Tag: Suzie Bates

The Final of The Women’s T20 World Cup

An account of yesterday’s final of the Women’s T20 World Cup and a large photo gallery.

Yesterday the final of the Women’s T20 World Cup took place, with the contending sides being New Zealand and South Africa. This post looks back at the match.

THE PRELIMINARIES

South Africa won the toss and chose to bowl first. New Zealand would undoubtedly have chosen to bat first anyway – they had done well doing so in this tournament – so both sides were happy with things at this stage. Neither side made any changes to their sides that had won the semi-finals, which meant that Suzannah Wilson Bates, aka Suzie Bates, became the most capped female international cricketer ever, winning her 334th cap across formats (sadly, due to NZ unwillingness to play test cricket, a format they last appeared in in 2004, across formats in her case means ODIs and T20s).

THE NEW ZEALAND INNINGS

New Zealand have been notable (as indeed have South Africa) for bucking the usual trend in this tournament of batting cautiously. They had South Africa’s splendid chase against Australia in that semi-final as a reminder of what might happen if they failed to put up a decent total. The started excellently, enjoying the best Power Play that any side had had against South Africa all tournament long. Bates set the tone for New Zealand, scoring off most of the deliveries she received. Once the Bates/ Plimmer opening stand was broken with the score at 16, Amelia Kerr joined the fray, and made good use of her speed between the wickets. At 53 in the eighth over Bates was dismissed, and when skipper Devine was out for 6 to make it 70-3 just past the halfway mark. Brooke Halliday now joined Kerr, and they, helped by some South African indiscipline with the ball (the Proteas sent down too many wides and no-balls) upped the tempo very effectively. Halliday was the chief scorer in a fourth wicket stand that raised 57 runs in seven overs, scoring a T20I best of 38 from 28 balls (how’s that for rising to a big occasion?). The tempo increased further in the last 16 balls of the innings. Kerr was dismissed for 43 off 38 balls with the score at 141. Maddy Green and Isabella Gaze, the Kiwi keeper, scored 17 together off the last seven balls of the innings, helped by some less than stellar South African fielding (the two they scored off the last ball of the innings for example were more or less a gift). New Zealand’s total of 158-5 looked useful. For the record South Africa bowled three no balls and ten wides or to put it another way, 2.1 overs worth of extra deliveries.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPLY

