Analysis of England's victory at Scarborough:
* Some centuries are sculpted from marble; others are chiseled out of granite. Charlotte Edwards' record-breaking knock was definitely the latter. A drive through the off side early on set the tone - it reached the boundary and was widely applauded in the stands, but it hadn't quite come off the middle of the bat. But still... a hundred is a hundred - it doesn't matter how you get 'em; and without Edwards, England would have had quite literally nothing to defend.
* Batting Tammy Beaumont so low down the order is completely pointless - she might as well not be there! Wyatt would score more runs and save more in the outfield too. I think TB probably should be playing on merit though - just coming in at 3!
* When England suggested, prior to the Test, that Heather Knight offered a fill-in spin bowling option, even those of us who had seen her take a five-for for Berkshire a couple of weeks before were raising our eyebrows. But she seems to have the 'taking wickets' thing down to a tee which is great as that was really what was needed today - they were keeping up with the run rate, so we had to bowl them out, and Knight's two wickets were crucial.
* Along with Edwards, Jenny Gunn was the real difference between the teams though - 4 wickets and a brilliant, vital catch right on the boundary to dismiss the dangerous Kaur, who I assume will actually loose her match fee this time, after another clear-cut act of dissent, following on from her reprimand in the Test.
Can you explain the logic (and indeed any statistical evidence) to support your proposition that TB should be batting no 3 in ODIs ?
ReplyDeleteWhat 'merit' are you referring to here ?
We have two players in Edwards and Taylor with ODI averages of about 40 and we have Greenway and Knight with ODI averages around 30 .... so why would you want TB (average 18, scoring rate of only 42 - from a statistically significant number of ODI innings) ahead of these 4 ?
I think there is a CASE for giving TB a run at 3 playing a role which is better suited to her natural game, which is more 'dig in' than 'get on' - her county form warrants this. I agree that her numbers at international level look poor, but she has been messed around a lot, having batted at almost every position in the order, from top to tail, the latter when she was playing as wicket keeper during SJT's walkabout in the wilderness.
ReplyDeleteCounty Championship form seem to be important if one is Beaumont but irrelevant if one is Wyatt ! Sure I'm not the first person to make this point.
ReplyDeleteWe'll have to agree to disagree on TB at No3 because I simply can't accept an ODI scoring rate of 42 is going to do anything other than put massive strain on an already brittle batting line up.
I do accept a more general point about playing batsmen in positions other than that to which they are used to. By a quirk of fate we seem to have at least 5 openers in our squad (and technically one could add Odedra and Shrubsole, and Elwiss if not injured) so it seems to be a case of bat out of position or not at all (and 'not at all' in the case of Jones - yes that's the Jones that has batted once in an ODI and scored 41). I think its a bit tough on any new or relatively new player to bat out of position, especially openers.
In terms of batting position TB hasn't yet done a 1st, 3rd, 4th, 7th or 9th in an ODI. She did actually do rather well at no 10 having batted 3 times and managed 2, 19* and 14* ! When she has opened in ODI she has scored 12, 19, 4, 44, 31, 27 and 2 (which is far better than when she bats down the order) but her scoring rate does drop to 40.88 as an opener.
I do also accept that TB may yet turn out to be a 'fixture' in the ODI team. After 16 ODI innings she has an average of 17.25 and Greenway had an average of only 16.75 after her 16th ODI innings (although her scoring rate was 55.07).