Her 168* is the highest score by a visiting batter in a women’s Test in Australia

Sampath Bandarupalli29-Jan-2022168* – Heather Knight’s unbeaten score in the first innings is the highest individual score by a visiting batter in Australia in Women’s Tests. Smriti Mandhana’s 127 during the Pink-ball Test last year was the previous best. Knight’s 168 is also the second-highest score in Women’s Tests in Australia, behind Ellyse Perry’s 213* in Sydney during the 2017 Ashes Test.ESPNcricinfo Ltd1 – There is only one individual score higher than Knight’s 168 against Australia in Women’s Tests. Rachael Heyhoe-Flint scored 179 against Australia at The Oval in 1976. Knight’s 168* is also the fourth-highest individual score in Tests for England Women.2 – Number of times Knight has made 150 plus in Tests, both those performances came against Australia. Her previous effort came in Wormsley (157) in 2013. She is only the second woman with multiple Test scores of 150-plus runs. Karen Rolton also had two 150-plus scores in this format, both against England Women.ESPNcricinfo Ltd56.56 – Knight’s run percentage in her knock in England’s total of 297. Only four batters have contributed a higher percentage in a team’s all-out total in Women’s Tests. It is also the second-highest contribution made for England Women, behind Enid Blackwell’s 68.29 against West Indies in 1979, when she scored an unbeaten 112 out of England’s 164.2 – Knight’s 168* is the second-highest individual score by a captain in Women’s Test cricket. Heyhoe-Flint’s 179 against Australia in 1976 remains the highest score by a captain in Women’s Tests.ESPNcricinfo Ltd100 – Partnership between Knight and Ecclestone. It’s only the third century stand for the ninth wicket in Women’s Tests. Beverly Botha and Maureen Payne of South Africa added 107 against New Zealand in 1972, while the Indian debutants Sneh Rana and Taniya Bhatia stitched an unbeaten 104 against England in last year’s one-off Test in Bristol.

The Singapore-born batter opens up on his stratospheric rise in stardom, playing in different leagues, setting the PSL alight, and more

Danyal Rasool26-Feb-2022There’s a long, circumspect pause down the other end of the Zoom call. It is so extended that a quick check is needed to ensure the connection hasn’t been cut. It hasn’t. Tim David is merely considering his next words.It’s a frequent occurrence during the conversation with Multan Sultans’ platinum pick this year. Time and again, the soft-spoken David stops mid-sentence, almost editing himself in real time as he snips out a word here, adds in a phrase there. There’s a crispness to his diction many would struggle to match in print. It’s precise, surgical, almost delicate. For a man who boasts a strike rate of 199.20 in the PSL this year, and over 150 since the start of last year, those aren’t words too keenly associated with him.Related

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He might be dressed in his Sultans shirt for the interview, but there’s more to David the man than the fearsome power-hitting that’s fast becoming his trademark. The hunger to improve is, as with nearly all elite sportspeople, insatiable, but so is a shrewd understanding of how to give himself the best chance of making it in the cutthroat world of T20 franchise competition.”Sure I’d love opening the batting in T20 cricket,” he tells ESPNcricinfo at one point. “That’s awesome; you get to face as many balls as you can. But in such a competitive market, there’s not spots for that. And so for me to get myself into a Big Bash team [last year], I needed to work on those skills and the biggest opening I saw where my skill set would fit in was to be able to play in the middle order and play with power.”When David was plucked by the Lahore Qalandars last year for the second leg of the PSL, he was almost an unknown quantity outside Australia. A Singapore international who only had one solid season in the Big Bash League didn’t quite glitter like some of the other big names the PSL has seen, but David knew the work that had gone behind his BBL success, and felt it was both sustainable and replicable.”I think it was a case of finding what I was best at. My skills were better equipped to being able to hit and play aggressively through the middle. For me to be effective, I have to be able to clear the boundary when I want. The experience you get through batting in the middle order, you learn how to chase, finish off an innings or maximise the scoring when the game’s pretty much dictated to you.”Opening batters go out and they can essentially play however they want to, whereas a lot of times the middle order players have to play to what the game demands. So, I’ve got to walk out, I might have to get going in my first three balls. Sometimes that’s not easy, but that’s what you have to practice for, because that’s what’s required of me.”That revaluation of his career and skillset has produced astonishing results. The 2020-21 BBL season saw him score at a strike rate of 153.29 – among players who scored more runs, only Chris Lynn and Ben Cutting boasted a superior strike rate. The second leg of the PSL, played in relatively low-scoring UAE, saw David become emerge as a breakout star even as the Qalandars crashed and burned, his 180 runs coming at 166.66. He would go on to enjoy success in the CPL, land an IPL gig and have a stellar follow-up season at the BBL. Just last week, Mumbai Indians paid over USD 1 million to snap up his services for this year’s IPL, a competition he said he was “definitely” excited for.David doesn’t want to be measured by just runs: ” It’s nice if those things look favourably upon me, but I think it’s about match impact”•Lahore Qalandars”Each league has a different identity,” he says. “Perhaps you go to the CPL where sometimes the wickets aren’t as good and you get a high dot ball percentage. Guys might play, say, three, four dots and over then hit a six when they get the opportunity. The Big Bash can be tough because you can play on bigger grounds, so obviously your margin for error is larger. If you have a mishit, you can get caught in the deep. I’d probably say the biggest factor [that determines the ease of power hitting] is potentially ground sizes in Australia. Some grounds aren’t so big or there’s certain areas of the ground you have to target.”For now, though, it is the Sultans who’re enjoying the fruits of his services. At the PSL draft, last year’s defending champions snapped him up in the Platinum category, a meteoric rise for a player who was little more than a wildcard just six months earlier. Slotting into an Andy Flower-led franchise that prides itself on using extensive analytical data to wring every last drop of performance out of their team, the Sultans-David relationship feels much more natural. Does he feel the same way?True to form, David is more measured in his assessment. “I guess I haven’t played enough for both teams to really [compare]”, he eventually says. “We’ve obviously been in some really good form here at Multan, whereas last year with Lahore we had a strong side but we didn’t play our best, we weren’t winning games. That was disappointing, [but] I don’t think I was at Lahore long enough to be able to pass comment on it.”I’ve got to be comfortable with accepting that fact that playing in the middle order in T20 cricket is so dynamic. My output can’t be measured by runs or necessarily strike rate. It’s nice if those things look favourably upon me, but I think it’s about match impact and that’s what I just try to be. The more I play each time I reflect back on how I have as much of a positive impact to the team as I can.”On that count, he ticks all boxes handsomely for the Sultans this season. A 29-ball 71 and an unbeaten 51 off 19 in consecutive games – two innings that saw him smash 12 sixes in 48 balls – stand out as obvious highlights; he’s also joint top six-hitter (20) this PSL with leading runscorer Fakhar Zaman, who has taken 379 balls to hit the same number as David has in 126. The Sultans have been in imperious form all season, winning 10 of their 11 games to cruise into the final.

