SOUTH AFRICA v ENGLAND – 2nd ODI: Filer Sends Sumps Flying

“When Lauren Filer comes off, she can be a really dangerous bowler.”

Syd Egan, The CRICKETher Weekly – 8th December 2024

It’s fair to say that since she first burst onto the scene a couple of years ago, I’ve been a bit of a Lauren Filer sceptic. I don’t think I’ve been wholly negative – here’s a good example of me talking her up, even when she didn’t take any wickets in the 5th T20 in New Zealand earlier this year; and I really did say the above on this week’s CRICKETher Weekly – feel free to go check – it is around 6½ minutes in!!

Nonetheless, if you watched the show, recorded before yesterday’s 2nd ODI, and got the impression that we haven’t been overly convinced by her performances so far on this tour, that’s probably because… we haven’t been; and we try to call it as we see it.

So how silly do we look now, after Filer sent South African stumps flying during the powerplay in Durban? Maybe… a tad? There are certainly few more dramatic sights in cricket than poles cartwheeling out of the ground – it is one of those things that lives in the memory and can come to define a player.

It prompted me to go back and look at Filer’s ODI numbers over the past couple of years since her debut in 2023; but instead of looking at all of England’s matches in that period, let’s just focus on the ones Filer played in, as she has generally been used in rotation with Lauren Bell – the pair have played just 2 ODIs together.

Even though this visualisation does not include yesterday’s match (for which the ball-by-ball data isn’t yet available) she is nonetheless the leading bowler by some margin.

I have to admit, this is not what I was expecting to see; but the numbers don’t lie: when she plays, Filer has an impact, with her top bowling speeds hitting up above 78mph*. In some ways this isn’t massively quicker than (say) Ellyse Perry, bowling at more like 70-75mph, but actually the small margins can be a big deal in this case. When you are batting against quick bowling, 80mph is the point at which you can’t really “see” the ball any more – not in the way that most people “see” things – you have to anticipate and rely on your reflexes and instincts. So if you are pushing toward that 80mph mark, as Filer is, that is going to be a big point of difference, especially when there are only a couple of other bowlers doing that regularly.

Neither Tazmin Brits nor Sune Luus had any answers yesterday as Filer found the target during the powerplay, before also adding the wicket of Nonkululeko Mlaba – also bowled – in a later spell. South Africa did start to rebuild, and looked on track for making a respectable 230-250 at 68-2 at the end of the 15th over; before they suffered a collapse of 5 wickets for 4 runs with Charlie Dean completing a hat-trick across two overs to rip out South Africa’s middle order and leave Chloe Tryon playing the role of batting for pride that Dean herself had danced in the previous ODI.

Chasing a low total, England played pretty sensible cricket – it definitely wasn’t Jon-Ball. After 15 overs, England were 78-1, where South Africa had been 68-2. Maia Bouchier, whose career Strike Rate in ODI cricket is well over 100 (110, in fact) batted at well under 100, and Tammy Beaumont was content to plod along at 65, taking England to the point where they could put the foot down for a bit of a sprint finish, with Amy Jones hitting two 4s to get them home with just the 156 balls to spare.

So a topsy-turvy One Day series will go to the decider in Potchefstroom with both sides hoping to improve upon aspects of their performances so far – if we can get through a game without a horrendous batting collapse, it would be nice to see something a little more competitive to conclude the white-ball phase of this tour.

*Huge props to Hypocaust for gathering all the data on bowling speeds noted here.