England's squads to face India in one Test and three ODIs, and three T20s against South Africa will be announced next Monday. There are unlikely to be any major surprises, particularly with 18 girls now being centrally-contracted to the ECB in one form or another.
On current form England seem to have a wealth of batting in their main squad. Edwards, Beaumont, Wyatt, Winfield, Sciver and Gunn top the Div 1 run-scorers with Beaumont and Edwards both averaging around 100. Heather Knight has also found some form after a dismal start to the season with scores of 66* and 101 in her last two county championship games. Sarah Taylor has had a quiet time at Sussex with a top score of 48*, but Sussex did not bat first against either Essex or Warwickshire where she was not out in the second innings chasing low totals. Meanwhile Lydia Greenway has had to sit and watch Edwards and Beaumont bat long before her at Kent and as a result has a top score of just 29 this summer. She is however unlikely to miss out on selection.
Sarah Taylor and Amy Jones seem to be shoe-ins for the keeping duties. Taylor has had her injury concerns during the domestic season and it would not surprise me to see Jones keeping at some stage during either the India or the South Africa series.
Bowling is much more of an issue. On the spin front Dani Hazell has only bowled 29 overs for Yorkshire, claiming nine victims, Rebecca Grundy has only three wickets for Warwickshire from 24 overs, and Jodie Dibble is out after another shoulder operation. However Laura Marsh is back bowling for Kent and has 6 wickets from 30 overs. Danni Wyatt too seems to have recently rediscovered her bowling mojo (which she lost last season) with nine wickets in 40 overs bowled. Lurking in the wings England do also have Staffs' Steph Butler, who has bowled well for the Academy and Staffs this season.
Pace bowling looks even more of an issue, particularly as the first game is the four day Test - a genuine test of a fast bowler's fitness. Beyond Kate Cross, who has bowled 62 overs for Lancashire in Div 2 claiming 12 victims, the rest of the pace attack have hardly bowled. Katherine Brunt bowled her first five overs of the season this Sunday (0/9); Anya Shrubsole has had only one 10 over spell for Somerset (1/14) and did not bowl in Somerset's last league game of the season last weekend; Tash Farrant has not bowled in a competitive game since the end of January. Even all-rounders Nat Sciver and Jenny Gunn have had quiet seasons. Sciver has only bowled 19 overs and Gunn has only taken two wickets in 43 overs bowled for Notts. Previous back-up Beth Langston seems to be out with injury, and Georgia Elwiss has also struggled a bit after a mid-season lay-off for injury. So Notts' Sonia Odedra, who has been in the Academy for sometime, is presumably in with a shout if others are not fit or break down during the series. Youngsters Georgia Hennessy and Freya Davies may also then come into the reckoning.
All will be revealed on Monday, with probably three different squads being announced - Test Squad; India ODI squad and South Africa T20 squad. A two day England warm-up game this week could well be used to test out the fitness of one or two players before the announcement is made.
Summer 2014 International Schedule
13-16 August - England v India, Kia Women’s Test Match, Wormsley
21 August - England Women v India, Royal London ODI, Scarborough
23 August - England Women v India, Royal London ODI, Scarborough
25 August - England Women v India, Royal London ODI, Lord’s
1 September - England Women v South Africa, NatWest Women's International T20, Chelmsford
3 September - England Women v South Africa, NatWest Women's International T20, Northampton
7 September - England Women v South Africa, NatWest Women's International T20, Edgbaston
MD
29/VII/14
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I wouldn't read too much into CC performances. There is at least one player who has a fantastic record in the CC yet has a dreadful track record playing for England (not that this has stopped them being selected), something that makes reading the minds of our selectors more or less impossible.
ReplyDeleteI suspect you are pretty close to the mark focusing in on injuries. The squads will probably be contracted players minus those that are crocked - at least that makes selection easy.
After the T20 batting performance in the World Cup earlier this year one might suggest that some new batting blood against South Africa wouldn't go amiss - especially new blood that knows how to hit a six (that's where the ball clears the rope without bouncing - just in case any England T20 followers have forgotten).
The Joy of Six
ReplyDeleteEngland have failed to hit a 6 in their last 8 T20s. The most recent was Edwards hitting one in the 1st T20 against Australia on 29th January 2014. This is also our most recent 6 in all forms of the game.
The last time we hit more than one 6 in a T20 was the 3 we hit against Pakistan on 5th July (Rowe, Gunn and Brindle).
Only 14 England players have hit a 6 in T20s and only 6 have hit more than one.
Susie Rowe is, by a mile, the most efficient, knocking 5 from only 117 balls - representing a strike rate of one every 23.4 balls. Her nearest challenger is Jenny Gunn with a 6 every 69.66 balls. Lottie might have hit the most T20 6s with 10 but at a strike rate of 1 every 198 balls.
Perhaps surprisingly the player that has faced most balls and never hit a 6 in T20 is Danni Wyatt at 386 balls followed, less surprisingly, by Heather Knight on 165 balls. In fact Danni hasn't hit one in ODIs - remarkable.
Who knows - perhaps the next England to hit a T20 6 hasn't yet played a match for England !!
Let's find some new batting for England that can hit 4s. I can't understand the fascination with 6s. Check out Sir Everton Weekes, the number of runs made for the WIndies and his average, and he hit the ball as hard as anyone I have ever seen (and yes I am that old!)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/player/53241.html
He claimed during an interview that one of those 2x6s was a 2 with 4 overthrows! True I'm looking at Test figures but he didn't play T20s and even ODIs were a novelty.
If you're a boundary hitter you don't need 6s to make big scores or to make them quickly!