“I think it’s important to be realistic. I’ve definitely performed well at times, but after every tournament I’ve left thinking I could have done better”

While David has been a key reason for that success, there’s perhaps an argument he’s still being wasted a little batting as low as he does. In Mohammad Rizwan and Shan Masood, the Sultans have a formidable opening partnership, but it is one that tends to bat through large chunks of the innings without quite achieving the same level of destructiveness that David or Khushdil Shah provide. In a game against Karachi Kings earlier this month, the pair batted for 14.2 overs for 100 runs, with the asking rate rising above 15 by the time the partnership was broken; David faced just 7 balls for 13 runs. In the qualifier against the Qalandars on Wednesday, Rizwan scored an unbeaten 53 in 51 balls, carrying his bat. Multan lost just two wickets, and David never got to bat at all.”I would be very hesitant to be critical of Shan and Rizwan,” he says, as ever, weighing every word before uttering it, “because they’ve been such big strengths for us this season. I still think they are in every game. They set such a strong platform. It really sets it up for our team the way we’re structured with a strong middle order. We like to think that all of the guys in the middle order could bat up top if we needed to. If we need to bat in the first 10 overs, we all can. We all want to face as many balls as we can, but we understand the role of the team and I think everyone in this side is going out to try and do their best for the side.”One of the highlights of the season came in an early game, with Quetta Gladiators seven runs from victory down to their number 11 against the Sultans. Skipper Rizwan moved the six-foot-four David to the deep midwicket boundary all the way from the other side of the ground. Next ball, Naseem Shah smashed it to exactly that place, with David needing every inch of his frame to grasp the ball, spoon it back up as he overbalanced past the rope, and take the catch on the return to seal a sensational win. It was emblematic of Rizwan, who cannot seem to put a foot wrong at the moment, as batter, wicketkeeper or indeed captain.”I’ve really enjoyed playing with Rizwan as my captain,” David grins. “He just encourages our team to have fun, play with a smile. That’s easy to say when you’ve won seven out of your eight games.David insists on leaving “everything I do on the field”•Getty Images”He’s probably a little bit more relaxed off the field, I think it’d be fair to say. But he’s been great for us to perform our best. We keep it simple. We’re trying to play bravely so we can just put in our best performance in the match. And you know, part of being a professional cricketer is accepting that you can’t have a perfect performance every day.”The heights David has hit have been so stratospheric at times it’s impossible not to wonder if it’s sustainable. Australia are likely to look at him very closely for this year’s home T20 World Cup; the days of playing for Singapore are done and dusted. David accepts that he’ll invariably run into a rough patch sooner or later, but rejects the idea he is simply a cricketer going through a purple patch.”I think it’s important to be realistic. I’ve definitely performed well at times, but after every tournament I’ve left thinking I could have done better. I’d be wary of calling it a purple patch. I know I’ve had good form and I’ve played well, but I’d like to think that it’s very sustainable. It’s encouraging to me that I’ve been able to do it in different leagues, across different competitions. I’m aware that form can change, and I’m sure that will come at some point. And that’s another skill of learning how to manage yourself through those periods. I’ve just been learning so much through each tournament. I feel already so much more confident in my own game I’m having a really good time.”But the idea of the T20 World Cup gets short shrift.”I don’t think it weighs heavily on me at all. If my performances are providing me the opportunity to be a part of those things, then that’s great. But honestly it sounds cliched, but I’m just literally focused on our game tomorrow.”That “game tomorrow”, the PSL final against the Qalandars, really is a rather big deal, and for once, there’s little hesitation in David’s answer. For a man who has seen his fortune turn – and indeed built – in a little over 12 months, talking about a competition eight months away makes little sense.”I hope I’ve given you enough,” he smiles, a little sheepishly. “I want to leave everything I do out on the field.”

