Monday 13 January 2014

Who did what in the Test Match

Here is a quick review of each player's performance in the Test Match and the unique Women's Cricket Blog (WCB) Rating.

England

Heather Knight
Batting - 1st - 14; 2nd - 1
Fielding - 2 catches
A quiet game for the 2013 Ashes heroine with the bat, but picked up a couple of good slip catches.
WCB Rating 5/10
Charlotte Edwards
Batting - 1st - 17; 2nd - 56
Fielding - 0
Crucial second innings runs coming in at 7 and putting on 85 runs with Jenny Gunn.
WCB Rating 7/10
Sarah Taylor
Batting - 1st - 1; 2nd - 0
Fielding - 4 catches; 1 stumping
No runs for Sarah, but she should not have opened in the second innings. Kept well including a great legside stumping. One missed catch in second innings diving forward.
WCB Rating 5/10
Lydia Greenway
Batting - 1st - 22; 2nd - 5
Fielding - 0
Excellent in the field at backward point and saved plenty of runs, but failed to score many herself, although batted a long time in the first innings.
WCB Rating 6/10
Arran Brindle
Batting - 1st - 68; 2nd - 35
Fielding - 0
Bowling - 1st - 3-0-14-0; 2nd - dnb
Did a great job with the bat in both innings coming in at 32/3 and 8/2. Good partnerships in both innings with Nat Sciver.
WCB Rating 8/10
Natalie Sciver
Batting - 1st - 49; 2nd - 23
Fielding - 1 catch
Bowling - 1st 9.2-3-30-1; 2nd - dnb
Making her Test Match debut and batted well in both innings. Unfortunate to fall short of maiden Test Match 50 in first dig.
WCB Rating 7/10
Jenny Gunn
Batting - 1st - 0; 2nd - 44
Fielding - 2 catches
Bowling - 1st 18-8-14-1; 2nd - 14-8-13-2
Bowled a bit too wide of the stumps in the first innings, but did a good stifling job for her skipper with the ball and increased pressure on batsmen. Made her highest Test Match score in her 17th Test Match innings in the second innings - vital runs.
WCB Rating 8/10
Dani Hazell
Bowling 1st - 12-2-30-0; 2nd - nil
Batting - 1st - 15; 2nd - 4
Fielding - 0
Bowled OK in first knock after a poor first over. Never going to be her sort of pitch. Perfected the air shot in her first innings, but still managed to get a few.
WCB Rating 6/10
Katherine Brunt
Bowling 1st - 9-2-30-1; 2nd - 6.1-2-25-2
Batting - 1st - 1; 2nd - 4*
Fielding - 0
Dismissed from bowling by the umpire in the first innings for two over-the-waist full tosses. Aggressive but rather wayward in length at times.
WCB Rating 6/10
Anya Shrubsole
Bowling - 1st - 19-5-51-4; 2nd - 14-4-48-3
Batting - 1st - 0; 2nd - 7
Fielding - 1 catch
Produced some prodigious inswingers in both innings with both new and old ball. England's best bowler.
WCB Rating 9/10
Kate Cross

Bowling - 1st - 18-10-35-3; 2nd - 14-5-35-3
Batting - 1st - 3*; 2nd - 0
Fielding - 0
Another great debut for Kate following on from her short-form debuts in WI. Looks comfortable and controlled with the ball in hand.
WCB Rating 8/10

Australia

Meg Lanning
Batting - 1st - 5; 2nd - 15
Fielding - 1 catch
Never really settled at the crease and nicked off to the keeper in both knocks.
WCB Rating 5/10
Elyse Villani
Batting - 1st - 4; 2nd - 21
Fielding - 1 catch
Surprising choice to open the innings which did not really pay off. Given licence to go for it in the second innings and went hard, but perhaps a little too hard
WCB Rating 5/10
Sarah Elliott

