Good afternoon sports fans, I hope you’re all well! It’s been another exciting couple of days of action out in UAE. Yesterday England got their campaign underway with a winning, if not entirely convincing, effort against Bangladesh. Australia also kicked off their tournament with considerably more emphatic victory over Sri Lanka………bloody Aussies!
The England T20 squad have been out in UEA prepping for this tournament for over a month, in fact for England Women’s recent tour of Ireland, The Universe Cross Kate Cross was given the captaincy of a very young England B squad while the bulk of the A team were training in Abu Dhabi so England should be well prepped for the Emirati conditions.
Bangladesh are of course the nominal host’s of the tournament, although since not a ball is being bowed on Bangladeshi sovereign territory, home advantage has surely been lost. The Tigers did get a scrappy victory over Scotland in the first game of the competition, momentum was on their side.
Come the moment England Skipper Heather Knight won the toss and elected to bat first. It’s very hot out there, batting first makes sense to me, let the opponent wear themselves out in the field.
England’s openers, wearing those proud lions on their chest, started well. The Mighty Bouch Maia Bouchier and the newly re-christened Danni Wyatt-Hodge (congregations on the wedding Danni, I’m sure you’re a regular reader!) put on a opening partnership of 48. Unfortunately the rest of the batting card read 2, 6, 9, 12, 7, 4 and 8. To give her her due, the 8 at the end came off 2 balls from the world’s best spin bowler Sophie Ecclestone, she should have come in earlier! Englands usually robust middle order fell to a combination of good bowling and poor shot play, making 118 for 7 wickets. If I was to play devils advocate, I’d say that at Sharjah Cricket Stadium, that’s a par score but England should be doing better.
Bangladesh, having scored 119 in their first match were in the hunt here, although England on a poor day are much stiffer competition than Scotland.
BNG number 3 Sobhana Mosthary held the tigers innings together with a defiant 44 after both their openers were out for single figures. BNG captain and best player Nogar Sultana Joti also managed to hang around for a 20 ball 15. I’m afraid to say though Bangladesh’s batters, swinging like rusty gates, mostly with naked bats, were outclassed by Englands attack. Bronze star Yorkshire woman Linsey Smith had a particularly good game with the ball.
In the end Bangladesh pulled up 21 runs short and England won the game comfortably. If the lionesses had been facing Australia, India, even New Zealand or South Africa, it could have been a different story. We need to improve with the bat.
The Second game Yesterday was between Australia and Sri Lanka, unfortunately Australia won it easily so I’m not going to talk about it.
Today’s matches are between West Indies and Scotland this afternoon but right now Pakistan and playing India!
I’ve written before about the rivalry between the 2 cricketing giants of the Subcontinent so I’m not going to go down that route again, if you do want a touch more context on the subject you can check out the blog published in the 9th June 2023 England lose, Pakistan lose, New Zealand lose, am I the kiss of death?
Needless to say whenever IND and PAK play each other, men or women it’s a big event.
On this occasion over in Dubai Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat, like I say, that’s what I would have done due to the heat. Pakistan will also be hoping to set a good target, there is something of a gap between the quality of the 2 teams with Pakistan a full 5 places below India in the world rankings. Pakistan will have not wanted to be batted out of the game in the first innings.
The Pakistani Falcons, clad in Green made, well, a slow start. Muneeba Ali took 26 balls to make 17 runs and Gull Feroza made a 4 ball duck. PAK then had a slow middle, Sidra Ameen and Omaima Sohail chewed up balls to make 8 and 3. When Nidar Dar made it to the crease Pakistan needed to find some urgency and although Dar wasn’t what you would call blistering, she did manage to make 28. There were a couple of cameos from Fatima Sana and Syeda Aroob Shah but on the whole Pakistans batters looked lacklustre, turning down singles and turning 2’sto 1’s. The falcons made it to the end of their 20 overs scoring just 105.
As I type India are chasing down those runs with Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues going well and needing just 46 runs from 50 balls are well on track to take the game. Jemimah Rodrigues is another former Northern Supercharger and Bronze star Yorkshire woman…….they get about.
India are well on track to win but they are going quite glacially. After a shock and sizeable defeat at the hands of New Zealand in their first game of the competition, India have a woeful net run rate (Net run rate makes an exciting return!) it means that if they win this game using up there full overs, India’s net run rate won’t improve and might leave them in a position where they need to beat Australia to qualify, not a place they’ll necessarily fancy being.
Whether they do it slowly or quickly I can’t see India losing this one from this point……..as a Pakistan sympathiser though, it would be nice to see something remarkable happen!
The late game today is between Scotland and West Indies. That should be an exciting game, being frank, Scotland are better than you might expect and The Windies aren’t quite as good as you would think. I’m predicting a good tight game.
There will be more cricket tomorrow with England back in action against South Africa, again, pray for us.
Thanks for reading,
All the best,
Nick
All The Cricket 
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