Known for her change-ups with the old ball, she has shown a previously hidden facet of her skillset at the Commonwealth Games

S Sudarshanan03-Aug-2022Hayley Jensen has played 42 T20Is. Only four members of New Zealand’s squad at the Commonwealth Games have played more matches than her. But what exactly is her role in New Zealand’s T20I set-up?She’s handy with the bat, but she’s hardly the first name you’d think of when you think of New Zealand’s best batters. She’s a wily medium-pacer who often gets the better of batters on sluggish surfaces with her change-ups, but her name is probably not the first that pops into your head if you close your eyes and think of New Zealand’s seamers.Over the last couple of years, Jensen has been a plug-the-hole kind of player. Suzie Bates is unavailable, who do New Zealand open the batting with? Jensen. A couple of quick wickets have fallen; who could they possibly send in to lengthen their batting? Jensen, of course. Quick lower-order runs needed? Call Jensen, maybe?During the Commonwealth Games, she’s begun fulfilling another new role, of opening the bowling. Against South Africa, she was New Zealand’s most economical bowler, her four overs costing just 22 runs and bringing the wicket of Anneke Bosch. In the 45-run win over Sri Lanka, Jensen did even better, returning figures of 3 for 5 – her best in T20Is.If Sri Lanka were to make a match of their 148-run chase, Chamari Athapaththu had to be the protagonist. In her opening exchanges with Jensen, though, Athapaththu – to quote Jos Buttler – “came third in a two-horse race”. It could have been curtains for her off the very first ball when she failed to pick an inswinger and was rapped on the pads. New Zealand didn’t review the lbw call. After flicking the next inswinger to midwicket, she had a wild dash at a full and wide ball.Off the fourth ball she faced, Athapaththu walked at Jensen, only for the inswinger to dip under her bat and clatter into leg stump. The stuff of dreams for a swing bowler. Hasini Perera was next in line to succumb to her inswing, failing to put bat to five of the first six balls she faced from Jensen, flicking and missing repeatedly.Jensen was Player of the Match when New Zealand fought back from 91 all out to beat Bangladesh at the T20 World Cup in 2020•ICCJensen had never opened the bowling for New Zealand before the Commonwealth Games, and head coach Ben Sawyer was behind the move to give her this opportunity.”Ben’s come in and just wanted me to swing the ball up top,” Jensen said. “That’s what I have tried to work on. Usually I probably bowl variations and things like that. He’s just tried to keep it simple for me to swing the ball up top and then yorkers at the back end.”I do it for Otago back in domestic [cricket]. I haven’t done it for White Ferns as much but tried to get it back in my game. Ben’s really helped me with that. He was the bowling coach of Australia and so he’s really been helping me with my bowling.”Jensen returned for her second spell after the powerplay to end Perera’s misery before having Anushka Sanjeewani playing on with a full one in the 15th over.”We saw in the warmups that she was moving it a bit and, in training also, she’s been really swinging the ball a lot here in English conditions, and you want to make the most of it,” Sophie Devine, the New Zealand captain, said. “Today she was outstanding again. She’s probably a bit underrated and I think the teams are certainly going to start watching what she can do with the ball.”In the Women’s T20 World Cup in 2020, when New Zealand were dismissed for 91 by Bangladesh, Jensen led the way with the ball with 3 for 11 to eke out a 17-run win. A week before that, she had dragged Sri Lanka back after a strong start and helped keep them to a gettable total.From being the saviour with the older ball to setting the tone with the new, swinging ball, Jensen has shown she can do it all. And now that she’s gained success in this new, high-profile gig, her name might be the first one that comes to your mind if you were to close your eyes and think of a New Zealand player.

Once again, when the chips were down, he managed to wrest back the momentum and leave Bangladesh deflated

Mohammad Isam26-Jun-2022Kyle Mayers’ batting average was bound to come down from 250.00 since his debut Test. A dream start such as his, an unbeaten 210 leading West Indies to a 395-run chase against Bangladesh in Chattogram last year, was always going to be a hard act to follow. Mayers’ was an exceptional innings, never done before by a debutant.As he got to his second Test century with a very Caribbean swivel-pull shot on his toes, he once again released the pressure from the West Indies in a tight situation against Bangladesh. It was a quiet appreciation of Mayers’ application of his overall skills, aside from the obvious stroke play. As has been the theme of his short career so far, Mayers stood out when the chips are down.Related

