Cricket Update

The Women’s World Cup continues apace. Tournament favorites, Australia, got their campaign underway on Monday with an 8-wicket thrashing of West Indies. Hayley Matthews (46), Chedean Nation (39) and Stafanie Taylor (45) all made decent scores for the Caribbean side, and Deandra Dottin made a rapid-fire 29 off just 20 balls, but the rest of the side was not at the party and a total of 204 was never going to stretch the Aussies. Nicole Bolton (107*) was the star of the Australian innings.

On Tuesday England got back on track with a demolition of Pakistan. Batting first, they racked up a massive 377/7. That total has only been surpassed once in a Women’s World Cup match, by Australia against Denmark who are not exactly top class opposition. Heather Knight (106) and Natalie Sciver (137) scored the bulk of the runs. The match was ended prematurely by rain, but Pakistan were nowhere near the required run rate so no one is going to complain about a calculated result.

New Zealand had an easy time of it against Sri Lanka in their first game, but today they came up against a much tougher opponent: the English weather. Their match against South Africa was abandoned without a ball being bowled. Here’s hoping the weather improves for the rest of the month.