Tag: gatekeepers

A Study in Contrasts

A look back at today’s match between the Birmingham Phoenix and Trent Rockets women’s teams and last night’s contest between London Spirit and Manchester Super Giants men’s teams, plus a photo gallery.

This post focuses on two of the most dissimilar cricket matches you could imagine, last night’s match between the London Spirit and Manchester Super Giants (nee Originals) men’s sides (a combination of work yesterday and London Spirit women failing to show any of the quality for which they are named meant that I did not get to follow any of the women’s match), and this afternoon’s match between Birmingham Phoenix and Trent Rockets women’s sides. I will start with the latter first.

ONE WAY TRAFFIC IN BIRMINGHAM

Trent Rockets won the toss and opted to bowl. The biggest selection news was that England skipper Natalie Sciver-Brunt was missing due to workload management. How would Birmingham Phoenix react to their opponents being minus their star player? Almost as badly as a long ago South Africa men’s side did to news that Don Bradman would not be available for their opponents Australia. On that occasion South Africa proceeded to collapse for 36 and 45, still the lowest combined aggregate for which any test side has ever lost all 20 wickets. Here Phoenix were at one stage an eye-popping 15-6. They revived a little from that position, but it was blatantly obvious that they were mainly concerned with actually batting for 100 balls. They failed even to manage this, their tenth wicket falling to the 95th ball of their innings. They had scraped up a measly 64 all out, of which 39 had come from the bat of Ellyse Perry. Extras, with seven, was the second biggest contributor, while Eva Gray made six from number nine, Alana King five from number eight and Linsey Smith four from number 10. The Rockets bowling figures deserve quoting in full:

Kim Garth 15 balls, 11 dots, five runs conceded, two wickets taken.
Samantha Bates 20-13-10-3
Georgia Elwiss 20-12-13-3
Katie Levick 20-14-8-1
Ashleigh Gardner 15-5-19-1
Georgia Adams 5-1-4-0

Although Lauren Filer removed Beth Mooney for 4 with an absolute beauty Sophia Dunkley was already motoring by then and the Rockets were 40-1 from 19 balls. Sophie Luff came in at number three, and was instantly in command as well. Trent Rockets won by nine wickets with 69 of their 100 allotted balls unused. Sophia Dunkley had hit 43 not out from 17 balls with eight fours and a six, and Sophie Luff 19 not out from nine balls with four fours. Samantha Bates was named Player of the Match, a verdict with which it would be hard to argue. Scorecard here.

LIVINGSTONE’S LONE HAND

Manchester Super Giants were 65-1 after 42 balls and 105-2 after 67 balls. They fell away horribly from that high water mark, ending with 138-9 from their 100 balls. They bowled better than they had batted, and although Liam Livingstone played a great innings to follow a good effort with the ball London Spirit were never up with the rate at any stage of the chase. It was close in the final stages, but the 98th ball of the Spirit innings, bowled by 23 year old fast bowler Sonny Baker, who had claimed responsibility for closing things out, clean bowled him for 69 from 40 balls, making it 130-5, nine needed from two balls and a new batter coming in. Jamie Overton can hit a ball a very long way, but on this occasion he could do no better than a single, and with eight needed off one ball all Baker had to do was make sure it was a legal delivery. It was, and the heavily hyped James Coles hit it straight to Tom Moores, meaning that London Spirit ended up on 131-6, beaten by seven runs, a famous margin on the other side of the Thames (the match that led to the creation of The Ashes, at The Oval in 1882, went Australia’s way by that margin). Baker had been a little expensive earlier in the innings, but when it really counted he came good and won the match for his side. Livingstone, who had bowled his full allocation of 20 balls and taken 2-14 as well as playing the innings that kept his side in the hunt (though never, pace comments to the contrary by the so-called ‘expert summariser’, actually favourites to reach the target) was named ‘Match Hero’, a rare occasion when such an award to a member of the defeated side was entirely justified. Scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

A mixed gallery today, with some work pictures to start…

One of the things I am currently doing at work is cataloguing our whole stock of postcards.
…one of which has a ‘squared circle’ Crewe Station cancel on an Edward VII stamp, proving genuine age.
A painted lady and a bumblebee have targeted the same buddleia head.
Three gatekeeper butterflies on one bramble clump.

India Dominate Historic Match

An account of how the first women’s test match to be staged at Lord’s panned out and a photo gallery.

