England won the 5th and final T20 at Lord’s to complete a clean sweep of sorry New Zealand, who have lost all 8 matches played between the sides on this tour. It was England’s 13th win in 14 games this summer, with the only blemish being the rained-off ODI against Pakistan at Taunton.
There was an awful lot of hype around this game, with England players drafted into the marketing efforts at Lord’s, and the BBC going all-out to make a splash with their coverage – the second of the two England women’s matches per season they have the rights to.
With the official England Cricket Twitter feed claiming “last tickets remaining” the expectation was of a near sellout, but in reality the Tavern Stand and the upper tier of the Grandstand were closed and there were big gaps elsewhere, which made for a slightly deflating picture as Fran Jonas ambled in to deliver the first ball of the evening. Slightly over-promising and slightly under-delivering is becoming a bit of a hallmark of English cricket, so it was perhaps appropriate that Danni Wyatt’s one and only shot of the innings was a classic of over-promising and under-delivering – promising to sail into the stands, but delivering a catch to Melie Kerr at deep midwicket.
It was Wyatt’s second duck of the series and her 4th single-figure score of the summer. On the plus side, she did make two big fifties – 87 against Pakistan at Headingley and 76 versus New Zealand at Southampton – in keeping with the general story of her life recently: one match-winning knock per series, and not a lot else. It is definitely enough to keep her in the side, but the big innings somehow make the small ones feel even more frustrating – we know she’s better than them, and her body-language on the way back to the pavillion said that she knows it too, but she’s one of the old dogs of this team now, and new tricks are probably a lot to ask at this point in her career.
For the third time in this five-match series, it meant Capsey coming in very early after one of the openers has bagged a duck. Unlike Wyatt, Capsey took a little bit of time, and was 4 off 8 balls before she hit her first boundary – whacking Lea Tahuhu straight back over the stumps to the (quite short) boundary at the Nursery End. It will go down as a drop, because Tahuhu got a couple of fingers on it, but Capsey hit it so hard that it blasted straight through them. Capsey continued to play within herself, and was the only one of England’s top 6 apart from Wyatt to finish with a Strike Rate under 100, when she was stumped off a decent ball from Eden Carson.
At 66-4 after 10 overs, after Fran Jonas had taken a brilliant caught-and-bowled to send Nat Sciver-Brunt back up the pavillion steps, England weren’t exactly “in strife” but they were on the edge of the blade. The match could have turned either way, and it looked to be going against England with Amy Jones falling to another soft catch, and Freya Kemp getting bowled by an arm ball that was basically a very slow in-swinger from Jonas, which the young Kiwi described in the post-match press conference as her perfect delivery.
But Charlie Dean came to England’s rescue, giving Heather Knight the support she needed to push the scoring rate on in the last few overs. With the help of a big 18th over, Knight taking Carson for 15, Knight and Dean ensured that England accelerated through every phase of the match to get to 155 without having to expose either of the Genuine No. 11s™ sitting nervously in the dugout.
Given New Zealand’s form this tour, it felt like enough and it was enough. But let’s be clear, England did not bowl especially well. Having rested Sarah Glenn, who the written press unanimously agreed was the outstanding player of the series, they went in with 2 front-line seamers – Laurens Bell and Filer – plus Kemp. Bell stuck to her basics of inswingers up top and slower balls at the end, and got a decent return of 3-21. (We are definitely still in the territory of being relieved that she has rediscovered her mojo, so we aren’t going to criticise!)
Filer had a very odd game – she didn’t concede a heap of runs (just 22 from 4 overs) and she caused Suzie Bates all sorts of problems (and eventually took her wicket) but bowling short outside off felt like the wrong plan to anyone not called Suzie Bates, and I just hope she and the coaches realise that, because a Beth Mooney or an Alyssa Healy would have punished her ruthlessly for it.
New Zealand made it to 15 overs only 3 down and 9 runs behind where England had been, but their attempt to push on the final quarter resulted in a clatter of wickets and they ultimately fell 20-odd short, having been unable to quite keep pace with England in any phase.
So ends England’s international summer, barely half way through July, and with the kids (at least those who go to state schools) still having a week more of lessons before their summer holidays start. Jon Lewis, in a typically frank post-match presser, lamented the huge gap between now and the World Cup in Bangladesh, saying that he wanted to be flying out now, with the players where he wants them to be. It is 78 days between today and England’s opening match in Dhaka; but with the ECB having locked themselves into the decision to prioritise domestic cricket in August, we are where we are. (And given the success of The Hundred in terms of crowds, who’s to say it’s not where we want to be?)
One player who will be looking forward to The Hundred probably more than anyone is Bess Heath. Whilst England have switched-up the batting, and chopped and changed the bowling, “BAM” had had little chance to do any BAM-ing at all, having been the one player to remain glued to the bench through the summer. Given that England have explicitly said that they are trying to prep for every scenario, not preparing for the possibility of having to play without wicket keeper Amy Jones – the one player you can’t shuffle your way around losing – is odd.
Asked about Heath in the press conference, Lewis chose his words carefully, but reading between the lines it feels like they aren’t happy with where her keeping is at, though they still see her as the backup to Jones because of her batting. With England’s last wicket-keeping coach having apparently suffered a case of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome there’s a new man on the job – former Sussex glove-butler Nick Wilton. He’ll be working with Heath at Northern Superchargers over the next 6 weeks and hopefully the opportunity to play a regular keeping role in The Hundred with the Popchips will start to bring her glovework on towards where it need to be, should the worst happen with Jones. If not… it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that the name “Jon Lewis” pops up on Tammy Beaumont’s phone one day in September.
