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| Charlotte Edwards celebrates her record breaking 100 picture courtesy of Don Miles |
Heather Knight, after her 53 in the first ODI, found batting hard work, although she was facing Jhulan Goswami, who was in inspired form. The veteran Indian fast bowler, playing in her 135th ODI, will rarely have bowled a better 10 overs. She took 3/30 which does not do her justice. When she opened from the Trafalgar Square End she was getting lift and carry through to the keeper Jain, and frequently got past the bat of both Knight and Edwards, but without ever finding the edge. Goswami's opening partner Niranjana was a little less threatening and a little more wayward, but England still had trouble getting the ball off the square. After 10 overs they had made just 26 runs, as opposed to the 62 runs they had scored in the same period in the first ODI.
The pressure obviously told on Knight (13) as just after the powerplay ended she took off for a suicidal run to Pandey at orthodox mid-on. Pandey picked the ball up cleanly and threw down the stumps at the bowler's end to run Knight out by several feet. Sarah Taylor (23) joined her skipper and looked good with a couple of flowing drives through the covers, but having taken the score to 76 she swept early at a loopy ball from Gayakwad (4/42) and only succeeded in gloving it over her own head and on to her leg stump. Lauren Winfield then spent 30 minutes at the crease for her 10 runs, but never looked comfortable. She was stumped off Gayakwad with England on 112.
Goswami returned to bowl the first over of the batting powerplay and she got Greenway (8) lbw with her first ball and then had Beaumont plumb in front with the next. Nat Sciver (17) came to the crease on a hat-trick, but looked as calm as ever and she looked likely to get England motoring again. For the first time batting looked easy, and India spilled a vital chance as Jain dropped Edwards off a mishit ramp shot when she was on 80. Next over Sciver went for another big hit but holed out at long off off Gayakwad. With six overs left Goswami came on for her last and off her very last ball produced a peach which accounted for Gunn (6) clipping the top of her off stump. Dani Hazell (6), hampered by a hamstring injury, fell to Pandey and Shrubsole (4) to Bisht, when Edwards was on 99. Number 11 Kate Cross did what she needed to do as she straight-batted the last ball of the 48th over back to the bowler. It allowed Edwards to complete her hundred in the next over off 138 balls. She ended on 108* as England closed on 214/9.
In reply India made a solid start through the once-again impressive Smriti Mandhana (32) and new opening partner Poonam Raut (11). It was Kate Cross that made the breakthrough in the 10th over when she had Raut caught and bowled. Karuna Jain's dismal tour continued when she became Jenny Gunn's first of four victims (4/23) lbw for 1. Mandhana (31) and Mithali Raj (30) seemed to hold the key India and when Gunn had Mandhana caught at cover point by Lydia Greenway (who had earlier dropped her off Cross), England probably felt they had the game at their mercy.
But India were not done. Harmanpreet Kaur (43) looked cool and calm, even when Raj fell lbw to the golden arm of Heather Knight (2/29). In Vellaswamy Vanitha (23) she found a belligerent partner and together they added 41 in quick time before Vanitha played one shot too many and was well caught by Taylor off Shrubsole. India still needed only five an over, but much rested on Kaur and Jhulan Goswami (18). They brought the equation down to 45 off the last 10 overs, but Gunn then pulled off a remarkable one-handed catch off her own bowling to remove Goswami and swing the game England's way. Pandey came and went, and then Gunn took a great catch at long on to remove Kaur off Shrubsole's bowling. India were 172/8. The tail did what they could but Gayakwad finally fell to Hazell caught at mid-off to leave India 13 runs short of England's total.
England had wrapped up the series; they had another 2 points in the ICC Women's Championship; and Charlotte Edwards was rightly named as Player of the Match. The final game in the series will be played on Monday at Lords.
Full scorecard here
MD
23/VIII/14
I would not give Winfield, Greenway, and Beaumont the same assessment of 'out of nick'.