Batting - 1st - 13; 2nd - 29
Fielding - 0
Bowling - 1st - 8-3-13-0; 2nd 3-1-12-0
The Test Match specialist could not reproduce her hundred from last year or her match-winning 81* from 2011. Dug in in the second knock, but ran out of partners.
WCB Rating 7/10
Jess Cameron
Batting - 1st - 5; 2nd - 0
Fielding - 1 catch
Not a game she will want to remember. Became Kate Cross' first Test victim in the first dig and she got her again, first ball, in the second.
WCB Rating 4/10
Alex Blackwell
Batting - 1st - 0; 2nd - 0
Fielding - 1 catch
Removed as VC before the series started Alex will be fighting for her place after bagging the dreaded pair.
WCB Rating 3/10
Jodie Fields
Batting - 1st - 43; 2nd -13
Fielding - 4 catches
Did well to haul her team out of the mire in the first innings, together with Ellyse Perry, and was neat behind the stumps. Could not repeat her batting heroics in the second innings. Made some "interesting" calls as captain.
WCB Rating 7/10
Ellyse Perry
Bowling - 1st 22-6-41-3; 2nd - 20-6-38-5
Batting - 1st - 71; 2nd - 31
Fielding - 0
Back to something close to her best with the ball, particularly in the second innings, and batted beautifully in the first. It would have been comic-book stuff if she could have manufactured the win from nowhere, but it was not to be. Quite rightly Player of the Match.
WCB Rating 9/10
Erin Osborne
Bowling - 1st 17-8-28-0; 2nd - 12-3-26-1
Batting - 1st - 40 2nd - 0
Fielding - 1 catch
Bowled tidily if without much threat. Took the only wicket for a spinner with Jenny Gunn's leave/no leave edge. Batted well with Perry in the first innings, but blobbed out in the second
WCB Rating 6/10
Sarah Coyte
Bowling - 1st 14-6-23-2; 2nd - 14-3-33-1
Batting - 1st - 9; 2nd -7
Fielding - 0
Bowled tightly and got Edwards and Sciver out in the first innings. Not able to produce much with the bat.
WCB Rating 7/10
Rene Farrell
Bowling - 1st 18.1-4-43-4; 2nd - 17-6-34-3
Batting - 1st - 11; 2nd -0
Fielding - 0
Slightly flattered by her first innings bowling figures when she did not bowl that well. Started England's collapse in the second innings. Expected more from her with the bat.
WCB Rating 8/10
Holly Ferling
Bowling - 1st 12-2-46-1; 2nd - 13-3-39-0
Batting - 1st - 0*; 2nd - 5*
Fielding - 0
Sparingly used by skipper Fields. Generated some decent pace, but did not look that threatening.
WCB Rating 7/10

MD
13/I/14

4 comments:

  1. I'd maybe give an extra "WCB" to Lydia Greenway - she played exactly the innings she had to play in the first innings - she didn't need to score runs - she needed to stick around, and that's what she did. And she really did save a *LOT* of runs in the field.

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  2. I agree with most of that. I think it's a tad generous to Ferling. She wasn't quite as wild as Brunt but was poor after a good first spell. I'm not sure Cameron's five runs were enough to put her ahead of Blackwell. Brunt had a curate's egg of a match. For the most part she was awful, and just created problems for her captain - 2/10. But the two balls she bowled to account for Elliott were superb, and she did enough to buy the wicket of Villani in the second innings, although that was only as important as it was because of the rubbish that had preceded it.

    I think Hazell's a point too high. You've given her the same as Osborne in spite of bowling slightly worse and batting much worse. As you say, it wasn't a spinners' pitch, and in hindsight Elwiss would have contributed more. As for Perry, you're a tough judge not to give her 10/10. She scored as many runs as Brindle (8/10) and took more wickets more cheaply than Shrubsole (9/10). Granted she was a touch loose on the first morning, but it was virtually a flawless performance after that.

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  3. Good bit of fun. Perry definitely 10/10.

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  4. Frankly I think girls from both the team lacked batting technique required. I was surprised to see Gunn's bowling go unpunished. She was bowling wide outside off all the time. Impressive batters were Edwards, Brindle, Sciver and Perry.

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