2 high profile retirements in the women's game

Aimee Watkins, the New Zealand Women's Captain, retired last week at the age of just 28. It would be interesting to know what she's up to next given her early retirement.

At a more apt age for retirement (although only 2 years older than me!), England's Claire Taylor has also retired. Back in 2009 she was the first female Wisden Player of the Year and she's been critical to England's middle order for over a decade, but fortunately her retirement coincides with Lydia Greenway's excellent form that saw her named England Women's Player of the Year.

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.

England women go to India without Colvin

Both Claire Taylor and Holly Colvin are missing England Women's tour to India and both a big absentees, but given Indian conditions, the loss of Colvin could well be the greater. As world number 1, the Indian tour looks like a potential banana skin - fingers crossed they can break their duck there.

Aldworth's place in history

Interesting to see that The World Cup's leading runscorer Claire Taylor attributes part of her success to the distraction of playing the violin for Aldworth's Philharmonic Orchestra. Now Aldworth is a village well known to most fellow burblers and if you visit its ground on Google's satellite photo you can actually see players on the pitch (not in position so probably just about to start play). I haven't found any other pitch with players on it yet.

New Zealand make women's final

The good news is that Australia won't be in the final to play against England in the Women's World Cup after New Zealand scored of massive 373 against West Indies and won by 223 runs. The bad news is that England lost comprehensively to Australia, after being bowled out for 161.

They key to Sunday's final? It's all about how the top order fares. If England don't get early wickets, New Zealand have shown they can post big scores. And likewise New Zealand will know that if they can get past England's top order, in particular Claire Taylor, then England's middle order looks a little fragile.

Fingers crossed!

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.