A look at the women’s match between Manchester Super Giants and Trent Rockets in The Hundred today and a photo gallery.
Today in the Hundred the Manchester Super Giants are playing Trent Rockets. The women’s match has already happened, and this post looks back at it.
THE TRENT ROCKETS INNINGS
The home side won the toss and as everyone always seems to in this competition they chose to bowl first. Although the legend that is Beth Mooney failed on this occasion, bowled by Grace Ballinger for 2 that early setback was followed by a superb partnership between Sophia Dunkley and Sophie Luff who each topped 50. Luff went for 51, from just 26 balls, to a catch by Smriti Mandhana off Maitlan Brown. Dunkley scored 57 from 33 balls, falling to a catch by Ryana Macdonald-Gay off Sophie Ecclestone. The Super Giants bowlers arguably had the better of what was left of the innings, though Georgia Adams managed an unbeaten 20 from 13 balls to lift the Rockets score past 150. Most of the Rockets bowlers fared pretty poorly overall, though Ecclestone managed 2-24 from her 20 balls, and Ballinger had 1-21 from her full 2o balls.
THE MANCHESTER SUPER GIANTS RESPONSE
Manchester Super Giants never looked remotely like chasing that Rockets total down. Meg Lanning scored at the required rate, but could not get enough of the strike – she was out to the 72nd ball of the innings, which was her 24th, meaning that as an opening batter she had managed to face just one third of the number of balls bowled while she was at the crease. Kathryn Bryce hit successive fours to bring up the 100, making the ask 54 off 24 balls, but she was out to the very next ball and thereafter, apart from a couple of defiant sixes from the bat of Maitlan Brown it was one-way traffic, with the end coming when Ashleigh Gardner clean bowled Ballinger for a two ball duck to make it 122 all out from 93 balls, a win for Rockets by 31 runs. Sophia Dunkley was named Match Hero having pouched three catches to set alongside her score of 57. Scorecard here.
PHOTOGRAPHS
A common darter (four pics)a red dragonfly near the Gaywood River (I am not sure enough of my dragonflies to give the species of this one).This was discounted – £7 for a 750ml bottle, which is very cheap for olive oil in a British shop.
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.
A look at Perth Scorchers v Sydney Sixers in WBBL11 and a photo gallery.
The 11th edition of the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) is now under way. Today there was live commentary on game three, between Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers at the WACA. This post looks back at the match.
THE SCORCHERS INNINGS
Perth Scorchers won the toss and chose to bat. They started reasonably well, being 27-1 after four overs, and 37-1 after 4.3 overs. The fourth ball of that over saw the end of Beth Mooney just as she was starting to look really dangerous. From that point the game changed, as Sixers applied considerable pressure. First there was a period of 2.3 overs immediately after the dismissal in which a mere seven runs were scored, and then came catastrophe for the Scorchers. First Sophie Devine suffered a barely credible dismissal, officially stumped by Emma Manix-Geeves off Ash Gardner, when a) the ball hit the stumps by way of the keeper rather than due to any good work on her part and b) the wicket keeper gloved the stumps herself without possession of the ball, but the ball had hit the stumps before her gloves did. That eventually brought Paige Scholfield to the crease, she immediately hit her first ball straight back to Gardner to make it 44-4. Freya Kemp now came in, and in company with Mikayala Hinkley seemed to be steadying the ship. Then Hinkley, who had made her to 31, was well caught by Coimhe Bray off Ellyse Perry (a transgenerational dismissal, Perry being 35 and Bray 16) to make it 83-5, which became 83-6 when DRS confirmed that Chloe Ainsworth’s pad was indeed in front of the stumps when her first ball thumped into it. Five balls later Freya Kemp became the third player dismissed with the score on 83 when Gardner bowled her for 16 with a peach of a yorker. That left Lilly Mills and Alana King together at the crease. Mills batted busily and effectively for a time, until Gardner struck yet again. First Mills was caught behind for 13, and then after Amy Edgar had scored a single off the next ball Alana King fell to a return catch for 5 to make it 102-9 and give Gardner her fifth wicket of the innings. The over ended without further incident, but Gardner, captaining the Sixers for the first tine, had recorded figures of 4-0-15-5, the best ever for the Sydney Sixers. Edgar and number 11 Ebony Hoskin did manage to take the Scorchers innings into the final over, before a second fine catch of the innings by Bray accounted for Edgar to make it 109 all out. On this occasion Bray’s seamers were surplus to requirement, but she had been worth her place purely as a fielder.
THE SIXERS INNINGS
A total of 109 was miles short of anything remotely defensible on a good surface (which this was), and an upset never looked likely. Sixers opening pair of Ellyse Perry and Sophia Dunkley made an easy task look quite ridiculously so. It took the pair a mere 12.5 overs to take their side to a ten wicket victory. Dunkley scored 61 not out from 40 balls with five sixes and four fours and Perry had 57 not out from 37 balls with nine fours. It remained only for Gardner, skipper and record breaking bowler for the Sixers, to be named Player of the Match as she duly was.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
A ‘waning gibbous’ moon in the morning sky.A squirrel tackles a large tree.looking down from in the branches.the lookout squirrel
A look at goings on in the Hundred 2024 so far and a large photo gallery.
The most controversial competition in cricket, The Hundred, is under way for 2024. This post looks at some of what has happened already.
THE HUNDRED 2024
The Hundred got underway on Tuesday, and there was also action on Wednesday and Thursday, and will be more today.
Tuesday saw the Oval Invincibles successful in both the women’s and men’s games.
On Wednesday Southern Brave and London Spirit were the contending teams. London Spirit won the women’s match, largely thanks to a superb 65* from Heather Knight. Tilly Corteen-Coleman, making her Hundred debut at the age of just 16 had a dream start when she dismissed Meg Lanning with her second ball, holding a fine return catch to do so.
Yesterday was the turn of Manchester Originals and Welsh Fire. In the women’s match it looked at one point like the Originals could defend a total of 113, but Sophia Dunkley stepped on the accelerator at the crucial moment, turning a questionable looking 37* (34) into an indubitably match winning 69* (47).
The Men’s game embarrassingly one-sided, as an appalling batting performance from the Originals saw them tumble to 37-7. They recovered from there to post 86-8 from their 100 balls, but Welsh Fire made that total look absolutely as derisory as it was, never looking in any trouble at any stage of the chase.
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