Them women are scary

Watching the girls from the late-nite telly again :-)

Hey ! Not those ones, the England Ladies Cricket girls. Ok, the games are in England at the moment so it's not so late-nite telly. I've been enjoying watching them lately and not just cos they're a good looking bunch :-) The England men cricketers can be highly frustrating to watch, because they're very inconsistent. Some games, they're devastating and not many sides can match them. However in others they can only be described as "directionless amateurs" as their lack of focus and preparation has them badly letting down their fans.

Not so with the England women.

The game vs Australia on Friday was very close, close enough to make it an exciting finish. Not so with the game on Sunday, our girls must have been in a mood to dominate everything they saw in front of them. It was a scary display of how a well drilled side of class players can blast away what was also a class side. Going to mention a few players (might put Cricinfo links in later!)

Katherine Brunt set up the win on Sunday with some outstanding seam bowling. I've done the lot in cricket, keeping batting and seam/swing bowling so I can usually spot class when I see it. Although she hasn't got the 80mph+ pace of the men (she's 23! bowlers peak at 26-30), she has the ball on a string. Great command of length and line, combined with the ability to get the ball to move sideways through the air. As an ex opening batsman, if I knew a Katherine Brunt was in the opposition, I'd be preparing for some trench warfare as I attempted to keep my wicket intact, let alone score runs ...

Laura Marsh is another of our outstanding bowlers. Spinner this time, so she bowls a lot slower. When she's bowling well, she'll put the ball right on target, every single ball. And that's with subtle changes of pace and flight too. On her day, I'd struggle to score with Laura Marsh too. (cough - I mean get runs)

She's helped out by an excellent keeper too in Sarah Taylor (aka Squirt!). There was some very efficient work done on Sunday although not so many opportunities today. She bats well too, making a very good account for herself even though she's still just 20.

Last mention goes to Claire Taylor, probably the classiest cricketer England have at the moment. And I'm including the men in that too. She deservedly got an entry in Wisden for being one of their Cricketers of the Year for batting and fielding. It's little details like having short hair instead of the ponytails most of the girls go for. That strikes me as a statement to say "I'm going for the short hair look cos I'll be batting all day." Long hair doesn't really work with a cricket helmet ... Oh - she won the semi-final for England and confirmed the win in the final :-)

So I'm currently enjoying the England girls play the Aussies with a bit of delayed coverage from earlier today. Maybe noticed a lack of me saying how these girls look. You'd think that might be what the attraction of the women's game was ... and you'd be about 10% right. The novelty is that the game is being played by some highly attractive and fit young ladies. The reality is that the standard of play is very high and it leads to some compelling cricket.

They're earning a lot of fans and it's through quality of play. The commentators didn't seem quite sure why they were there in the first matches but by the later ones, you get the feeling they'll take some keeping away next time. If you want titillation in your ladies sport, there's beach volleyball. Ladies cricket scores as a grown up game played by intelligent people who mean business.

Next to the women, our cricketing men can sometimes appear to be Dumb Blondes and more than a little clueless.

PS I think my sister is jealous of one or two of them. When I sent a few Cricinfo links over, the phrase "bowling must give you big boob muscles" came back :-)