Women's World Cup

Yes, but nothing but cheerleading from the overdose of commentators. Great for England, but in terms of a competitive start, a total non event. Is the standard really high enough to allow 12 teams? Doesn't look like it. It can't get any worse than that, surely?

The standard is not great, although it has certainly improved over the years.

However some sides are totally out of their depth for sure.

But that won't stop the BBC shoving it down our throats and bigging it up , no doubt calling for Damehoods for the England side if they emerge victorious.

It's on Sky.

I know that.

But it's getting a lot of coverage on Five Live, news bulletins and the BBC website.

I watched a lot of the women's Ashes test a few years ago; Ecclestone was very good and the two Aussie spinners were excellent. I'll refrain from passing comment on the Sri Lankan bowlers except to say I would have fancied a bat !

Watching Scotland vs NZ this morning. Poor dismissal for McCol but as she walked off, I was thinking what a lonely and demoralising thing it must be to have to walk all the way back to the Pavilion with thousands of disapproving eyes watching.

The only way that standards can improve is by exposing lower ranked sides to the best. Many people could not see the point of having Durham in the County Champs or Italy in the 6 nations Rugby but they are steadily improving. Durham now one of the best county teams. Some no hope teams in the Football World Cup but few of them have given up more than 5 goals so far. Meanwhile Darcy Carter is now the leading run scorer of the entire tournament.

Sage, continually being hammered by much better teams does nobody any favours. Look at San Marino, Andorra and co in football for instance , no improvement in results after many years because they just don't have the players.

As far as Durham goes, they were one of the best Minor counties for many years and it had long been mooted that they could compete at county level. It was always going to take a few years for them to fully grow in to the First Class environment, in the early years they relied on a number of ex pros from other counties who had seen better days (Botham at the end of his career for instance, Graham Fowler, Jonathan Lewis, Wayne Larkins etc) and in the early 2000s they took advantage of the Kolpak ruling to have a number of overseas players. Together with bringing through home grown talent like Harmison, Brown, Collingwood etc this laid the foundations to their more recent success (mind you they are back in Division Two now alongside my county  .

Durham's fairly rapid rise in the County game is a totally different scenario to more minor national teams getting thrashed in World Cups, Durham were able to bring in players from elsewhere, it goes without saying that you can't actually do that so easily at international level can you ?

Disgraceful that Hayley Matthews given out against England tonight.Ball clearly missing Bat

Was at the game at Lords last night, England seemed
sure a noise occurred, and video showed noise as ball passed bat.

Couldn't see any other reason for noise, so guess
is it hit bat, but in between video frames, 1/50th of second.

Likely would have been a better game if they gave her not out
and she seemed absolutely convinced she didn't hit ball.

Who'd be a video umpire.


£40 for seat in Compton stand, great stuff.




Any sport you improve by playing better players, gaining exposure to
a higher level, maybe not boxing, lol

Thanks for reply yhtl, agree there "might" have been a noise, but the ball was nowhere near the bat, also the third umpire said as she was reviewing that there is a clear gap between bat and ball , but because of the spike she gave her out.Just watching as I was enjoying the game but that was a diabolical decision, any noise was nothing to do with ball or any part of her hitting the bat. Glad you enjoyed your evening, lovely place to be Lords on a pleasant evening

Clear gap on front on, but it's possible it nicked edge as run through showed
bat did cross line of ball.

Like var for offside in football there is loads of action
between frames that cameras don't catch.

Bowling at 60mph is 25 metres per second so on
a camera at 50 pics per second ball can move 50cm
from one frame to next.. Lots of room for doubt.

Hot spot might have cracked it, but that fell out
of favour as batsmen found ways to mask the heat.

Great innings by Gardner and Perry to get 50 each against India. We could be back to Aus vs England final.

Teams improve by producing better players, not just getting beat time and again by better teams. Unless they get those better players, you can almost guarantee the same thing will happen again and again. In the meantime they need to gain some confidence by playing competitive games against sides at their level. The twelve teams was about pretending the game had moved forward far more than it actually had. 

The competition has only produced one very good game.

Any good World Cup , whether it be football, cricket, rugby or tennis grand slams, having an upset or boilover is what makes it interesting. There is still a significant gap between your: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Scotland and Sri Lankas with your Australias. Cant be good for a World Cup having one-sided matches especially when they play Australia where its pretty much a foregone conclusion before you set foot.

The only way these teams get better is by playing the better sides on a regular basis. Ireland is one side that has showed gradual improvement in the womens game.

Id say a side like Bangladesh despite having a good tournament by their standards is still at least 10 years away from Australia on the global stage.