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He picked up the home side who had lost four wickets for 32 runs at the time of his arrival at the crease. West Indies had slipped from 100 for no loss to 132 for four. The visitors were buoyant at the batting collapse. There was always going to be a counterattack from a Mayers-Jermaine Blackwood partnership, but no one could predict how long it would last. In the end, the pair added 116 runs for the fifth wicket, taking West Indies easily past Bangladesh’s 234.Mayers deflated Bangladesh not just by scoring the 126 runs, but the manner in which he wrestled back the momentum from them. Shakib Al Hasan appeared defeated as he slowly pulled back the attacking fielding positions one by one, only to resort to one-day type field settings whenever Mayers was on strike.It was disheartening for the Bangladesh bowlers who brought the team back into the contest with the four-wicket burst in the morning session.Mayers didn’t provide many chances, except the odd play-and-miss, or the flying edges going past the slip cordon from time to time. He threaded plenty of boundaries through the covers in his off-side-heavy innings. Mayers’ tendency to hang back slightly to blast the ball through the off side, even slightly squarer, is in a class of its own. One of his best shots was hammering Mehidy for a six down the ground, which started to open up the field.The usually attacking Blackwood took a backseat during their 116-run stand, as he made 40 off 121 balls. Mayers also dominated the unbroken sixth-wicket stand with Joshua Da Silva to give West Indies a sizable second-innings lead against a tottering batting line-up.Some of Mayers’ shots would have reminded the Bangladesh bowlers of his Chattogram epic. There too, the left-hander struck plenty of boundaries through the covers, but Mayers also hit ten boundaries, including six sixes, through the mid-on region. This time though, he had a very high percentage of his runs on the off side, having struck just the one four and six through the on side.The Chattogram innings was a big announcement of Mayers’ ability. The man who was almost lost to his family in a powerful typhoon some years ago, combined his brutal power with mental strength under pressure. It won him many fans and appreciation from several of the game’s greats.But just over a year later, Mayers found himself seeing the other side of the coin. On the back of 12 innings without a fifty, West Indies dropped him for the first two Tests against England in March. He returned for the St George’s Test with a mesmerizing spell of seam bowling that decimated the visitors, his match-haul of 7 for 31 effectively winning the West Indies the series.

“I just thought the key was to being myself, being counterattacking, getting on top of the opposition and changing the momentum. It is just a matter of fully committing to what I do”Kyle Mayers

Mayers continued his bowling exploits with six wickets in three innings against Bangladesh. He nailed Litton Das and Nurul Hasan, two in-form batters, in one over that hurtled the visitors towards further trouble. He removed Najmul Hossain Shanto and Mominul Haque in the same spell on the third day, again derailing Bangladesh.On the first day of the second Test, he chipped in with two more wickets. Shanto fell to a fine in-ducker although Mayers was lucky to get the wicket on the umpire’s call. Later, he had Mehidy Hasan Miraz caught at point, ensuring Litton lost his last recognised batting partner quite early in the third session.After the end of the second day’s play, Mayers said that he wanted to change the momentum of the West Indies innings shortly after they lost three wickets in quick succession.”The plan was just to be as positive as possible,” Mayers said. “We lost three quick wickets. I just thought the key was to being myself, being counterattacking, getting on top of the opposition and changing the momentum. It is just a matter of fully committing to what I do. I have to be very decisive in terms of stroke play. I have to be very positive when I decide to attack. I give it my all. It is the same when I am defending. Making the right choices is important.”We just want to shut out the opposition at least for the first hour. Keep them out of the game, and then pile on the runs as much as possible to get a big lead. I think 200 would be ideal for us, given the amount of time left in the game. It is a patience game, for both batters and bowlers. I try to maximise every chance I get to score. They bowled well in patches. The pitch isn’t one where you can blast out the opposition.”Mayers’ status as an impact cricketer has been underlined in this series. He will of course have to be consistent but West Indies have to quickly learn the value of a cricketer like him. He will use all of his talent in a fantastic spell or in a backs-to-the-wall innings whenever they are in trouble. But Mayers cannot be expected to do all this on a regular basis, however special a player he is. West Indies, instead, will just have to be patient with him.

Backing his adventurous approach on perhaps the bounciest pitch he has played on, he left all his team-mates in the shade

Sidharth Monga30-Oct-20222:23

Faf du Plessis: ‘Suryakumar Yadav’s composure stands out, never seen him frantic’

Going into this World Cup, there was a bit of scepticism around Suryakumar Yadav. Yes, he had played quite a few unbelievable innings both in the IPL and in T20Is, but the doubt – from pundits who are better equipped to look at technique and so forth – was around how he would handle the bouncy conditions in Australia, where he had never played before. A bit of an in-joke: he had even done a lovely interview with ESPNcricinfo leading into the tournament, an event that is believed by certain fans to have magical jinxing powers. Three matches in, that scepticism should be dissipating.Related

