean bowled Molly Penfold for another duck to secure her fifth wicket, and 114-3 had become 124-9. Jess Kerr hit her way to 14, boosting the final total to 141 in company with Fran Jonas, before a second Sciver-Brunt catch, this time off the off spin of Alice Capsey ended the innings. Ecclestone has taken at least one wicket in each of her last 30 bowling innings across formats, a run going back to the start of 2023, and overall in those 30 innings she has taken 68 wickets at 14.75 a piece.
I missed the England run chase, but I do know that it was such an utter formality that Natalie Sciver-Brunt was able to engineer things at the end so that Maia Bouchier scored her first senior century (she has previously reached three figures in a U13s match). Scorecard here.
Accounts of the Rugby World Cup Final, a WBBL T20 and England’s 2nd T20I v New Zealand. Also lots of photographs.
INTRODUCTION
Most of my readers will be aware of what happened in Yokohama yesterday morning, but that was not the only fixture involving an England team this weekend, and before sharing some photographs I mention both matches.
ENGLAND RUGBY TEAM HAMMERED
England went into the men’s Rugby World Cup final as favourites, having downed the mighty All Blacks in the semi-final. I was listening to commentary on theWomen’s Bag Bash League game while keeping an eye on developments in the Rugby. The best it got for England was when they were briefly level at 6-6. Thereafter South Africa were utterly dominant, the two tries they ran in near the end merely making the scoreline a realistic reflection of that dominance. The WBBL game was excellent. The victorious Melbourne Stars had spinners bowl 12 of their 20 overs, and those 12 overs went for a mere 51 between them. Lizelle Lee scored an astonishing century for the Stars to give them a very respectable total, which their bowlers as described above defended.
NEW ZEALAND LEVEL T20 SERIES
England won the first match of the five game T20 series in New Zealand, but the hosts struck back in the small hours of the morning GB time. Worcestershire’s Pat Brown got slapped for 32 off just two overs, while Lewis Gregory who mysteriously also only got two overs started his international bowling career by knocking a stump back with his very first delivery and finished with 1-10. England were not up with the rate at any point of the chase, and when their final wicket fell to the penultimate ball of the game the margin was 21 runs (substantial in this form of the game). Chris Jordan had a fine match for England, with 3-25 and then 36 off 19 balls (second top England score behind Dawid Malan with 39). Saqib Mahmood, picked without the domestic figures to suggest international quality, had 1-46 from his four overs, a very poor showing.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off (features a couple of spider pics near the end)…
The “Impossipuzzle” – merely difficult when an autistic person who enjoys puzzles takes it on (total completion time aprrox three hours).
At the autism friendly social group, King’s Lynn Library, next two sessions Wednesday November 13 and Monday November 25.
Ths puzzle was much easier than the other featured here. Can you spot what is wrong with the track arrangement that forms a border?)…
…As shown trains can get on to the circle of track but not off it.
Spotted while out and about today, a small hedgehog near the Gaywood River (three pics)
aspiblog 