Women's World Cup Final: Australia v West Indies

First topic message reminder :

The tournament starts next Friday.

England will be favourites, though Australia, New Zealand and in home conditions India all also have a chance.

For a variety of reasons the fixture list has been altered and remains uncertain. Sorry to blow my own trumpet but an article I wrote on that has been published on Cricinfo - http://blogs.espncricinfo.com/inbox/archives/2013/01/the_womens_world_cup_deserves.php.

alfie wrote:Bit of a surprise with West Indies beating NZ by 48 runs today...takes them to second on the table...

Makes the final shape a bit clearer , as all the run rates are now fairly close we can more or less say

1 . IF West Indies beat Australia they are certainly in the final with Australia.
2 . If West Indies lose , then the winner of England & NZ will be the finalist.

Of course very close results could change that , and if the matches are indeed close the calculators will be out , but I think that the above are the most likely now.

Now Australia could , if they felt another opponent was more dangerous , choose to influence things by throwing the game to West Indies ...but I do not think this sort of chicanery is in their makeup , and anyway they won't want to mess with their form , though they may rest a player or two. I expect them to beat West Indies , leaving England v NZ as a knock out lead in to the final ; and as it will be the last match both sides will know what is required...

We may cavil at the slightly odd format of this tournament , but it looks likely to maintain interest from the first round right through to the end of the qualifications. More so than the men's version

Would'nt be surprised at all if the Aussies indulged in this form of skullduggery in order to make things easier for them in the Final, just as what the Germans tend to do in World Cup Football Matches.

I honestly don't think so Boycs.

As Alfie said; they may make a change or two but it is not part of our sporting religion to 'go easy' on anyone or try and fiddle with the outcome of matches to avoid certain opponents. I actually think they will want to face England again in the Final - and they'll have to play as well as they have against them to win it (if that happens again). There's always a chance that the bubble could burst too.

Linebreaker wrote:I honestly don't think so Boycs.

As Alfie said; they may make a change or two but it is not part of our sporting religion to 'go easy' on anyone or try and fiddle with the outcome of matches to avoid certain opponents. I actually think they will want to face England again in the Final - and they'll have to play as well as they have against them to win it (if that happens again). There's always a chance that the bubble could burst too.

Well even if England do reach the final, I don't rate their chances one bit, as Australia are likely to play their strongest XI which means a pace attack of Ellyse Perry and Holly Ferling, whilst we still have problems with some of our batters particularly Sarah Taylor. I would look at either dropping Taylor altogether from the final XI for the remaining matches or move her lower down the batting order to say number 6 or 7 whilst moving someone like Laura Marsh up to the number 3 spot.

Perry & Ferling. What a dreamin' seamin' attack!

Linebreaker wrote:Perry & Ferling. What a dreamin' seamin' attack!

Perhaps they should be included in the Australia men's squad for this summer's ashes as they can help the Australians to distract England's batsmen out in the middle!

Linebreaker wrote:Perry & Ferling. What a dreamin' seamin' attack!

JDizzle wrote:

Linebreaker wrote:Perry & Ferling. What a dreamin' seamin' attack!

Not for England's women players it isn't a dream seamin attack!

Anya Shrubsole & Kathy Brunt may have something to say about that too!

As far as I understand it, if England beat New Zealand today and Australia beat the West Indies (which they're well on their way to doing), England are in the final! Good luck to England women today then.

I think that's right mate.

Funny - we are playing the West Indies in the T20 at the same time. Must be a first of some kind?

Hey, it looks like SA might win their second game of the tournament, could they be semi finalists, could they, huh, huh?

I think not.

Australia lost... Schutt run out. West Indies win by 8 runs.

Well West Indies have made the final with a surprise eight run win over Australia.

Not good news for England , or NZ . Women's cricket seems to be getting a lot more competitive . I certainly didn't think Australia would lose that after bowling West Indies out for just 164 ... will be interesting to see what happens in the final ...

I'm a bit surprised too Alfie.

Surely it couldn't be... you know... what GBN was hinting at above?

Don't think so , lb (although I suppose some people will think so now)

To be honest they've had a couple of batting glitches ... reckon they just lost a couple of wickets at the wrong time and stumbled...hard to know with the match not being covered on TV , but it may have been a tricky pitch. Perhaps the late surge of runs for West Indies (92/7 to 164) just tipped the balance. And the fact that it wasn't exactly a "do or die" game for Australia might have just had them a few notches off their best...

Pity in a way as I think an Australia/England final would have been the ideal , from a pure cricketing standard point of view. But good luck to West Indies - they have taken their chances and over performed in most eyes , and now they're in the final ! Hope the final is a seriously good game too.