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In Sydney Suryakumar made a mockery of the need for a set batter in the last 10 overs, which have been far more productive than the front 10 in this World Cup. In Perth he played a truly special knock on probably the fastest and bounciest track he might have played on. It was definitely the fastest and bounciest of this World Cup, what with first slip standing at almost the edge of the 30-yard ring when South Africa bowled. Suryakumar’s innings came against a quick four-man pace attack. From a dire situation. Which is why he finished top of our Impact ratings with 128.55 points, well clear of the Player of the Match Lungi Ngidi, who scored 105.82.In a match where runs came at 6.75 an over, Suryakumar went at over 10. He scored more than half of India’s runs in exactly one-third the balls. Nobody on either side scored more. Nobody scored quicker. He made the pace and the bounce his friend, jumping inside the line and helping balls along behind square. His best shot perhaps was the flat-bat slap back over Kagiso Rabada’s head for four. Perhaps not quite Virat Kohli vs Haris Rauf levels, but this was still a shot to be marvelled at: off the back foot, against a genuine fast bowler on the bounciest track of the tournament, and back down the ground for four.Most importantly Suryakumar batted his way. A more traditional approach when in crisis in this tournament has been for batters to soak up balls, get themselves “set” and then look to make up for it in the end. It puts a lot of pressure on you and the batters to follow. Suryakumar was more Marcus Stoinis than Virat Kohli.Suryakumar Yadav finds a way to attack any kind of length•ICC via Getty ImagesSuryakumar went after just the fourth ball he faced, one ball after Deepak Hooda’s wicket had left India 42 for 4 in the eighth over. It would soon become for 49 for 5 in the ninth, but Suryakumar hit Anrich Nortje for a six in the next over. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t clinical: he targeted Keshav Maharaj, taking 25 off 12 balls from him. Overall, though, he played what is a percentage game in T20: either score quickly yourself or give others a chance to do so.South Africa will perhaps feel they went searching for wickets a little bit against Suryakumar: their fast bowlers bowled 12 short or short-of-good-length balls at him as against 13 on a length or fuller. The others got 38 on the shorter side and 33 on a length or fuller. Had one of the top five made it into the second half of the innings along with him, India may perhaps have been in a better situation to make use of the spinners’ overs. It just didn’t happen because when you don’t have a target in front of you, you have to take more risks, which didn’t pay off for India’s batters.Unlike Suryakumar, Aiden Markram and David Miller could afford to play out the difficult period and then really go after R Ashwin because they knew their target wasn’t huge. Eventually, South Africa scored eight more runs in boundaries than India did, which was roughly the difference between the two teams.India are still favourites to make it out of this group because their next two matches are against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and the weather in Adelaide and Melbourne, the venues for these matches on Wednesday and Sunday, looks fine at least at the moment. They need three points from these two games to be assured of qualification so this defeat doesn’t do their chances as much damage as it would have done South Africa had they lost. In the process India have found out they can run South Africa close in conditions that are loaded in South Africa’s favour. And that at No. 4 they have an all-conditions T20 great in the making.

Opener finds new lease of life on domestic circuit, as wife takes centre stage for England

