The Hundred 2024 has been wrapped up with 2 new Champions crowned and I miss it already!
In the Women’s side of the competition The London Spirit won their first Title under the stewardship of England Captain Heather Knight. As you all know, we at All The Cricket are steadfast Northern Superchargers supporters but with our Women not making it to the finals this year, there is something nice about the team playing out of cricket HQ (Lords) winning the thing. Spirit also had a very handy team with the likes of Charlie Dean, Sarah Glenn and the morally questionable Deepti Sharma* all having good tournaments. *All The Cricket does not approve of Mankading England players!
In the Men’s division The Oval Invincible’s took their second title in as many years. The Invincible’s finished the league stage of the competition at the top, meaning they qualified straight through to the final and other than the odd wobble here or there (they couldn’t get past the mighty Superchargers!) Sam Billings boys were always a likely bet to retain the title.
As for the aforementioned Northern Superchargers, we didn’t have a bad year, we were within touching distance of the finals in both sides of the competition, but as the old saying goes, nearly’s as good as a mile away. In both the Women’s and Men’s tournament Team Aubergine had some bad luck in terms of players being unavailable or injured and both the Women and Men fell on the wrong side of the biggest cricketing nemesis of all, rain! All that said, you make your own luck in tournament cricket and putting bad weather, England duties and Jet lag to one side, if we had taken a few more missed opportunities and won a couple more games we’d have made the finals. You can’t win competitions without winning games. Next year, we go again!
Pope Ball?
With the end of the Hundred the English Test Summer spools back into life this Wednesday in Manchester. At Old Trafford Cricket Ground, England are taking on Sri Lanka in the first of three Test Matches. Sri Lanka, and I mean no disrespect when I say this, are probably a couple of rungs down the ladder of Test playing nations. England would expect to win these three Matches with relative ease, however, fate has thrown a curveball (sorry to mix my sporting metaphors) into the series. Not only will it be the first home test series in 20 years to not include either Stuart Broad or Jimmy Anderson as players (Jimmy will be on hand in his role as fast bowling Tzar) but England Captain and chief advocate of Bazball, Ben Stokes is injured and out of the series. With England skipperless and having a bowling attack greener than cut grass, the question is, who is going to take the reins?
After a meeting of the Lateran council, a Papal Bull was declared and Oli Pope made skipper for the rest of the summer. Yorkshireman and all round good guy Harry Brook has been named vice Captain, stepping into Pope’s usual role. The last two years of English Test cricket has been a whirlwind of massive victories, effortless run scoring and the odd unfavourable decision, Christ it’s been exciting! Now though, with new captaincy and a host of fresh, relatively inexperienced players, is Bazball still going to look like Bazball without Stokes or are we entering a short lived but altogether different era of Pope Ball? All The Cricket are crossing the Pennines on Saturday to indulge in day four of the Test, weather and conditions allowing, we will of course give you our verdict!
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup is due to be held in Bangladesh this October. I’ve just found out that the ICC have announced the tournament will now to held in the UAE, with the Bangladesh Cricket Board still holding hosting rights. At the time of writing the ICC or BCB haven’t explained the decision but no doubt at will be due to the continuing political unrest in Bangladesh and the resulting security issues around the unrest. At this point it’s hard to say what impact the move to the UAE will have on the tournament but the Emirati Cricket Board have hosted world events in the past, the greatest show in Women’s Cricket will go on!
That’s about it for now, thank you again for giving me your time and sorry again for my lateness.
Until next time from Old Trafford
all the best,
Nick
All The Cricket 
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