ReplyDeleteGreenway has an ODI average of just over 30 and before yesterday's low score had managed 24, 37*, 2, 29, 2, 49, 25*, 22, 31, 38*, 4, 1, 46, 18, 20, 4, 69*, 4, 25, 1* in her previous 20 ODI innings. I would suggest this places her, in ODI terms, in a different league to Winfield and Beaumont. What does worry me about Greenway is her fielding - she actually drops catches now, something she simply never used to do ! She's still a brilliant fielder though.
Winfield is relatively new so career average stuff doesn't really tell a story. Yesterday she was batting no 4 - no idea why because she is an opener and looks more at ease with the quicker bowling. She batted well in the Test match and for me she is the no-brainer choice of opener in T20. Yesterday she seemed to lose it between the ears - trying to slog when we hadn't quite reached the slog stage of the innings. She had a few hicc-ups in the field as well but so did some others.
Beaumont isn't new, like Winfield is, so her career ODI stats can tell a story. An ODI average of just over 17 puts her along side Gunn (about 20), Wyatt (about 17) and Marsh (about 14) and certainly no where near as good as Greenway (about 30), Atkins (about 30), Knight (about 30) and Brindle (about 28).
What England desperately need is the next members of the '30 club' - those that can average about 30 in ODIs. I would suggest, given the right batting position, that Winfield and Sciver are the most likely candidates from the current ODI squad to join that club. This means ODI opening with Winfield and Knight and No 3 is Taylor if Winfield gets out first and Lottie is Knight gets out first.
I'd also like to see Wyatt back playing ODIs. As one of our most graceful batsmen its a shame that her excellent county championship performances have not managed to get her into the team. If dropping her was supposed to be a 'kick-up-the-back-side' then what more is she supposed to have done to redeem herself - or perhaps I'm missing the obvious point that good CC performances gets certain players a selection but not others ?
Needlessly to say, Tails (40+), Lottie (38-ish) and Squirt (39-ish) are in an ODI league of their own.
One of the more obscure records that Lottie achieved yesterday was her membership of the 50% club - that's batsmen who score more than 50% of the team's runs in completed innings (ie all out or all overs used). Already ready a member by dint of her 139 out of 256 (v Netherlands 30/11/2000), 173 out of 324 (v Ireland 16/12/1997) and 70 out of 138 (v NZ 24/2/2008) her effort yesterday gave her a 4th entry beating the 3 entries she jointly held with Jan Brittin.
Can I suggest some very tongue in cheek new terms for the England language:-
The 'Beaumont paradox' - used to describe a player who can score lumps and lumps of runs in the county championship but can't translate that into similar form for England
The 'Wyatt paradox' - used to describe a player who can score lumps and lumps of runs in the county championship but can't get selected for England.
The 'Brunt paradox' - used to describe a player who is tame and placid off the pitch who turns into a raging fire breathing in-yer-face bowler once the ball is in her hand.
I'm sure there must be a 'Squirt paradox' out there somewhere - perhaps related to interesting and inventive ways of getting dismissed (yesterday's certainly was).
All fair comment, but who are you Clanger? Do you have a twitter account.
DeleteFor anyone interested, Lottie's ODI centuries have been (before yesterday's) :-
ReplyDelete173* 16/12/1997 Ireland
139* 30/10/2000 Netherlands
138 23/10/2011 South Africa
137* 03/03/2012 New Zealand
109 03/02/2013 India
106* 15/02/2013 New Zealand
102 17/08/1997 South Africa
102 18/02/2004 South Africa
So 5 of her 9 have come in the last 3 years which tends to support her claim to be batting better than ever.
She has also scored a 99 (v South Africa on 30/03/2005). Out LBW on this occasion - probably didn't send that umpire a Christmas card !
Highest ODI scores against other countries are 90 (Australia - but has a Test 100 against Aus), 83 (Pakistan), 63 (Sri Lanka) and 60 (West Indies).