Andrew Miller04-Nov-2022Winfield-Hill was player of the match on Tuesday night. Nothing new there, you might think, in a redemptive year for the England international, one in which she has redefined her love of the game to cement her status as one of the very best in her chosen sport.The Winfield-Hill in question on this occasion, however, was not Lauren Winfield-Hill – Cricket World Cup winner in 2017 and twin-trophy winner in a stellar summer just gone – but her Australia-born wife Courtney, whose power-packed hat-trick lit up Headingley in England’s 72-4 victory over Brazil, in the opening match of the women’s Rugby League World Cup.It’s early days in a tournament that culminates in a double-header with the men at Old Trafford on November 19. But, if the home-soil success of England’s cricketers in 2017, as well as this summer’s women’s Euros winners is anything to go by, the coming month could yet be one in which Courtney Winfield-Hill’s own world-class credentials are sent mainstream, after five years of under-acknowledged trailblazing with Leeds Rhinos in the Women’s Super League.And if that does come to pass, then it will complete for the Winfield-Hills one of the most serendipitous sporting stories imaginable – a joint venture that began in adverse circumstances with the Covid outbreak in March 2020, and has traversed some dark days of soul-searching in the interim. But either way, a remarkable sporting power couple appear now to be proving that all the sacrifice is worthwhile.”I can’t grumble,” Lauren Winfield-Hill tells ESPNcricinfo, and with good reason after her own litany of recent successes. A starring role in her first season for Oval Invincibles helped the Hundred’s inaugural champions to defend their title in 2022, before she topped the averages in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, including a player-of-the-match performance in the final in September, to become the first women’s cricketer to lift three trophies in consecutive final appearances at Lord’s.Now, while her wife is blazing a trail back in her adopted home in Blighty, Lauren’s form has sent her in the other direction for another crack at the Big Bash – this time for Melbourne Stars, where she is currently their leading run-scorer with 150 from 132 balls all told. That tally includes 47 from 49 in her most recent outing against Adelaide Strikers, where her steadying presence allowed the young guns Alice Capsey and Tess Flintoff to cut loose in startling fashion at the other end.Lauren Winfield-Hill sweeps during her unbeaten 74 against Northern Superchargers•Getty Images”I feel like I’ve just built myself back up,” Lauren says. “I wasn’t in a good place mentally after Covid, even just as a human being… I could barely even live in the house with my wife, because I was just freaking out at random stuff. But every competition I’ve played this year has just been another layer, going up all the time, and now I’m out here in Australia with a new team, different pressures, different expectations. It’s been really nice to be able to have nothing to change any more, and just to keep going like I did at the start of the summer.”In a different era, this week could have been one of crushing disappointment. On Wednesday, the ECB announced their new tranche of women’s central contracts, and Lauren was a notable absentee, though not an unexpected one after a frustrating run of insubstantial scores in her final months in the ODI side.After 11 double-figure innings in 13 starts, but no half-centuries, she was axed in March, midway through England’s gruelling World Cup campaign in New Zealand, and has since seen the coming generation – Capsey and Sophia Dunkley to the fore – seize their opportunities.And yet, as her performances outside of the England set-up have demonstrated, there’s a whole different avenue opening up for the women’s game – serving up opportunities that could not be further removed from her own early years as a player.”The main thing I feel right now is comfort,” she says. “There was probably always a sense that if you didn’t play for England, you weren’t a cricketer. You’d go from hero to zero, almost overnight, if you lost a contract or were deselected.”It used to be the case that, if you weren’t playing international cricket, the standard that you dropped to was, well, I’m not really going to bother getting out of bed for that. But now you know that you can play some really good cricket in some really cool competitions, even if you’re not in favour with England, and that gives you a lot of fulfilment and a lot to still be excited about, beyond just international cricket.”The journey has changed, hasn’t it?” she adds. “I never intended to come out to the Big Bash, it only came about off the back of me doing well in the Hundred, and I was like, oh, this is a nice surprise. And now there’s me and Capsey, playing on the same team, though she’s at the start, and I’m closer to the end. But how cool is it that we’ve both had this opportunity at the same time, and doesn’t matter that she’s 18 and I’m 32? We’re both in the same place right now.”Courtney Winfield-Hill has switched both countries and sports to star for England in the Women’s Rugby League World Cup•Getty ImagesPerhaps the only note of disappointment for Lauren now is that she cannot be around for her wife’s big moment. England play Canada in the Rugby League World Cup on Saturday with Papua New Guinea to come the following week, before a probable semi-final against either Australia or New Zealand in Lauren’s home city of York on November 14. After that, who knows what’s in store?”[Being away during the tournament] did feel like a really big decision for me and for us,” Lauren says. “We’re both in the sporting field, and when this opportunity came about with the Big Bash, we both knew that such things won’t present themselves forever. A lot of her family are over to support her and that’ll be really cool, because they haven’t seen her play a lot. Obviously, my family and myself have been there a lot, so I think it’d be nice to share that with them.”In spite of this absence at the sharp end, however, Lauren’s role in Courtney’s journey could not be more integral. Seven years ago, when their paths first crossed, it was as team-mates at Brisbane Heat in Lauren’s first crack at the Big Bash. Back then, she was the 25-year-old overseas star, an England player awaiting her breakthrough moment, and as their relationship developed during the course of the 2015-16 season, it was clear that hers was the career that demanded the investment.So Courtney – a talented seam bowler in her own right – was the one to up sticks from her native Queensland and build a new life in Yorkshire. She called time on her own playing days and moved into the coaching set-up at Northern Diamonds, but it soon became clear that the other Headingley Stadium, backing onto the cricket ground, was her truest calling.In 2018, she pulled on her rugby boots for the first time in two decades, and by the time she’d been named the Super League’s Woman of Steel in 2019, it was clear she was quickly making up for lost time. Her England chance, however, is directly attributable to Covid – specifically the postponement of the World Cup in 2021, which allowed her to complete her five-year residency qualification in time for this year’s delayed event, and to make it worthwhile for the England selectors to fast-track her in their plans.”The stars have just aligned, haven’t they?” Lauren adds. “How is she in England, married to an English girl, playing for England in rugby league? You wouldn’t have written that narrative five or six years ago, but it’s amazing. I don’t think it was something that she ever thought was going to be possible, but opportunities present themselves in different spaces.”I’m quite biased, but I’ve always said Courtney’s far too good an athlete to not ever reach the top,” she adds. “I’d never say this to her face, obviously, her head will grow. But she’s fearless. She’s a great athlete, and the narrative of her story is just awesome. She’s 35, and she’s debuting in a World Cup, in a sport that she hadn’t played since she was 12. It’s pretty cool.”Not everything about the Covid experience was quite so cool though, and Lauren freely admits the constraints of the pandemic tested their relationship to the max – almost from the moment of their marriage in Queensland in March 2020. Within 24 hours of the start of their honeymoon on the idyllic Hamilton Island, the entire country went into lockdown, and the Winfield-Hills were faced with a marital acid test.

In a coaching space, being challenged by your wife is a whole different feeling. She’s supposed to think my cover drive is the best in the world!Lauren Winfield-Hill

