England Women secure victory in Adelaide
January 12, 2011 by Lizzy Ammon
Filed under News
Lydia Greenway demonstrated the virtue of experience with a calm innings to lead England to a four-wicket victory in the first T20i against Australia with 10 balls to spare.
Greenway made an unbeaten 39 from just 27 balls (with four fours and a six) to help England bounce back from the 2-1 ODI series defeat against the same opposition.
A combination of a weakened bowling attack and some disappointing fielding left England chasing an above par score of 140 (the average score for women’s T20 is 125). With leading seamers Katherine Brunt and Jenny Gunn both out with injury, England were relaint on the their spinners. They paid the price for some dropped catches, too, as Alex Blackwell and Lisa Sthalekar added 58 in just eight overs.
England started positively in reply. Charlotte Edwards struck the first two balls for four, though she soon fell after mis-timing a reverse sweep.
The lack of experience in England’s middle-order hardly seemed relevant. Despite missing Claire and Sarah Taylor, the visitors played a range of convincing attacking shots and rotated the strike effectively. Sthalekar applied the brake in the middle overs of the innings, but sixes by Lydia Greenway and Lisa Rowe put England back on track.
Australia fought hard throughout England’s innings but, like England, made a number of very costly mistakes in the field including misfields at crucial points and a missed stumping from Healey.
A perfect yorker by Coyte gave Australia hope when she removed Heather Wilson in the 17th over, but Greenway ‘s calm head saw England home.
England complete series win in front of dismal audience at Cardiff
September 7, 2010 by George Dobell
Filed under Lead Story, News
By Gemma Wright
It comes to something when crowd noise has to be piped into the ground during an international T20. But that is what happened at the Swalec Stadium during the second and final match in this series. An embarrassingly poor crowd witnessed England skittle out Pakistan for 89, their lowest ever T20 total by 34 runs.
But it would be a shame if this game were only remembered for a flat atmosphere and dismal Pakistan performance.
England were very impressive. Their performance with the ball was disciplined, organised and, best of all, predictably good. Broad bowled with pace and hostility, Yardy – whose four-over spell cost just 10 – was typically mean, while Bresnan earned the man of the match award for his three for 10 in 22 balls.
By contrast, however, Pakistan were awful. Their captain, Shahid Afridi conceded that his side had played “very bad, immature cricket.” He also admitted that the three suspended players were part of the first 11 that he had in his mind before coming over to captain the limited-overs side.
England did not have things all their own way in reply. Kieswetter ran himself out after a bright start, while Bopara failed to take his chance and Collingwood’s run-drought continues. His 21 here was his highest score in 11 T20 innings and it was again left to Yardy and Morgan to see England home. They have now equalled the record for the most successive wins – 7 – in international T20 cricket.
Tougher challenges await, however. Pakistan are in chaos at present.
On the positive side, England’s bowling attack is looking strong, and with a player of Jimmy Anderson’s class on the bench, it says a lot about those on the pitch. Collingwood is pleased at how well his bowlers work together, and the way they have adapted to the change in the pitch here.
Once again, it seems the action on the pitch is of far less importance or significance than what is happening around it. It is a desperate situation when the World T20 champions play last years’ champions in England’s second T20 since their win in the Caribbean to a meagre audience of 5,821. It cannot even be argued that Pakistan fans have lost faith in their team, as it was not a predominantly English audience. With ticket prices starting at £30 for the ‘cheap’ seats, that works out at £10 per hour of cricket.
After the game, Collingwood commented that there is an overkill of international cricket. “I’ve been saying that for ten years. But you get on with it. We’re are not going to complain at the minute because we are going through some good times, but that will not always be the case.”
Morgan punishes Shoaib’s errors in Cardiff
September 5, 2010 by George Dobell
Filed under Lead Story, News
By Gemma Wright
Anyone can have a funny five minutes. Even Lenny Henry.
