Tag: Mahika Gaur

Welsh Fire Gored by a Gaur

Yesterday afternoon the Welsh Fire and Manchester Originals women’s teams clashed in Cardiff. This post looks back at a command performance from the Manchester Originals bowlers.

THE GAUR CHARGE

Welsh Fire battled first, and Mahika Gaur opened the bowling for Manchester Originals. The Hundred allows bowlers to bowl as many as ten balls straight through before another bowler comes on (more usually five, but bowlers do sometimes bowl ten straight through). Gaur not only bowled the first ten balls straight through, she then came back after the minimum five balls off and bowled another ten straight through, thereby getting through her entire allocation within the Power Play (the first 25 balls of the innings). Gaur took 2-10 from those 20 balls (the five that she didn’t bowl were bowled by Sophie Ecclestone). Fire were 12-2 from those 25 balls, and already looking at a tough task. The rest of the bowlers were also highly impressive. England quickie Lauren Filer emerged with statistically the best figures of the innings, 3-8 from her full allocation of 20 balls, while Ecclestone had 2-11 from her full 20. Only Amelia Kerr 0-24 from 20 and Danielle Gregory with 0-7 from five went for over a run a ball. In the end Fire limped to 73-9 from their 100 balls, after which there was only ever going to be one result, which duly arrived with seven wickets and 19 balls to spare. The Manchester Originals bowlers were superb, but the Welsh Fire batters deserve some censure – of the 60 balls bowled by the trio of Gaur, Ecclestone and Filer, 41 (68.33% of the total) were dot balls, which is frankly ridiculous in this format. Mahika Gaur whose history making performance in becoming the first ever bowler to bowl 20 of the first 25 balls of a Hundred match was put the skids under the Fire was named Player of the Match. About the titles of both this post and the main body of it, the gaur is a species of Asian wild cattle, and the bulls in particular are known for being both immensely strong and very aggressive. Scorecard here, plus a jpg below.

PICTURE GALLERY

This comes from today at work, where I passed the halfway stage in my creation of day one of a two day stamp sale…

England v Sri Lanka Mismatch

A brief account of today’s very brief ODI between the England and Sri Lanka women’s teams, and a photo gallery.

The first ODI of the England v Sri Lanka women’s series has come to a very premature end, with England winning by seven wickets with 32 overs (of a possible 50) unused in their innings. This post looks back at the match.

A DAY OF THREES

England fielded three ODI debutants, Mahika Gaur, Lauren Filer and Maia Bouchier. In Sri Lanka’s beggarly 106 all out three bowlers each took three wickets – Gaur, Filer and Sarah Glenn. England lost three wickets in their successful run chase, and the third debutant, Maia Boucher was on 17* (17) at the end, meaning that all three debutants had reasons to be proud of their performances.

AMY JONES SETS NEW RECORD

England induced a number of edges, meaning that wicket keeper Amy Jones was often in action. She held five catches, the first England keeper to do so in a Women’s ODI.

SPLITTING THREE-FORS

Mahika Gaur was named Player of the Match for her 3-26. Her three-for was more significant than those of Filer and Glenn (though Filer was particularly impressive) because it included both openers, one of whom, Chamari Athapaththu, is unquestionably the prize wicket whenever Sri Lanka women are batting. Gaur’s new ball burst, the first by an England woman on debut since Isa Guha in 2001 (before Guha, Sue Redfern, involved in this match as on-field umpire, also took the new ball on England ODI debut).

BATTING HIGHLIGHTS

In such a low scoring affair there were naturally few batting highlights. Only two players in the match managed as many as 30 – Harshitha Samarawickrama scored 35 for Sri Lanka, offering the only real resistance on show during their innings and Tammy Beaumont, back at the top of the order for England after not being selected for the T20I series, scored a punchy 32, being the only player on either side to have an SR above 100. Emma Lamb with 27 and Heather Knight with 22 also made useful contributions for England, and Nat Sciver-Brunt was batting alongside Bouchier at the end.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

This is a new butterfly sighting for me…
…a closer up view here. Though the wings are partially closed I can see enough to see that when open they are orange with black markings, and this species is small in size for a butterfly.

England Women’s Squads For Upcoming Series Against Sri Lanka

A look at the England Women’s squads for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka and a huge photo gallery.

This post looks at the England Women’s Squads for the ODI and T20I series against Sri Lanka.

THE SQUADS

These are the squads courtesy of the cricket section of the BBC website:

T20: Heather Knight (captain), Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Charlie Dean, Lauren Filer, Mahika Gaur, Danielle Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Bess Heath, Amy Jones, Freya Kemp, Issy Wong, Danielle Wyatt.

ODI: Heather Knight (captain) Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Charlie Dean, Lauren Filer, Mahika Gaur, Danielle Gibson, Sarah Glenn, Bess Heath, Amy Jones, Emma Lamb, Nat Sciver-Brunt.

THOUGHTS ON THE SQUADS

Sophie Ecclestone is being rested for these series on grounds of workload management, which is also why Nat Sciver-Brunt is only playing the ODI series. Beaumont in spite of her recent record breaking innings in The Hundred remains out of favour in T20Is. Among the inclusions the biggest news is the presence in both squads of Mahika Gaur, a 17 year old pace bowler. The T20I squad offers the possibility of all three of Gaur, Lauren Filer and Issy Wong playing together which would be quite something. There is also a maiden call up for Bess Heath, a 21 year old wicket keeper who will be second in line behind Amy Jones. I am not a fan of this particular selection – I would have preferred to see Rhianna Southby or Eleanor Threlkeld got this spot. Overall I am happy enough with these selections, and I am confident that England can win both series.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I have a large photo gallery to finish with…

This sequence of pictures illustrate amply why I have dubbed this structure “Cormorant Platform”.