“It was strange at first because Courtney and I are so different,” Lauren says. “We have very similar values that we care about, but we are so different. She’s that free spirit, high energy, no structure, just go with it and it’s all a bit carnage. She’s very left-field thinking and very creative, and I’m quite militant at times. So it’s great because she’s my blind spot, I can lean into that space a little bit and it usually serves me really well.”A further complication came when their work-life balances overlapped – Courtney as a coach in the nets at Northern Diamonds, and Lauren as an out-of-form batter struggling with the pandemic’s boxed-in circumstances.”At first it was all a bit, whoa, this is alternative to my thinking,” Lauren says. “In a coaching space, being challenged by your wife is a whole different feeling. She’s supposed to think my cover drive is the best in the world! ‘What do you mean, I’m gripping too tight with my bottom hand!'”It was probably a bit of ego on my part, because I didn’t want to take feedback from someone so close to me. But I guess it’s just about switching hats, isn’t it? Because we can both talk until the cows come home about cricket, high performance and the rest of it. But when you’re at home and you’re out of that space, she’s my wife, and we have a cut-off where we’ve spoken work, and now that’s it, done.”But if that was feasible in the domestic sphere, it proved nigh on impossible during England’s gruelling campaign in the 2021-22 winter, encompassing a dispiriting one-sided Ashes tour followed by the World Cup. Looking back, Lauren believes that some of her on-field struggles could well have been connected to her diagnosis, in October 2019, of Crohn’s disease – the same intestinal issue that Jack Leach has been required to manage during his England career.”I’m lucky with the support I’ve had from the ECB,” she says. “It’s only thanks to the England doctor that I was diagnosed in the first place. But the bubbles involved a lot of UberEATS and takeaways, which did make me quite sick. It’s a lot easier to manage now that I can cook and go out for good meals, and look after myself physically.”Also, when you’re not in bubbles, you sleep better. Fatigue is a big part of it and obviously, if you’re not resting and recovering from the training and playing loads, then you’re just constantly taking fuel out the tanks.Lauren Winfield-Hill started the 2022 season with 96 from 51 balls for Northern Diamonds•Getty Images”Everybody had different experiences, but I’m quite a deep thinker and I need distractions. The bubbles don’t give you that, they just give you mental combustion and lots of analysis, lots of overthinking. And lots of disconnect. I needed my people to ground me and reassure me that I’m not just a cricketer, we love you regardless. When the only thing that you’re getting any sort of feedback on is cricket, and that’s not going well, you don’t really know who you are and what you stand for.”It always sounds really corny, doesn’t it? But you’ve got to bounce your bum on the bottom to come back up. And right now, I’m playing the best cricket in my life.”Though she hit the ground running in the 2022 season with a remarkable 96 from 51 balls for Northern Diamonds in the Charlotte Edwards Cup, it was Lauren’s move from Northern Superchargers to Oval Invincibles for the Hundred that provided the stand-out evidence of her new resolve. Her first match for the Invincibles came against her old team-mates – Alyssa Healy included, whose pre-eminence as a wicketkeeper-opener had been a factor in Lauren moving south to give herself an extra role behind the stumps. By the time she’d cracked 74 not out from 42 balls in a nine-wicket win, she had amply justified the switch.”It was a massive decision at the time because I’m Northern through and through, and obviously I had been captain at the Superchargers,” she says. “But sometimes you make decisions for other people instead of decisions for yourself. I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous for a game than I was for that first game, so it was nice to perform, and they were really happy for me, which meant a lot.Related

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“I’ve just changed the way I operate,” she adds. “I’ve become less OCD with my training routine and allowed myself to go with the flow. The bottom line is that I couldn’t adapt to anything that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. But that’s the game of cricket. God knows what’s going to happen, who knows how many you are going to be chasing, or what sort of surface you’re going to get on, or who they’re going to bowl.”So I’ve worked really hard on being more fluid in life, and fluid in the game. I’m not trying so hard to get that score that proves I’m worthy of being an England cricketer, and so I’m able to adapt and play the game in front of me. Sometimes that might just need me to be gritty, whereas previously I’d have tried to be expansive and sexy, and fail to get the job done.”Greater self-assurance comes with a greater desire to be seen as a role-model too, on the field and off. In terms of her relationship with Courtney, Lauren acknowledges that it wasn’t always easy to be upfront about her sexuality, and that the act of getting married – and taking on a double-barrelled surname – was a big factor in becoming truly comfortable about who she is.”I just think it’s important to use your platform, use your story for good, and just create awareness,” she says. “Our job is to play cricket but there’s a bit more to it than that. It’s important to show you are not afraid to be authentic, and to drive the change.”More generally, however, as a female sportsperson, Lauren can feel that change happening on her watch, and is eager to do her bit to keep the momentum going, at every level of the game.”I think people understand the challenges that female athletes have gone through, and have a respect for that, but you’ve also got to have one eye on the future of change,” she says. “For instance, it’s great to see Amy Jones up on a billboard for a big advertising campaign, but who’s looking out for the girl who’s gone to a cricket club and has nowhere to get changed, or no sanitary bin? She isn’t going to go back if you don’t keep an eye on the shop floor stuff too.”We’re not just the tag-ons anymore. In the past we might have been the curtain-raisers, but now it feels like we are up there on a pedestal as well.”One of the best things about the Hundred has been seeing all the kids after the game, and there’ll be a ten-year-old boy shouting your name and asking for your autograph. That has such an impact, because if a girl then goes into the playground and plays cricket, they don’t all go ‘urgh, it’s a girl!’ They’ll be thinking, ‘I went to watch the Hundred, and the girls are really good. Come on, let’s play!'”Lauren Winfield-Hill recently featured in the Royal London series ‘The Changing Room’, a three-part video series, in partnership with the ECB, where players and officials discuss a range of topics that impact the game of cricket including, racism, faith discrimination, and gender equality. The entire series is available to stream at www.royallondon.com/cricket

RCB get Mandhana, Perry; Mumbai pick Harmanpreet; Deepti goes to UP Warriorz

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Feb-2023

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Number of players bought: 18
Money spent: INR 11.9 crore
Key players: They love building their brand around certain key players. Think Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Chris Gayle with the men’s team. Similarly at the WPL, they’ve lined up a fearsome trio of Smriti Mandhana, four-time T20 World Cup winner Ellyse Perry and South Africa’s Dane van Niekerk, a value pick at INR 30 lakh.Related