But Shoaib Aktar’s ‘funny spell’ in the first T20 international in
Cardiff had a more dramatic impact than most. By dropping a simple
chance offered by Eoin Morgan, of all people, when the batsman had
just 13, he allowed England to run away with a game that had
previously been in the balance. Shoaib also fumbled a routine ball in
the field to gift England a boundary. In a low-scoring contest, such
margins are vital.
Those few minutes swung the game back in England’s favour. A
mid-innings wobble had left them tottering on 62 for 5 after 10
overs. Had Akhtar held on to the chance offered by Morgan, England
would have been 72 for six and Pakistan would have been into the
lower-order of a team that – without Kevin Pietersen – looked one
batsman short.
It wasn’t Pakistan’s only lapse in the field. Kamran Akmal reprieved
Yardy when the batsman had 13, while a number of run-out chances were
also squandered. When Shahid Afridi admitted afterwards that Pakistan
needed to spend more time practising their fielding, it was hard to
wonder why they haven’t done so previously. It’s hardly breaking news
that it’s poor, is it?
As it was, however, the two World T20 winners, Morgan (38 from 36
balls, with six fours) and Yardy (35 from 27 with four balls), added
67 from 43 balls to secure victory for England. Winning by five
wickets and 2.5 overs is, in this format of the game, is a comfortable
margin.
Pakistan had started pretty. Despite being inserted on a slow wicket,
Shahzaib Hasan and Mohammad Yousuf prospered against the seam bowlers.
As so often in the World T20, it was England’s spinners, Yardy and
Swann, who stemmed the flow of runs. They conceded just 35 runs from
their eight overs, at one stage delivering five overs without
conceding a boundary. By contrast, Saeed Ajmal, Pakistan’s specialist
spinner, conceded 30 from just three overs. Only a couple of dropped
chances from Tim Bresnan and Luke Wright blotted an otherwise
excellent performance in the field from England.
In many ways, it was as if nothing has changed since the Caribbean
World T20. As captain Paul Collingwood put it later, England have “a
strategy that seems to be working.” The bowling attack was the same
as that employed in the final, while Davies, who kept nicely and ran
between the wickets impressively, showed enough to suggest he has a
decent future at this level.
In contrast, Pakistan were once again below par in the field, though
Mohammed Yousuf, running backwards from mid-on to dismiss Bopara, took
an excellent catch.
Still, at least the match took place. At the end of one of the most
controversial weeks in cricket’s recent history, the taking part was
more important than the result.
You couldn’t completely escape the match fixing controversy however. Shahid Afridi, while attempting to take the heat out of the situation dismissed Yasir Hameed comments by saying ‘he may be 30/31, but mentally he is 15 or 16. He is unreliable.’
ICC World T20 highlights on terrestrial TV in UK
May 31, 2009 by SPIN
Filed under ICC World Twenty20, News
The BBC has signed a deal to broadcast daily TV highlights of the ICC World Twenty20.
BBC2 will show highlights of the England-Netherlands game – the tournament curtain-raiser – at 11.35 on Friday, with daily highlights at a similar time throughout the tournament. The tournament is to be screened live on Sky Sports in the UK.
The BBC attracted widespread criticism for its failure to bid for live cricket in the last round of rights negotiations last summer. ECB sources suggested that the BBC had, simply, decided to focus its budget and airtime on its new Formula 1 coverage rather than to take on Sky in a cricket-rights battle.
However, the Corporation belatedly pitched in for rights to the 17-day tournament – but has declined to publicise the fact widely, allowing information to sneak out in a weirdly lowkey fashion.
It will be the first time Twenty20 has been shown on terrestrial television in the UK.
Details of the coverage are unconfirmed, though it is likely that the BBC would go with the same presenting team as it used in its last foray into televised cricket, during the 2006/07 Ashes/World Cup winter. Main presenter Manish Bhasin and roving reporter Richi Persad attracted criticism for their informal style – not least from our own TV critic the Third Umpire – but it seems that they may be given another chance, with extra input from some of the BBC Five Live commentators and summarisers.
