Having put England into bat, Sri Lanka would’ve hoped for England’s new-look opening pair of Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Amy Jones to struggle against the moisture in the Edgbaston pitch. And even though the openers took a couple of overs to find their bearing, it was one-way traffic from there.
Against a player of Wyatt-Hodge’s offside range, the pacers were too wide, with three of Wyatt’s first four boundaries vs pace coming against deliveries wide outside off. The spinners set leg-side fields after the powerplay and gave enough width for the batters to hit boundaries over the off-side in-field. The bowlers were let down further by some amateurish catching and fielding.
In favourable batting conditions, England’s openers didn’t just punish SL’s bad balls, but they also successfully took on the good deliveries by manipulating the line and length. Wyatt-Hodge consistently charged the bowlers to effectively turn good-length deliveries into slot balls while also going outside her leg stump to access the offside. From the other end, Jones often did the opposite. Sitting back in the crease and premeditating her sweeps to manoeuvre the ball in vacant spaces while often turning balls outside off-stump to the leg-side.
Wyatt-Hodge and Jones raised 135 runs in 13 overs, and effectively put the tournament opener to bed within its first quarter.
Nat Sciver-Brunt came in, bludgeoned the Sri Lankan bowlers to all parts, including one delectable six over covers, and pushed England to the highest total ever scored in a Women’s T20 World Cup game.
Sri Lanka, then, lost their top three batters within the powerplay, and the rest of the game became a formality waiting to be completed.
Tactical Observations
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England’s Proactive Running
England rotated strike brilliantly throughout the game. They took on the in-field in the powerplay when struggling for boundaries and used the long boundary dimensions to run doubles once the field was out. England batters scored 94 runs at a strike rate of 100 without boundaries!
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England’s manipulation of line and length
All three of England’s batters were relentless at disorienting the Sri Lankan bowlers’ line and length. When Sri Lanka packed the leg side, England’s batters went in-out over the off side; when they drew the field in and protected the square boundaries, Jones, Wyatt-Hodge, and Nat Sciver-Brunt charged at them at hit them down the ground.
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Skillful Lauren Bell makes a powerplay impact
Lauren Bell’s skills were on full display early in SL’s chase. Her first over, which included multiple false shots and dot balls off her outswing deliveries, led to Vushmi Guranthe premeditating a shot on the first ball of Bell’s second over, expecting a similar Bell delivery. A full and straight ball moving in got the first wicket of the innings as Guranthe was caught in her crease.
There it is. England won the first game of the Women’s T20 World Cup by a whopping 87 runs. This was a kind of power-packed performance that showed England as one of the prime contenders for the title.