Well done, Dottin, Daley and Taylor!

Yeah, I would have prefered to see England in the Final.

I see there are some cynical posters on espncric saying it was always on the cards. I reckon you are right about the sheilas maybe taking their foot off the pedal combined with the Windies gals having the incentive to get to the big one.

The Aussie blokes have their work cut out for them in the T20. Huge effort needed but I have a feeling it will be just out of their reach.

Congrats Shiv.

Going for the double tonight I see.

Had a little bet at reasonable odds (considering) on Windies winning this match.

Shame for the English ladies, but thanks Aussies for a cynical piece of obvious non-trying.

(That's being diplomatic, they threw it.)

What? No! You can't be serious!

I have no idea what dj is on about.

I didn't watch the game (as it anywhere on TV, I must say I couldn't find it), but I know someone of the English coaching staff who did (I won't say who, but you could probably figure it out easily enough) and (s)he said I could quote him on this:
"any suggestion that Australia threw the match or didn't try their hardest is an insult to the Australians, but more importantly the West Indians who produced an excellent performance in what was in effect for them a semi-final. Deandra Dottin is well known for being able to blast the ball to all parts, but today she showed a previously only glimpsed at maturity, to help lift West Indies up to a competitive total. They then carried that momentum into the Australian innings, and once they'd picked up a couple of early wickets the Aussies never really looked comfortable. [technical analysis omitted as not to be used on public forums, but to do with Australia losing quite a few wickets to run-outs under pressure]"

They then shared their thoughts about the tournament as a whole with me (which was the original purpose of the communication), which I was asked to keep to myself. My opinion is that the format is ridiculous, and the organisation has been disgracefully shambolic. The standards have apparently been high, except we wouldn't know it because nobody has been talking about it. The coverage in cricinfo has improved, but even earlier today the England-NZ T20 (from yesterday) was deemed a more important event than the live match between Australia and the West Indies. This is a WC, but you wouldn't really know it. The ICC and the BCCI in particular need to take a long hard look at themselves - these players are serious cricketers (and the rest of the world is clearly catching up with England) and deserve far far better.

Did it get more coverage than the county second XI circuit? Last I heard the best women players were just about ready to step up to that level.


Apparently even they arent that excited by the tournament

Spoiler:

So next time the ladies matches at Wimbledon should get the same amount of coverage as a below-average ATP challenger event?

Seems reasonable *shrug*

meanwhile sports where women compete at a higher level than men continue to get ignored completely ....

Seems stupid.

Off topic.

going out serves us right for bottling the aussie game, where we only needed 150 odd to win.

No great surprise at all that Aussies came up a bit short against the Windies
But really it's down to England narrowly losing a couple of games earlier on.

Mike Selig wrote:I have no idea what dj is on about.

Most of the time I don't know what dj is on about....

I also feel that women's sport is under-represented in the British media. Almost as many Brits play netball every week, as play cricket or rugby union every week, but you don't see as much media coverage for netball as you do for cricket or rugby union. Hell, you even see more media coverage for rugby league, and netball has three times as many Brits playing that sport week in week out as rugby league!

As the corporal says, England's exit can probably be traced to that SL defeat....

There's probably going to be a lot more coverage of netball in the coming years, Shiv.

After their first series win again Australia - no doubt there will be an even bigger stampede of girls to the sport. We can even have a regular Ashes series for that... or a 5 Nations type tournament with Oz, NZ, SA, Eng and Jamaica.

The English guy you quoted was just being diplomatic. He can't accuse them of doing anything.

Basically, as an Australian team you've got two choices. Play properly, win the match, and then have a tough final against English which they may or may not win.

Or they can not try their best, lose the match, and then have a 99.99% chance of winning the World cup. They chose guaranteeing themselves the World Cup. I reckon most teams would have done it.

No he wasn't, he was giving me his honest opinion on what he saw.

You watched the game? Or are you just infering from the scores? Losing the knack of winning in return for a possibly easier final (against the side who has just beaten you, and hence has a mental edge) is a very poor exchange.

It would be a very risky thing to do.

I still believe what Alfie says - they just have to be slightly off their game having already reached the Final... then the West Indies have the motivation to cause the upset... which is exactly what happened.

It's anything but risky.

Disagree. You don't purposely throw a match. You'd be hard pressed to prove that they did what you tihnk. I don't buy your reason at all.

Losing your winning momentum to play a supposedly easier team who just beat you and hence have the upper hand mentally seems a pretty poor choice to me anyway, but what do I know?