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Strengths: Their overseas contingent is star-studded and full of multi-skilled cricketers. Perry, Sophie Devine, van Niekerk, Heather Knight – all of them can bat and bowl. The team management may have to rack their brains on whom to leave out and that isn’t a bad place to be in, given the quality they have. Throw in the firepower of Mandhana, Richa Ghosh and Renuka Singh, all high-profile India internationals, and they’ve got all the makings of a tournament-winning squad.Weaknesses: The absence of a quality Indian wristspinner on red-soil surfaces of Mumbai, which will aid bounce, may be a bit of a miss.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Mumbai Indians

Number of players bought: 17
Money spent: INR 12 crore (entire purse)
Key players: Harmanpreet Kaur, Nat Sciver-Brunt and Pooja Vastrakar will undoubtedly be among the first names on the scorecard. It was in Mumbai where Harmanpreet announced herself with a maiden World Cup hundred in 2013, and it’s here that she will begin a new era in Indian women’s cricket, possibly as captain of the Mumbai Indians. Sciver-Brunt’s batting versatility against pace and spin, as well as her quality medium pace, and Vastrakar’s X-factor as a big hitter lower down, in addition to being able to bowl a heavy ball in the middle overs make them vital cogs.Strengths: Back-ups for every position is something Mumbai pride themselves on having thanks to a robust scouting network. And they’ve managed to create just that. They have also built a decent pool of India Under-19s, whom they would hope to nurture over time.Weakness: The absence of a back-up wicketkeeper to Yastika Bhatia could be a bit of a hindrance. Beyond Vastrakar, they’re also thin on Indian seam bowling options.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Gujarat Giants

No of players bought: 18
Money spent: INR 11.5 crore
Key players: Given Sneh Rana’s vast experience in the domestic circuit, she could be a potent force for Giants in the inaugural WPL. She has reunited with Nooshin Al Khadeer, who, as the head coach of Railways, has had a massive influence in the second coming of Rana in the national set-up. Given that two venues will host all 22 games, her flight and dip with the ball could come into play.Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner became the joint-most expensive overseas buy in the auction at INR 3.2 crore (USD 390,000 approx), just days after after she picked up her career-best bowling figures in T20Is. Gardner had spoken about how the surfaces at DY Patil Stadium as well as the Brabourne Stadium were conducive to good strokeplay – something that would benefit her as a hitter – and how they gripped and turned too. Expect her to make an impact with the ball too.Strengths: Specialists overseas options to choose from plus a couple of bankable seam-bowling allrounders in Deandra Dottin and Annabel Sutherland.Weaknesses: A bit thin on Indian experience. Save for Harleen Deol, S Meghana and D Hemalatha, they don’t have a back-up local batter who can be relied upon in crunch situation or some unforeseen injury issues.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

UP Warriorz

Number of players bought: 16, including six overseas
Money spent: INR 12 crore
Key players: Alyssa Healy will be a vital cog in Warriorz’s top order and in the squad, bringing with her vast international experience. One of the most destructive batters in the world, the Australian strikes at 128.26 in T20Is and can single-handedly steer her team to victory.Deepti Sharma was the second-most expensive Indian player at INR 2.6 crore, behind Smriti Mandhana. Her talent with both ball – especially in spin-friendly conditions in Mumbai – and bat makes her a crucial figure in the line-up.Strengths: Warriorz seem to have a balanced squad, well stocked with allrounders in Deepti, Devika Vaidya, Parshavi Chopra, Tahlia McGrath and Grace Harris, who can change the momentum of the game with the bat and ball. With Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Sophie Ecclestone and Deepti forming the core spin trio, the inclusion of Shabnim Ismail and Anjali Sarvani lend the perfect balance in the pace department. They also have a solid top order in Healy, the Under-19 India opener Shweta Sehrawat and McGrath.Weaknesses: Kiran Navgire and the lesser-known Laxmi Yadav are the only specialist batters in the middle order. They do not have many players who can play the anchor role if a few wickets fall early in the innings.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Delhi Capitals

No. of players bought: 18, including 6 overseas
Money spent: INR 11.65 crore
Key players:: In Meg Lanning, they have a multiple World Cup-winning captain from Australia. Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma and Marizanne Kapp’s form, and experience, will also be key for the team’s campaign in the inaugural edition.Strengths: Shafali, Rodrigues and Lanning form a strong top order for Capitals. The core of their bowling group also has good international experience in Poonam Yadav, Jess Jonassen, Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Arundhati Reddy and Marizanne Kapp.Weaknesses: No perceived weakness on paper as such, but both their wicketkeepers, Taniya Bhatia and Aparna Mondal, not being attacking batters might slow things down in the lower-middle order.ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Almost 42% of the total spend was on allrounders; Williamson and Jamieson among the players to have huge salary slashes

Sampath Bandarupalli25-Dec-2022INR 82 = USD 1</smallPerfect seven for Titans
Gujarat Titans, the title holders, entered the auction with a purse of INR 19.25 crore for seven available spots. Titans bid only on seven players through the auction and took home all of them – four of them at their base price – and spent big on only one player: Shivam Mavi, who they bought for INR 6 crore.Sunrisers Hyderabad also had a near-perfect auction. They bought 13 of the 14 players they bid for. The only player Sunrisers missed was Ben Stokes, for whom they were in the bidding war until he touched the INR 15-crore mark, before going to Chennai Super Kings