Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

A very odd women's series came to a close today as Uganda finish their T20 tour of Nepal.

Surprisingly it was Uganda who claimed the series 3-2, however some of the biggest margins of victory came in those two games in which Nepal prevailed.

Jyoti Pandey was the stand out player for Nepal with the bat and she registered the two highest scores of the series. Thr second highest was 47 in Thursday's loss and she finished with 49 today in the most convincing Nepalese victory as they walked out winners by 33 runs.

For victorious Uganda it was Concy Aweko who was the most consistent bowler. She finished with 9 wickets and the tournaments best figures of 3-13 in yesterday's 25 run loss.

just days after Jamie Overton almost became only the second England player to take a wicket and score a century (WG Grace being the first), today Alice Davidson-Richards did just that in her first test taking the wicket of de Klerk and then notching up 107 in the reply

What an innings from Harmanpreet today! Just watching those shots today - she must have forearms like steel to generate that power

Finish of that last England/India ODI really stirred up a hornet's nest...

Within the rules , yes ; but was it necessary ? Watching a clip of it , seems to me Dean wasn't trying for any special advantage : she still has her bat in the crease with Deepti in her delivery stride. Reasonable expectation that the bowler completes her arm action , I'd have thought ; but the bowler appears to have never intended to do so as she stops and removes the bails to effect the run out with Dean moving down the pitch.

I wasn't watching the game so cannot say whether there had been evidence previously that the England bats were pushing the envelope with backing up . But it certainly looks as if this run out was a premeditated action , carried out with no previous warning , in a somewhat tight game ending situation. Honestly can't say I like it.

Have also re-watched other similar incidents and I would suggest , for example , that that Ashwin run out of Jos Buttler is not a fair comparison - clearly pre-warned , rather blatant ground stealing . This looks different.

Confession : in my youth , I executed a mankad myself , at the suggestion of a teammate who had spotted the batsman leaving his ground consistently early . We didn't warn him in advance ; so I guess it was a bit of an ambush (caused a near riot in the grandstand too !). As I say , I was rather young at the time - and as I recall there was previous bad blood between the two teams from incidents earlier in the match - but that isn't really an excuse in my (now more mature) eyes.

Even a half century later it remains one of my greatest regrets and not something I would contemplate again. If I think a batsman is overdoing it now , I might gently warn them : but actually seeking to scam a wicket this way just seems "off". Pity to see a a good ODI series ended like this.

I'm not against mankad myself. I've spent too much time watching Jos Buttler ending up a quarter of the way down the pitch when the ball is bowled. Far too many players (male players) use this reluctance to spark controversy to garner as much advantage for themselves as possible. Some of it is utterly blatent and for my money is plain old cheating

Having seen this dismissal, I don't think Dean was trying to gain an advantage, she just wandered out of her ground a bit, but there you go.... I don't see how it is possible to decide whether an advantage was being sought before deciding whether to give her out. Either mankad is kept legal and these sorts of things happen from time to time, or it is outlawed and more and more non strike players set off on their run at the same time as the bowler starts his run up

Two fifths of the way through New Zealand Women's Tour of the West Indies and it is one game apiece - but I would say New Zealand have the slight edge.

After falling to a one run loss off the last ball of the first T20, New Zealand looked a little more comfortable in chasing down 107 in the second match today. Despite the fact that the run rate slowed considerably in the middle overs, it never really looked like the White Fearns were ever in danger of throwing it away. The pick of the New Zealand bowlers was Hayley Jensen who got 3-24 and limited the Windies Women to 107. The overall best bowler is also a New Zelander with Amelia Kerr's three wickets coming for the fewest runs of the three other bowlers with the same amount of scalps. The stand out performer for the West Indies is Aaliyah Alleyne whose 49 and 13 make her the highest runscorer.

The third match is tomorrow.

Jon Lewis takes over as the England women's coach

inaugural auction for the WPL

Nat S-B picked up the joint top bid (along with Ash Gardner) signing for Mumbai for £320,000

some interesting stats from the beeb for once, putting this into context. Nat S-B's England contract is worth between 60 and 100k. the top salary in the women's hundred is a touch over 31k, so she's probably worth around that mark as well

England's lionesses pick up around 2k per game and they also have a central contract structure worth around 30k a year, which I assume is on top of their club contracts

the Red Roses central contracts are worth between 26k and 32k with £800 match fees

this 320k for S-B will make her one of the highest paid female sport stars in England

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/67136044

I thought you had to have qualifications to coach..She will be coaching Adil Rashid among others.

as so often seems to happen, Adelaide (given a pass straight to the final) are struggling against the team that has had to win 2 knockout matches to get there.

Sometimes having eliminator and challenger and qualifier matches is a decent money making tool for spinning out the KO stages, but in this case the WBBL has not gained any matches. They could just as easily had 2 semis and a final

Sophie Ecclestone straight back into it after injury

3-15 from her 4 overs today against India

England stood up and said that they believed seam was the key to beating India, in India, so picked 3 seamers plus NSB and 2 spinners to India's 2 seamers, 3 spinners and a lot of batters

They were taken to the cleaners by the India batters in the first innings, collapsed in a heap to spin in the second innings, England's 2 spinners are doing all the damage in a losing cause in the third innings with the seamers reduced to a bit part to give the spinners a rest from time to time and they are now going to have to find a way to score 400 and plenty in the final innings........ and I can see India declaring shortly to try and take a couple of cheap wickets in the last few overs of day 2

Probably fair to say that England might have got this seam thing completely wrong, unlikely though that sounds

India declared and then bowled England out for 131 to win by 347 runs

347 runs? India could have let them have an extra 2 innings because it's Christmas, and they still wouldn't have chased it down

we think seam is the key, in India

outplayed in every dept

after NSB's 59 in the first innings, the next best was 21

Not sure it had much to do with bowling attack selection , DFM : I watched a fair bit of it and reckon England's main problem was they refused to hold any catches - even very easy ones ! - when India were batting - especially on day one. Plus Ecclestone looked to be still feeling her way back into it after her injury break and didn't exert her usual influence at all.

The aspect of selection that then really backfired was a tail that started at seven (with all due respect to Sophie that is way too high for her at this level ) ; though chasing 428 on a pitch that did get more spin friendly was always going to be a tough task anyway.

Do think England have a bit to do in terms of (a) replacing Brunt and Shrubsole as the pace pair and (b) sorting out a batting order for each format. This is likely to be more evident in the Test format than others ; but is affecting all of them. Coach Lewis needs to earn his coin now...