This is the same West Indian side who severely restricted them in the WT20 semi-final before Ellyse Perry bowled a quite brilliant spell to ensure Australia still won, and anyone who follows Women's cricket (of which I suspect our friend DJ is not one) will tell you they are a dangerous side. This performance hardly came out of the blue, and Australia have had a couple of batting wobbles already in this tournament (including against England of course).

I suspect after this set-back Australia will come out in the final with a point to prove. One of two things will happen:
- They will thrash the West Indies who could be overrawed by the occasion
- They will try too hard, and the West Indies will be more relaxed, as the pressure is on the Australians.

The format remains rubbish.

NZ made 220/8 after being sent into bat by England.
Satterthwaite again holding the innings together with 85 (95)

Charlotte Edwards holding England together here in their pursuit of 221...

72* out of 149/3 ... Should be able to gather a further 72 off the last 16 without too much difficulty , although NZ aren't giving up.

Do hope the final is reasonably close. If Australia win in a canter the match throwing theory mob will be out in force...

England doing their best to lose this at the last minute ...only need nineteen more but three wickets have been thrown away in the last two overs and Edwards has just the bowlers for company...

She has her second hundred of the tournament and they should still get the runs , and third place. Not that it will be much consolation : third was not what they came for.

212/6...just another nine so I think we can call it...

The get there in the end.

alfie wrote:Do hope the final is reasonably close. If Australia win in a canter the match throwing theory mob will be out in force...

With good reason!

If they win in a canter it will be normal service resumed and confirm that their loss the other day was an anomaly. I think it will be closely fought match though if Dottin and Taylor score some runs. They really have their tails up now so it will be no easy task for the sheilas.

England have a few issues to address, which have been highlighted both here and at the WT20:

- I think the batting is a little light beyond Edwards (who probably won't last much longer, if she doesn't retire now - her movement in the field is non-existent), Taylor (who didn't fire really) and to an extent Greenway and Brindle. We need a second opener and, ideally, a number four.
- Australia and WI are probably trumping us a bit on power.
- Playing of spin amongst female players has got about 10 times better since 2009. That has made Colvin and Marsh less incisive. We probably need to play 3 seamers then in future (not including Brindle and Gunn's medium).
- Fielding and full-tosses were disappointing. Not representative of how the girls play in England.

I don't think the tournament format is that bad. I'd suggest that with 8 teams you could get away with having 1 8-team group, then semis and a final. Tweaks need to be made but I'd rather this than either going straight into semis, or having a long and mostly pointless group stage like at the 2011 men's World Cup.

Media coverage over here has been quite impressive I think. The better papers and the BBC have featured the England games as their main cricket story. However, there is still room for improvement. In particular, it was ridiculous that no games from Group B were televised, and that when TMS tried to broadcast Eng-SA from Cuttack the facilities weren't up to it.

I fear that the media might be put-off going forward by the realisation that England are no longer undisputed No. 1. I hope that isn't the case.

This summer Australia tour, which includes an Ashes 'Test'. Despite the fact that women's Test cricket isn't particularly relevant, I think there is capacity to market this properly, get fans in and to televise it.

Linebreaker wrote:If they win in a canter it will be normal service resumed and confirm that their loss the other day was an anomaly. I think it will be closely fought match though if Dottin and Taylor score some runs. They really have their tails up now so it will be no easy task for the sheilas.

I actually think Australia will win the final at a canter as they are likely to have 2 of their best players back for the final in Sarah Coyte and Ellyse Perry, both of whom crucially missed the defeat to the Windies in the last match. If only they had played in the last match then we could all have been looking forward with relish to a really tight and challenging final tomorrow, as it is a final between the West Indies and Australia just doesn't generate enough excitement as the West Indies just won't be able to cope with a full strength Australia XI.

Let's hope you are right boycs. I'm confident they'll do the job again this time.

Australia has won the toss and has elected to bat.

For Australia: Ellyse Perry in for Holly Ferling.

For the West Indies: Kycia Knight replaces Juliana Nero.

Shelsey, I've stickied this thread. Hope that's OK with you.

Australia are 36/0 after 6 overs

Good toss to win ...In these late starting games there is not the same help for the bowlers early on so batting first is a good idea. And I reckon West Indies best chance was to post a decent score and strangle Australia much as they did the other day...don't fancy their chances chasing.
Bad luck on young Ferling being left out ...though I guess Perry is hard to ignore if she is fit again.
48 up in nine...very good start

Meg Lanning out for 31 (41)

52/1 after 10

I would have loved to have seen them both playing alfie... but who to drop?

"Jess Cameron looks like Andrew Symonds" Good one Sanjay!

(and by the way... it's "she" not "he")

They got rid of him quickly. Mel Jones is a better commentator anyway!