Wolvaardt and Brits started extremely brightly, ending the Power Play still together and with 47 runs on the board, putting them just up with the required rate. There had been a brief worry for New Zealand when Kerr did not take the field at the start of the innings, but she was on by the second over. Left arm spinner Fran Jonas got Brits with the penultimate ball of the seventh over to make it 51-1. It was the tenth over, bowled by Kerr with her leg spin, that first swung things New Zealand’s way. With the first ball thereof Kerr had Wolvaardt caught by Bates, to become the leading wicket taker of the tournament outright (she had been tied with South African left arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba on 12 wickets until that point). With the sixth ball of that same over, she found the edge of Anneke Bosch’s bat and Gaze took the catch behind the stumps. This was initially given not out, but sent upstairs, and Ultra Edge fairly speedily revealed a tell tale spike. This wicket made Kerr the all time leading wicket taker at any single edition of this tournament. That was 64-3, and a huge psychological blow given that Bosch had been the star of South Africa’s semi-final triumph. Marizanne Kapp and Nadine de Klerk cobbled together a stand of 13, but then both fell in rapid succession. First Kapp was caught by Plimmer off Eden Carson, the off spinner whose delighted laughter in post match interviews had become a feature of the tournament. Then Rosemary Mair, the tall seamer who had taken four-for in New Zealand’s first game of the tournament, had de Klerk caught by Kerr. In the the space of two balls, the last of the 12th over and the first of the 13th, 77-3 had become 77-5. Chloe Tryon (a noted six hitter but not in great form) and Sune Luus were now together. They added 20, but South Africa were by then falling alarmingly far behind the required rate. For the 16th over Devine played a wild card – she tossed the ball to the rarely used Halliday. Halliday’s first delivery was a ghastly wide, the second was also not a great ball, but Halliday and Devine’s luck was in – Luus succeeded only in sending it into the hands of Bates at cover and that was 97-6, and 62 needed off 29 balls. Annerie Dercksen, like Tryon a noted big hitter, and with some recent form behind her, came to the crease with miracles required. Dercksen made it into double figures, though not terribly spectacularly. The 18th over was the last of Kerr’s four overs, and off the third ball of it Dercksen hit a catch to Bates, and the third time of the innings the veteran’s hands proved safe to make it 111-7. Kerr’s last three balls were uneventful, and she finished with 4-0-24-3 to set alongside her 43 with the bat and a catch. No one had ever previously combined 40+ runs and 3+ wickets in a knockout match at women’s T20 world cup. The 19th over was given to Rosemary Mair, her fourth and last. Chloe Tryon went for a big hit off the first ball of it, as dictated by circumstances, but was well caught by Maddy Green. That was 117-8, 42 needed off 11 balls. Sinalo Jafta and Nonkululeko Mlaba added three runs together before the fifth ball of the same over, a beauty, got through Jafta’s defences and hit her stumps to make it 120-9. Mair finished with 4-0-25-3, and 38 were needed off the final over. With all pressure now removed it was Carson to bowl. South Africa avoided being all out, but only six runs accrued from that final over, giving New Zealand a win by 32 runs. Player of the Match was straightforward, since Kerr had both the highest individual score of the game and the best bowling figures of the game. With 135 runs and 15 wickets across the tournament Kerr was also the proverbial shoo-in for Player of the Tournament. South Africa skipper Laura Wolvaardt, who had impressed leading her side in the field and was the tournament’s leading run scorer was probably the least distant challenger to Kerr. For New Zealand skipper Devine this was a laying of an old ghost – on the last ball of the 2010 final Ellyse Perry’s boot stopped a fiercely struck shot from Devine that had it reached the boundary would have taken the match to a super over. It was also a remarkable turn around for New Zealand from a few months ago, when they toured England, and if anyone then had predicted that they would be lifting a world cup a few months later most followers of the game would have had a good laugh at the would-be Nostradamus’ expense. South Africa’s wait to lift the ultimate prize goes on, but they too deserve immense credit for the way they played this tournament. Scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

The Autism Acceptance ‘just a cuppa’ group now has its own lego marked for its exclusive use.
These snail pictures come from Saturday evening when there was some brief sunshine after most of a day of rain.
These last two pictures are from today…
…with this one, of a spider that has just nabbed its next meal being the feature image.

100 Cricketers: 4th XI Numbers 3,4 and 5

A continuation of my “100 cricketers” series, dealing with numbers 3,4 and 5 in my 4th XI and containing some photographs and a bonus feature.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my “100 cricketers” series, dealing numbers 3,4 and 5 in my 4th XI. Having taken the bowlers out of position for reasons made clear in that post I will be finishing the 4th XI with the all-rounders, in which post I will also introduce the 5th XI. The introductory post to the whole series can be found here, and the post in which I introduce the 4th XI here. We go straight to the business area of the post today with…

SUZIE BATES

I have commented before on the lack of test cricket played by the women, and the fact that Suzie Bates has played none of this form of the game (though over 100 times in each of ODIs and T20Is) demonstrates this point starkly. Her averages are the right way round however, and both are very respectable (42.64 in ODIs and 30.69 in T20Is). Her right-arm medium pace is very much secondary to her batting, but averages of 33.29 per wicket in ODIs and 24.67 per wicket in T20Is show that it is not entirely negligible. She has 10 ODI centuries to her credit with a best of 168. 

BRIAN LARA

The only man ever to hold world records for the highest test and first-class individual scores simultaneously, and the only one to set the world test record twice (375 at Antigua in 1994 and 400 not out at Antigua again in 2004, Matthew Hayden having battered 380 against Zimbabwe at Perth in the meantime, being his two test records – I heard commentary on both, England being the victims on each occasion, the latter of which still stands, as does the 501 not out he scored for Warwickshire against Durham in 1994). A caveat against these three huge scores is that all came in drawn matches – the team had no opportunity to push for the win. In the case of the Warwickshire innings he actually asked his captain not to declare as he fancied going for the record (this is one of the incidents recorded by said captain, Dermot Reeve, in his book Winning Ways). The pitch at St Johns where he played the other two innings (the second match was relocated there after the brand spanking new Sir Viv Richards stadium was discovered to be unfit for play) is notorious for its flatness, to the extent that it has been joked that the prisoners who help to prepare it (it adjoins the prison) should made to bowl on their creations since they are supposed to be being punished.

