Women's cricket on the up despite the Test loss to India

 

You may or may not have noticed that it's been announced that the England women's rugby 7s team squad has turned professional, following in the footsteps of the England women's cricket team.   Isn't it great that women's sport is finally starting to catch up in some of the traditionally male dominated team sports!   Good to know my girls will have the option to play rugby or cricket professionally if they're good enough and if they choose to!

To get an idea of just how far women's cricket has come over the last couple of decades this interview with Clare Connor and Charlotte Edwards is a good read.   It's clearly not ideal that they lost their first Test as pros to India, but things are going in the right direction.   The next challenge for England's women is to make sure the handover between Charlotte Edwards and her successor - whenever that may be - is as smooth as the handover from Connor to Edwards.

England Women's team in match loss shocker!

The England Women's team rarely lose, so it was a complete shock that they lost yesterday to India, thanks to a masterful knock by Indian captain Mithali Raj.   I'm sure they'll bounce back and it's no bad thing that they're getting pushed.   Charlotte Edwards, recently made a life member of the MCC, will no doubt be desperate to get back in the runs having missed out in her last few innings.

Lottie Edwards under-rated

Sticking on the women's cricket theme, when I watched England women at Hove last year there were mutterings from those around me that Charlotte "Lottie" Edwards MBE was losing it and that she might not remain England skipper for long. A good tour of Australia - allbeit without being able to bring back the Ashes - and that sort of talk is hopefully long forgotten. I recently suggested that Jacques Kallis was dramatically under-rated and the same could be said for Charlotte Edwards.

Not only has she played exceptionally well over a very long period, as this article at The Spin explains, but she's revered by her team mates and all those in and around the women's game.

Captain or not (and she surely will be for quite a while yet), at only just 31 she's hopefully still got many years of international cricket to play - it's just that people assume she's older because she's been around so long having started at 16. However the rest of her career turns out, it's already an amazing one....long may it continue.

New Zealand women complete series win

I made it down to Hove today to watch most of the New Zealand v England Twenty20 decider and sadly England were never really in with a shout after a stodgy start to their innings. Sarah Taylor's wicket - bowled from a short ball that looked like it should have got higher than it did - really set England back as she'd taken 20 balls to make 7, and Claire Taylor looked out of form. Charlotte Edwards played a couple of nice on drives but she fell for 19 (which turned out to be top score) and England just couldn't get any momentum into their chase.

I can't claim to know each player's game inside out, but they seemed to be crying out for someone to come in and look to strike boundaries as the required scoring rate increased and on the evidence of today Katherine Brunt was wasted down at number 9. Only when she came in did they look capable of scoring at more than one a ball - the likes of Lydia Greenaway and Danielle Wyatt helped to bring some urgency into the faltering innings, but they didn't appear capable of hitting their way out of trouble and were a bit reverse-sweep obsessed.

Brunt also performed well with the ball on her 25th birthday, taking 1 for 11 from her 4 overs, and Danielle Hazell got 3 for 16 from her four, but New Zealand got away when Nicola Browne came in at 6 and scored 22 off 14 balls when she came in at the end of the 14th over. And although 124 should have been within reach, it proved to be too much for England to chase down and they ended up losing by 9 runs.

England will be determined to prove that their batting isn't as brittle as it appeared today in the 5 match ODI series that starts a week on Saturday at Taunton.

Two great England captains

Differing stories about two great England captains in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, the Guardian ran an interesting piece about Charlotte Edwards, giving the background as to how she became captain of the all-conquering England women's team. (I hope they are still all-conquering after the one game Ashes series coming up!)

And this morning, rumours abound that Michael Vaughan will retire. This Cricinfo article suggests he will retire from international cricket, but the BBC are reporting that he'll retire from all first-class cricket. I can't say I'm surprised - he's struggled with his knee again, and I didn't ever really believe him when he said he'd be playing next season whether he was picked by England or not.

England women lead the way

It's great to see the England women do so well so far in the Women's World Cup - I hope burbling about their success to date doesn't curse them (I was holding off until I felt sure they'd reach the final!). So far they've seen off Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and most recently New Zealand. And, possibly crucially, Australia are struggling to make it out of the super six stage and into the final - there are no semi-finals, it's just the top 2 that reach the final. Australia's loss to India, a side they beat 5-0 only in November, puts them under a lot of pressure and they may potentially have to settle for the 3rd/4th playoff.

England's latest win against New Zealand was their closest fought to date and could well be a reharsal for the final. The spinners showed the way with Holly Colvin and Laura Marsh (who shook off learning that Mark Davis has a crush on her very professionally) leading, more than ably supported by Charlotte Edwards who followed up her 57 with the bat with 4-37 with the ball. It's great to hear that on of the reasons for England's success so far has been electric fielding - so often fielding is underestimated as a match-winning skill behind batting and bowling. Not that either of the other suits are weak - Claire Taylor averages 94 and Caroline Atkins averages 77 with the bat, and Laura Marsh is top wicket taker and second most economical bowler.

I think it's brilliant the way the women's game is developing and it would be great to see England go on and win the World Cup after they retained The Ashes last year. (Should that be a capital T on "The Ashes"?) The current table shows that England are dominating and they will inevitably have 8 points after they have played West Indies on Tuesday as they are really struggling without a super six point.

Even assuming Australia beat Pakistan in the next match of the tournament, it could be impossible for them to get through now - Cricinfo describe their World Cup defence as "virtually over". New Zealand still have to play India and the winner of that match still has a further match against one of the two bottom sides - West Indies and Pakistan, so the highly likely result is that either New Zealand or India will finish on 8 points - enough to see Australia out of the tournament.

From an England point of view, here's hoping.

Awards....

The ICC awards have been announced. I wonder if Test batsman around the world would really prefer to face Ryan Sidebottom than Stuart Clark? It seems Sidebottom got the nod for the World Test team of the year.

And England have another award to celebrate in that Charlotte Edwards won the women's cricketer of the year.

KP was also in the Test team too - no surprises - but missed out on selection for the ODI team. The only other person who may have been interested in the awards from an England perspective is Stuart Broad, given that Yuvraj Singh won the first ever Twenty20 performance award on the basis of hitting Broad for six 6s in an over!

England Vice-Captain Laura Newton retires

The English women's cricket team has lost it's vice-captain to retirement - another player struggling to mix the huge demands of international cricket without any money as recompense . Laura Newton is only 29 but the demands of international cricket don't balance with the rewards for her any more. “It has been an extremely difficult decision for me to make but the demands of being an England cricketer require a sacrifice I am no longer able to undertake from this point onwards. Playing cricket for England has given me wonderful experiences, opportunities and memories that I will treasure for the rest of my life," Newton said.

Newton opened the batting for England having originally started as a middle order batsman and captained the Super 4s team, as well as vice-captaining with both Lancashire and England. She made her test debut in 1999 against India and since then has become a regular in the Test and ODI sides, despite a relatively low average of 20.

She contributed a lot in the field as well as with her bowling where she started out as a medium pacer but recently converted to bowling off-spin, bowling very effectively in the most-recent series in India.

England will announce a new vice-captain in due course, but the loss of an experienced player will be of great concern to England skipper Charlotte Edwards as she faces the prospect of leading an inexperienced side to Australia for the Ashes series next year.