Here are some interesting facts (or possibly, just “facts”?) about the number 29:
- It is the sixth Sophie Germain prime
- It is 45% more than 20
- it is 42% less than 50
Beside the proven fact that prime numbers play havoc with my charts, I’m not sure the first has much significance for a game of cricket; but when that game is 29 overs long, the other two certainly do. How do you approach batting for 29 overs? Is it a long short game, or a short long one?
The dilemma is double when you are batting first. Are you playing One Day cricket or T20? Is 25 runs off the powerplay a decent start? Who knows? You have no reference point; and nothing to aim at.
Certainly India didn’t seem entirely sure, posting 143-8 in this rain-reduced game – 10-15 short of a “typical” score based on ODI scoring rates; and probably 20-30 short of what they’d have hoped to have scored if this had actually been a T20. In fact, they’d almost certainly have got more if they’d just played this as a T20 and treated the extra 9 overs as a bonus.
England were better in the field today, partly simply because they had Linsey Smith and Maia Bouchier back in the XI. There was a great moment where they worked in tandem on the boundary – Smith sliding in for the pick-up and popping it up to Bouchier in a single movement for the relay throw in to the keeper. Maybe we need to consider that if we want to see a world class fielding performance, we need to pick the world class fielders we have in England?
There were still dropped catches, which Kate Cross bizarrely tried to blame on the media in her latest No Balls Podcast, seeming to argue that we (the media) are somehow causing the drops by “putting extra pressure on, because that’s the narrative now”. You’ll be amazed to know… I’m not buying it! Top level cricket is all about dealing with moments of extreme pressure, and if you can’t handle that, you might want to consider another sport?
Perhaps the bigger concern here is that England under Charlotte Edwards already seem to be slipping back into the siege mentality that marred the last few months of Jon Lewis’s tenure. Can’t catch? Blame the media! You’ll lose the game, but at least you’ll go to bed with the warm, fuzzy feeling that it was all Raf & Syd’s fault!
England’s approach, at least initially, was to treat this as much more of a long T20 than a short ODI. Tammy Beaumont is one of the most experienced ODI players in the history of the sport, and she came out very much not in ODI mode – battering Kranti Gaud for three 4s in the second over, including a couple of big booming drives of the kind India had failed to produce in their innings.
However, having got ahead of the rate, England too seemed to then struggle to gauge the pace of the game. Keeping wickets intact meant they remained ahead on DLS, even as rain threatened to deny them a win with a minimum of 20 overs required; but at one stage their run rate had fallen back sufficiently that a couple of wickets could have turned things in India’s favour.
India nearly found one of the those wickets with an appeal against Beaumont for obstructing the field. There is no doubt Beaumont was home; and that the ball was not hitting the stumps; but neither is technically relevant. The significant thing is that she did appear to kick out at the ball as it passed, and it made contact with her pad; and therefore she should probably have been given out, according to the letter of the laws.
But what this incident really shows is that the laws as they currently stand are unworkable, because the penalty doesn’t fit the crime here. Because the batter would not have otherwise been out, it would have been massively controversial to give her; so it looks like the Third Umpire in practice applied the principle of “No Harm; No Foul” and she survived despite the laws.
Consequently, England jogged on – making just enough progress to stay ahead of the rate, and ensuring that when another rain interruption reduced the game still further, the revised target was just a stroll in the park.
So a sub-par performance from India has ensured that the series remains alive as the circus moves on to Durham on Tuesday. The challenge for the visitors will be to put today behind them and get back to their best, even if they come face-to-face with another rain-reduced game, which the forecast suggests is a distinct possibility. Meanwhile England have the opportunity to burgle a series win they don’t especially deserve on the basis of what we’ve seen so far. But here’s a thought: if the losses are Raf & Syd’s fault… perhaps the wins are too? Will it, in the end, be Raf & Syd wot won it?
