London Spirit beat Manchester Originals by 8 wickets at Lord’s on Friday, leapfrogging Oval Invincibles into third place courtesy of a superior net run rate.
It means that defending champions Southern Brave are now out of the tournament – which will come as a bit of a shock to anyone used to seeing anything Charlotte Edwards touches turning to gold. It also now looks increasingly likely that it will come down to a battle between Oval Invincibles and London Spirit as to who finishes in third place and thus progresses to the Eliminator – making Sunday’s match between the two at The Oval an effective quarter-final. (We can’t wait!)
Spirit were chasing just 113 after another lacklustre effort with the bat by Originals, but had barely made their way out of the starting block by the halfway point, posting 49 for 2 from their first 50 balls compared to the 48 for 3 which Originals had managed. At that point, Georgia Redmayne was 21* off 31, and had hit just two boundaries – one off the first ball, and one off the 45th – a drought-and-a-half when you’ve only got 100 balls to play with.
In fact, when a caught-and-bowled chance popped out of Fi Morris’s hands, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that the drop was actually a deliberate ploy by the fielding side, who were presumably quite happy to continue bowling at the player who looked to be killing the game. “I dug myself into a little bit of a hole at the start. I was wondering if I should retire myself!” Redmayne said afterwards.
But five balls later, Originals opted to take their strategic timeout, and Redmayne had a moment to gather her breath, and listen to her coaches. The message? “Hold my feet, play good shots, find space, don’t panic.”
She went on to hit 45 from the next 28 balls she faced, and Spirit romped home the winners. Has a strategic timeout ever backfired so spectacularly against the fielding side?
It was just one of a number of decisions which Originals captain Sophie Ecclestone didn’t *quite* get right on Friday – another one being the determination to bowl out seamers Kim Garth, Lauren Filer and Alice Monaghan, leaving Fi Morris with 10 balls in the bank, despite the fact that all five Originals wickets had fallen to spin.
Originals have picked up just two wins from six matches in this tournament so far. There are a number of things that aren’t going to plan – Mooney has scored 92 runs in six innings, averaging just 15; Sophie Molineux never even made it onto the plane after being forced out with a rib fracture; they lost Mahika Gaur at the eleventh hour – but maybe Ecclestone’s captaincy is also one factor in the equation?
This is a bowler who recently enjoyed a record-breaking run of 34 consecutive innings for England taking a wicket (34!!!) And yet so far in this year’s Hundred comp, she’s taken just four wickets. She is ranked 27th if you judge her by the CRICKETher Ranking System (wickets divided by economy), or 23rd, if you use Women’s Cricket Blog’s System. That’s an even bigger issue when you consider that Originals have the worst balls-per-wicket ratio of any team in the comp:
If you’re one of those people who thinks that Ecclestone is the answer to England’s Non-Existent Captaincy Succession Plan, you perhaps need to ask yourself: are you happy to risk that dip in form being replicated on the world stage?
Originals have the best T20 bowler in the world in their ranks (Ecclestone), and one of the best T20 batters in the world (Mooney). And yet they now have just a 1% chance of limping through to the knockout stages. It’s probably fair to say that in 2024 they have proved to be one of those franchise teams whose sum is smaller than its component parts.
