Good morning!
Yesterday’s WPL final was a blinder, and I don’t just say that because I am from Bangalore.
The ESPN win predictor kept jumping around the place, as first DC then RCB tried to showcase how you can bludgeon even good bowling into submission via two completely different strategies; the former ran RCB’s middle overs bowlers into the ground, while the latter placed & powered their way to 35 boundaries.
And yet, it’s going to be forgotten almost instantly because we have to move on to the World Cup tomorrow. This isn’t a rant about gender or fairness or anything. The Men’s World Cup is objectively a bigger tournament with more fans. I understand why the juggernaut lurches forward without remorse.
There will be enough to gripe about later, but I want to take a minute to talk about the absurdity of this RCB team as champions. We’ve covered how they dragged themselves into the mud, then dragged themselves out of it in the final in yesterday’s Beyond the Headlines – but that’s also a metaphor for their season-long decision making and roster construction.
When we did our writers’ predictions before the season started, none of us had RCB in the knockouts and a lot of us had them finishing bottom of the pile. Four weeks and another trophy later…I’m not sure we really got it wrong?
This RCB side is broken. Seriously, tell me what else we were supposed to think;
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There’s literally no middle order – yesterday they had 4 specialist batters.
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They often pick bowlers they refuse to let bowl – Pooja Vastrakar has been picked as a ‘batter’ for the last two games. She has a WPL average of 14.
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Apart from the brilliant Lauren Bell, not a single bowler can be trusted to stay consistent across 4 overs every game – we broke down Satghare’s fluctuations in the BtH piece, and even Shreyanka Patil has gone at 9.01 this season.
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They have just one batter in the Top 12 WPL run scorers this season (the unbelievable Smriti Mandhana) – No.s 13 & 14 (Grace Harris & Richa Ghosh) scored a combined 15 runs in 13 balls yesterday, and it wasn’t that surprising.
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Mandhana isn’t the best on-field tactician – When batters are hitting RCB’s bowlers around, as we saw yesterday & in the loss v MI last week, Mandhana can default to too many reactive changes (often between balls!).
And yet, they were thoroughly dominant in the first half of the season, and reliable winners in the second half. It makes zero sense. Having covered the entire season closely, RCB’s entire strategy has been simple; Mandhana & Bell will be great and hopefully someone else will step up.
Someone else always has. Yesterday it was just one other person, Georgia Voll. Somehow that was enough to chase down 203 runs – by far the biggest chase in the WPL knockout history.
This team deserves a chance to go on a world tour to see when their luck finally runs it (if it ever runs out?). Instead, we’re all going to forget about it as the World Cup kicks off tomorrow. It’s the morning after, and we’re basically the only outlet that’s even bothered to cover the WPL final in any depth.
I’m not even sad for the Women’s cricketers. They’re on a good trajectory, and this was a successful WPL. I’m sad for all of you who didn’t get a chance to immerse yourself into the ridiculous awesomeness of this RCB team.
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🏏 Cricket Roundup: The topsy-turvy WPL final, Abhishek is creating a need for new metrics, & Tatenda Taibu returns to ZIM cricket.
RCB beat DC by 6 wickets to improbably win their second title!
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📊 BoC went beyond the headlines on the biggest turning points of the game; how DC beat RCB’s bowling via great preparation, how Rodrigues-Wolvaardt broke DC’s curse of poor middle overs batting, & how Mandhana-Voll’s placement-and-power partnership made 203 an easy target!
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🔒 Sonia Twigg has a fascinating piece on how Lauren Bell’s social media popularity has exploded after one successful season at RCB.
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📊 Deepu Narayanan on Abhishek Sharma making modern analytics irrelevant, & Kartikeya Date suggests new metrics are needed to understand modern T20s.
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📊 Beyond Cow Corner on NZ’s tune-ups after their warm ups, Matt Roller on ENG’s spicy Salt-and-Butt(l)er partnership up top, Rahul Iyer on how IND should use Jasprit Bumrah, & Matthew Henry on cross-team statistical trends.
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Firdose Moonda talks to JJ Smuts about representing ITA (a country he’s never been to), & 🔒 Paul Newman on Nepal’s rising interest in cricket.
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Firdose Moonda with Tatenda Taibu about being an ambassador for ZIM 14 years after retiring from the team, & Ibrahim Farooqi with Shahid Afridi on winning the T20 WC in 2009.
📚 Best Features: The history of inventing delivery types.
🗞️ Quick News: The future of BAN cricket, & the ETPL’s chances.
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Atif Azam writes about the uncertain future of Bangladeshi cricket, while the BCB announced a three-team league during the WC.
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Peter Hatzoglou on Europe’s new league – the ETPL – and its chances of success trying to play across an entire continent that barely knows cricket.
📺 A/V: What can Babar bring PAK.
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“The Great Babar Azam Go-Slow”
📽️ Jarrod Kimber & Behram Qazi discuss Babar Azam the T20 batter, whether he actually is as bad as everyone is saying, and how he can be used by PAK. [YouTube]
That’s it for today!
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