Like the Sugababes smashing Glastonbury, Sophie Devine brought back a glimpse of the glory days, hitting 37 runs off 12 balls in the last 3 overs to give New Zealand something to bowl at; but in the end it was Alice Capsey, still (just) a teenager at the other end of her career who smashed and grabbed her way to 67 – her highest score for England – to get England over the line in the final over.
Devine looked devastated and on the verge of tears at the end, having got so close to a win after what must feel like one of the longest, hardest tours of her storied career.
We’re now 5 years on from Devine’s Purple Patch between 2015 and 2019, when she hit at a Strike Rate of over 120 in T20s for 5 consecutive seasons. The past couple of years, she’s struggled even to break the 100mph barrier; and it looked like more of the same today – coming into the last 3 overs, she was 21 off 30, at a Strike Rate of just 70, with New Zealand 100-6 and looking like posting yet another sub-par total. But a series of spectacular hits from Devine got them to 141, with even Sophie Ecclestone going for 12, and Freya Kemp adding a 13-run over to the 18 she conceded off her 2nd, finishing some way England’s most expensive bowler.
It was not a good day for Kemp with the ball yet again, but to be fair, her moment was to come later.
Having lost Maia Bouchier to a duck off the first ball of the innings, Alice Capsey joined Sophia Dunkley in the middle, hitting her first ball for 2, and her first boundary off the second delivery she faced. Dunkley took longer to settle – there is never a dull moment when she is at the crease, but half the time it is for all the wrong reasons. From the mistimed pulls somehow dissecting the fielders backward of square, to the French cuts trickling past leg stump, Dunks gave us the full range of heart-in-mouth moments, whilst also whacking a few boundaries to keep the scoreboard ticking along. She finished with 35 off 26, which… sounds better than it mostly looked! But that’s Dunks, and as long as others around her can play a less frenetic role, those runs can be crucial, as they proved today – if she’d made (say) “only” 26 off her 26, England’s path to victory would have been that much trickier.
With Dunks falling in the 9th over, and Nat Sciver-Brunt following for another first-baller – the 4th of the day – England needed Capsey and Amy Jones to stick around and stabilise things, and they were able to do that with New Zealand giving them more lives than a herd of cats, thanks to drops in the field. At the half-way point in England’s innings, it was 50/50, pretty much, with WinHer showing England only just having the edge.
England continued chugging along, but as we moved into the death phase, with Capsey playing the anchor role, Amy Jones needed to accelerate, but didn’t quite look like she was going to. Were New Zealand finally about to grab their first win on this tour?
But it was then that New Zealand made the mistake which possibly cost them the match. With Jones looking for a quick single and Capsey hesitant, Jones needed to get back to her ground. Sophie Devine threw it in… Melie Kerr took down the stumps… and the game was lost because of it. It brought Freya Kemp to the middle, who unlike Jones, immediately did look like hitting the allmost 10-an-over England needed, and proceeded to do so. It wasn’t quite as spectacular as Devine had been earlier in the evening; but Kemp’s 16 off 8 was what got England over the line with 4 balls to spare.
It was not a win England particularly deserved, and though Heather Knight, sitting this one out flitting between the balcony and the commentary box, was not really missed with the bat, we did see again why the answer to the captaincy succession does not lie within the current team – there was a lack of leadership out in the middle, which would be making me twitch if I was the man in charge of these things. England have decided to use this series to experiment and play scenarios, but today showed why the one scenario they really need to play is Knight’s retirement – there is obviously no chance of Grace Scrivens playing a part in this series, which means the only option now is to parachute her straight into the captaincy in Ireland. Yes – it sounds just as mad now, as when I first suggested it, but look at today and tell me there is a better option?
