WOMEN FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE
Batters deliver to set Ashes battle alight
England were in big trouble. Across two defeats to begin their Women’s Ashes campaign, not a single one of their highly-credentialed top six had made it to 50. A third toporder misfire would have delivered Australia an ODI sweep, leaving the world champions in a near-irretrievable position. The pressure was on.
So to get it right – lodging their second highest score against Australia to take a 20-run win and get some muchneeded wind back in their sails – Heather Knight’s side returned to a strict adherence to the sweepology doctrine that had served them so well in that triumphant World Cup. In that tournament, according to CricViz, they swept 321 runs with the next most South Africa with 149. They were clearly onto a good thing.
On Sunday, 17 per cent of their 284 runs came through 40 attempts at the stroke, both conventional and reverse. To put that figure in perspective, it is three times what the shot brings in women’s ODIs taken as a whole this year. All told, the visitors tallied 114 runs sweeping in their three ODIs compared to 41 from the Australians.
England batting coach, Ali Maiden, discussed with The Cricket Paper how they have made an art form of getting down on one knee.
“Women’s cricket isn’t looked through the right lens,” he began. “People contrast it with the men’s game, where if talking about spin, men can clear a fielder on the rope, whereas in the women’s game where there is less power and the bowlers have less pace and it is very hard. So you have to find different ways to score.”
Sweepoholics they may be, but the strategy is grounded in logic. Maiden argues that while scoring down the ground is the favoured way of ticking the board over, meeting the ball low is the next best approach. It all started in Sri Lanka last year, where they decided to sweep in favour of coming out of their crease when the ball was moving away from the bat.
“So with (Australian leg-spinner) Amanda Wellington spinning it as much as she is you have to make a quick call and on Sunday the girls decided the best way was to sweep,” Maiden said.
The match-high 122 put on by Sarah Taylor and Tammy Beaumont leant heavily on the paddle variety. “We found captains avoid having a fielder at short fine leg,” Maiden said in response to why it was so often used. “So from a tactical perspective, if we can make them have to have that fielder they have to move one from somewhere else to there, and that gives us an easier scoring option down the ground again.”
The same logic applies to trying on the reverse. “If they have only got one behind point and Ashleigh Garnder is bowling off-spin around the wicket, we
Sweepoholics they may be, but the strategy is grounded in logic. Maiden argues that while scoring down the ground is the favoured way of ticking the board over, meeting the ball low is the next best approach
can play the reverse sweep and then she has to move a fielder from the legside where she wants all her fielders.” Et voila.
Moving from white ball to pink for the standalone day-night Test, Maiden anticipates it will be much the same in an effort to keep the game played on England’s terms. But he also hopes that the track will be quick enough to generate a lively game of cricket all on its own – by contrast to the last time these teams met in the longer form of the game in 2015.
“It was played on a fairly average wicket,” he recalled. In that fixture, England scored at less than two an over in both innings. “It was really slow, so it was going to be difficult to do anything other than play fairly attritional cricket. But you hope we are going to get a good wicket for this game and we can be reasonably free-flowing and free-scoring.”
Taylor bagged an inglorious pair in that Canterbury outing, sorted out twice by Ellyse Perry. But she enters this match having gotten England rolling towards their first victory with 69 from 66 balls. “She’s such a free spirit,” Maiden said of the number three, comparing her to Kevin Pietersen. “Our aim is to give her the freedom to play how she wants. If she has the support to do whatever she feels in the moment then it is the right thing to do.”
It was an innings that took only two balls before she tried on a paddle sweep to opener Megan Schutt, and was charging Perry five balls later. “She frustrates the odd person and maybe the outside world don’t think is a percentage shot, but the number of times she plays that paddle and gets four for it, the positives far outweigh the negatives,” Maiden said.
“When she is in that mood she is at her most dangerous for the opposition and that’s where we want her.”
It is in keeping with the philosophy that Maiden and head coach Mark Robinson apply to their big hitters when encouraging them to clear the ropes. “If you give them confidence and build that confidence you hope that would continue,” he said.
“One of our phrases with the girls is that we will never judge them by the outcome, only intent. So if you want to hit it for six and it is the right thing to do and it is with positive intent, then that’s absolutely fine. We want to give them the freedom that they will not get judged if they try.”
An intent, and execution, that has got them firing in this series at the best possible time.