Good afternoon sports fans, I hope all is well out there. The time has come for another exciting addition of All The Cricket and the great news is, The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup is just around the corner!
This year’s tournament was meant to be taking place in Bangladesh, however due to the political unrest in that country the ICC made the decision to relocate the competition to the UAE with Bangladesh keeping hosting rights. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know how that works but either way, it’s bound to be done well. The Emirati’s have proven themselves able to host headline events such as World Cups and the IPL and have served as home venue for Pakistan in the past as well as currently doing so for Afghanistan.
The tournament kicks off, so to speak, on the 3rd October with 10 teams being hosted at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium and the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. That does mean that the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi isn’t being used which is a shame, it’s one of the prettiest little cricket grounds in the world.
The teams participating, including England, are all the big players of international cricket. There is the wild card of Scotland thrown in to make things interesting as well. All The Cricket will be doing our daily blogs during the World Cup and we will put out some bonus reads during the build up to the tournament giving you our thoughts on each nations team and players to keep an eye on. It’s going to be great!
The domestic season winds up.
In the midst of all the international, Tournament and Franchise cricket there is to watch, it’s easy to take your eye off the domestic game rumbling on throughout the summer. Now we’re getting to the pointy end of the season I thought it was worth a round up of where everything is at.
The last ever champions of the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint Trophy were crowned yesterday (Saturday 21st September) as the Sunrisers lifted the cup at a soggy Grace Road.
In a game finally decided via that most mystical of cricketing concepts, DLS, Sunrisers claimed their inaugural silverware at the expense of The South East Stars.
Under leaden Leicestershire skies Sunrisers won the toss and put the Star into bat hoping for swinging conditions. The plan seemed to be working as the Stars struggled to find their rhythm, with their top three all dismissed cheaply. Bronze Star Yorkshire woman and Northern Supercharger, ADR superstar Alice Davidson-Richards held the Star innings together with a brilliant 93 and with cameos from Cranstone and Franklin got the Stars to a defendable 212 all out.
In response, the Surisers started confidently and as the heavens opened and the players came off the pitch they were comfortably ahead of the DLS par score of 94. The South East Stars light and hope began to fade as the available overs shrank and the match was eventually abandoned with Sunrisers as victors and 2024 Champions. Congratulations!
As I mentioned earlier this is the final year of the Racheal Heyhoe-Flint Trophy due to the restructuring of the women’s division next season. The one day competition will now be folded into the Metro Bank One Day Cup but the women’s side of the competition will still play to lift the RHF Cup silverware.
Back in June The Blaze lifted the Charlotte Edwards Cup for their first and everyone else’s last time. Like the RHF Trophy the CE Cup is being wrapped up at the end of this season and enveloped within the T20 Blast as part of the women’s restructuring.
The final, hosted by The County Ground at Derby saw The Blaze comprehensively defeat South East Stars by 7 wickets to lift the CE Cup and retire the competition as champions.
The Stand out performers of the day were Kathryn and Sarah Bryce. The Scottish sisters scored 62 and 52 respectively to fire The Blaze on to victory. Keep an eye out for the Bryce sisters in Scotlands World Cup squad, they have the potential to be disrupters!
So as we wave a found fair well to the RHF Trophy and CE Cup, 2 short lived but never the less influential competitions, we can only hope that the growing momentum of women’s domestic cricket continues as the new County system roles out next year………without Yorkshire…….don’t het me started on that!
Overs to the chaps, Surrey have, in the last couple of days, been confirmed as the winners of the Vitality County Championship, becoming the first club to win the championship 3 years on the bounce since the mighty Yorkshire CCC did it 56 years ago. Surrey are indeed deserving winners of the title but as is so often the case in great sporting stories, the winning moment did not come at their own hand. The men from the Oval had been chased all season by Somerset, hoping to win their first County Championship. To keep West Country hopes alive Somerset had to beat Lancashire away in the penultimate game of the season to take it to a final match shoot out. Lancashire, who are languishing at the bottom of the 1st division and fighting to avoid relegation did the south London lads an unlikely favour and pulled out their best result of the season, beating Somerset, breaking West Country hearts and handing the County Championship to Surrey.
In the second Division the mighty Yorkshire are battling for promotion to reclaim their rightful place in the top tier of first class cricket. They are currently in second place with a game to go, Sussex are currently top of the table with their own promotion now mathematically confirmed. Yorkshire need to win their last game against Northamptonshire and preferably see league leaders Sussex defeat third place Middlesex. Come on Yorkshire, play like hell, play like warrior poets, play like Tykes!
On finals day of the T20 Blast at Edgbaston it came down to a West Country show down between local rivals Somerset and Gloucestershire and just like in the County Championship, the underdogs got the better of Somerset.
With the supply lines of cider stretched to capacity Gloucestershire fans watched as the men from Nevil Road swamped Somerset in a 8 wicket route to prevail in a low scoring thriller. As has been the case so often this season, Gloucestershire have never one The Blast so lifting their maiden championship against their biggest rivals made it all the sweeter. The scrumpy will have been flowing!
In the One Day Cup, this very day, as I type is final day! Somerset (who seem to be featuring a lot this week) won the southern group and Glamorgan topped the northern group therefore, you guessed it, the final is between Somerset and Glamorgan at Trent Bridge………..however, it’s been rained off!
Good old English weather has once again spoiled an exciting game of cricket. The match will now go to the reserve day tomorrow (Monday 23rd September) where we’ll hopefully we’ll see a result.
On the 8th of September the great Moeen Ali announced his retirement from international cricket. In a decade long career for his country, Mo helped win the ODI and T20 world cups, scored 5 Test match Centuries, took 200 wickets and hit 3000 runs. He also served a long tenure as white ball vice captain.
I have always really liked Mo and I’ve always felt slightly sad for him. He was and is a beautiful batter. He’s stylish, has all the shots and has the best back-foot drive in the business. He’s no one trick pony however, when he wants to he can turn it on. Mo will slog you a ball out of the park with the best franchise players in the world. I honestly believe he could have been one of the all time great batters, a Joe Root or Virat Kohli.
The thing is, Mo could also bowl a bit of right arm finger spin, “hold an end” sort of stuff, but England needed spinners and it turned out he was a better bowler then even he thought. In what felt like an accident, Moeen became Englands first choice spinner. I’ve always felt that Englands insistence on him being an allrounder stopped Mo from being the top 3 world batter he could have been.
Of course Moeen doesn’t see it like that and he probably shouldn’t do. He’s England’s second most prolific right arm spinner off all time and must be high on the list of greatest allrounders………don’t listen to me, he’s been great.
Mo’s not going away completely, he’s going to make hay and spend a few years playing franchise cricket. We at All The Cricket can’t wait to see it! Good luck Moeen and thank you!
So that’s it for another edition, hope you enjoyed it and I’ll see you next time for World Cup build up, exciting!
All the best,
Nick
All The Cricket 
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