However, Lara has also played a number of high quality match-winning innings in all forms of the game. He remains the West Indies leading test run scorer with 11,953, just ahead of Shivnarine Chanderpaul who racked up 11,867 in his very different style.

V V S LAXMAN

After his amazing 281 which, helped by 180 from Rahul Dravid and some excellent off-spin bowling from Harbhajan Singh turned the Kolkata 2001 test match on its head, leading only the third (and at the time of writing last) occasion on which a team following on went on to win a match (Sydney 1894, England victorious by 10 runs and Headling 1981, England beating Australia by 18 runs were the other two) it was said that those initials stand Very Very Special – actually they stand for Vangipurappu Venkata Sai. Undoubtedly that V V S was the best recognised set of initials post “W G” (these stand alone and unchallengable as the most recognisable initials in sporting, never mind cricket history) until A B De Villiers and M S Dhoni came along. 

Only one of my top five in this XI is left handed – Lara, but as you will see when I deal with the two I selected as all-rounders there is still a frontline left handed batter to come.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND LINKS

When I saw a post on whyevolutionistrue titled “An Underground Map of Science” I was naturally intrigued at a juxtaposition of two favourites. I reproduce the map below, linking to the WEIT post, and the original map, from crispian.net can be viewed here (requires scrolling as it is bigger than the screen).

scimap.jpg

I conclude this post with some of my own photographs:

P1210952P1210955P1210956P1210957P1210958P1210959P1210960P1210961P1210962P1210964P1210965P1210966P1210968P1210971

Super Sunday At The Womens World Cup

An account of Super Sunday at the womens World Cup.

INTRODUCTION

Today featured no fewer than four matches in the womens cricket World Cup. I have been listening to radio commentaries and following the action on cricinfo. 

SOUTH AFRICA V WEST INDIES

This was about as conclusive a victory as I have ever witnessed. First of all South Africa blew the West Indies away for 48. Marizanne Kapp took four wickets, but the most remarkable performance came from Dane Van Niekerk who matched Kapp’s four wickets, but took hers without conceding a run. South Africa then took a mere 6.2 of their possible 50 overs to knock the runs off. Cricinfo have recently started providing video clips, and below is a two minute video showing the West Indies collapse.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/1108001.html

INDIA V PAKISTAN

This was the damp squib of the four matches – India limped to 169-9 from their 50 overs and then Pakistan were bowled out for 74 in response, only getting that many courtesy of a 23 run last wicket stand.

ENGLAND V SRI LANKA

Sri Lanka batted first, and managed 204-8. Fran Wilson took an amazing catch along the way (see link below). Laura Marsh returning to the England side took 4-45 from her ten overs, while Katherine Brunt and Anya Shrubsole both bowled well without picking up wickets.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc-womens-world-cup-2017/engine/match/1085953.html

Both openers were out fairly cheaply, Tammy Beaumont for 12 and Lauren Winfield, returning from injury, for 26. A big stand between Sarah Taylor and Heather Knight then took England to the brink of victory, before Knight was out for 82. A crunching boundary straight down the ground from Taylor completed the job, leaving her with 74 not out off 67 balls, and England winners by seven wickets with almost 20 overs to spare. At the other end, not having faced a ball, was Natalie Sciver, fresh from scoring 137 off 92 balls against Pakistan.

AUSTRALIA V NEW ZEALAND

Half centuries from Bates and Perkins got New Zealand to a total of 219-9. For Australia Mooney and Bolton were out fairly cheaply, before Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry shared a good partnership. 16 year old legspinner Amelia Kerr created a bit of excitement when she accounted for Lanning and Elyse Villani in successive deliveries to make it 143-4, but Alex Blackwell was her usual unflappable self, and New Zealand gained only one more wicket, when with the scores level Ellyse Perry holed out for 71. Perry, having started out as a fast bowler who gave it a whack down the order has developed into the most complete all-rounder of either sex currently playing the game – she bats at number four, averaging over 50, and takes the new ball and (in limited overs matches) bowls at the death. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

None pof the four matches were especially close, but three of them featured quality cricket from various players, and I was pleased to see matches being played concurrently, because one reason why mens world cups always seem so interminable is that in deference to the TV people this does not happen.