Just after 12:30 UK time Sneh Rana bowled Sophie Ecclestone who had fought hard to complete her maiden international half century and England were all out for 186 in their second innings, giving India victory by 270 runs in a match they had dominated pretty much from start to finish. This post looks back at the developments in the later stages of the match.

THE INDIAN SECOND INNINGS

India led by 115 on first innings, and by the end of day two had extended that by a further 154 runs for the loss of Shafali Verma. Although Sophie Ecclestone toiled hard for England and was ultimately rewarded by becoming the first English woman to gain a place on the test match honours board at Lord’s India were always in control, and Yastika Bhatia became the first woman to get on the batting honours board at the ground when she reached her maiden international hundred. Later, when the only question was exactly when India would opt to declare Richa Ghosh racked up a rapid half-century. It was her getting to that landmark that heralded the declaration at 341-7, 456 ahead. This was over 200 more than any side had made in the fourth innings to win a women’s test match, and 38 more than the men’s all time record of 418. Ecclestone’s final figures deserve a mention: 33.3-4-118-5. Lauren Bell was highly economical, but Lauren Filer leaked runs at over five an over while going wicketless, and Issy Wong, also wicketless, was nearly as expensive.

TWO BADLY TIMED ANNOUNCEMENTS

This day saw two announcements that for my money should not have been made at such a time. I have some sympathy with Heather Knight’s snap decision to join Tammy Beaumont in international retirement, but the announcement of this decision was definitely mistimed. The other big announcement was inexcusably timed on the part of the ECB: they chose the penultimate day of this historic women’s test match to reveal that they had axed Brendon McCullum as coach of the men’s test side. This was an announcement that should definitely have been held back until after this match had been completed. We should have been hearing about this on Wednesday, no matter that it happened on Sunday.

THE REST OF DAY THREE

The England innings had a shocking start when Tammy Beaumont in her last international innings suffered the only golden duck of her great career, bowled by an absolute beauty from Kranti Gaud. The Indians gave Beaumont a guard of honour as she left the field for the last time in international cricket. That brought the other retiree, Knight, to the crease. It was the other opener, Maia Bouchier, who was next to go, pinned LBW by the other Indian new ball bowler Sayali Satghare for 2. Off spinner Sneh Rana clean bowled England skipper Sciver-Brunt for 11 to make it 23-3. Fourth out was Knight, caught by Ghosh off Gaud for 13. Alice Capsey and Amy Jones showed signs of fighting spirit until Satghare found a way through Capsey’s defences, bowling her for 21. That brought in Mady Villiers, whose off spin had certainly been less effective than Charlie Dean’s would have been. Villiers did bat decently, but just before the close a freak catch by Ghosh did for her. Villiers hit a ball from Rana fiercely, Ghosh, close in at mid off, grabbed at the ball as it was passing her and it stuck. That was 126-6, and by the end of day three Jones and Ecclestone had added another four runs to the score.

THE LAST RITES

The powers that be had got one thing right yesterday: they had announced that admission would be free today, which meant that decent numbers showed up for what could end up being very little cricket. That eventuality gained in probability when Amy Jones was caught by Verma off Rana for 54 to make it 135-7 very early on. Jones had scored two fifties in the match, the first keeper to do so in a women’s test match, and at the time she was out they were the only two fifties for England in the match. Wong, who had had a poor time with the ball in this match, showed some heart by holding out for 33 balls in support of Ecclestone until Deepti Sharma bowled her for 1. That was 157-8, and not very long later it was 159-9, with Lauren Bell bowled by Sharma for a ten ball duck. Lauren Filer was in serious jeopardy of losing her wicket three times in her first five balls, but settled in to support Ecclestone who was batting well. Ecclestone’s innings included that rarity, an all-run four. This meant that when she reached 50 off her 61st ball care was needed – although there were seven fours in her 50 runs only six of them were actually boundaries (veteran commentator Alison Mitchell, from whom mistakes are usually rarer than hens teeth, was caught out by this detail). Then came Sneh Rana’s match ending delivery, and it remained only to settle Player of the Match. There were three candidates: Gaud for her five cheap wickets that tore apart the first England innings plus the scalps of Beaumont and Knight early in the final innings to put England right on the back foot; Bhatia for that century and her wicket keeping, and Mandhana who had scored twin fifties opening the batting for India. It was Kranti Gaud, who, rightly in my opinion, got the verdict.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…