Best player
It’s easy to understand why Beth Mooney was chosen as player of the tournament after her magnificent innings in the final. Also in the running mustbe Danni Wyatt-Hodge, whose hundred on the opening night at Edgbaston set the tone for a confident campaign by England (at least until they ran into the Australia juggernaut in the final).
But I’ve settled on Nat Sciver-Brunt. She patiently handled the multitudinous media commitments that come with being England captain in a home tournament. She lived with the uncertainty of her calf injury for weeks on end, admitting tearfully after the final she had felt compelled to conceal her emotions from the rest of her team, because leaders aren’t allowed to show weakness.
In the four matches she was able to play, she scored 46no, 48, 75 and 58no. It wasn’t quite enough in the end – but you can’t argue she didn’t do all she could to make cricket come home.
Best match
Australia v India at Lord’s. It was a group-stage match, but the atmosphere felt like a final. I was outside the pavilion when India arrived at the ground; MCC had to use crowd barriers to prevent Harmanpreet Kaur & co being mobbed. It was proof that women’s cricket really can inspire the same passion as the men’s game.
India supporters filled the stands, cheering every run and help break the record for a Women’s T20 World Cup group-stage match (final crowd tally: 27,163). Tey went home disappointed after Ellyse Perry and Ash Gardner paced their run-chase of 171 perfectly, winning with an over to spare and sending India crashing out. But hopefully the fans will be back to enjoy the Test that starts on Friday.
Best moment
Watching Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands has been a delight – all three came within touching distance of wins against higher-ranked nations. Sitting in the stands at Headingley to watch proud Scot Kirstie Gordon take a wicket first ball against England, the team who rejected her as surplus to requirements, was pure joy.
But the award goes to Ireland. After five tournaments, 22 matches and 12 years, they finally achieved their first win in a T20 World Cup. It came against West Indies in Bristol, where they chased down 129 thanks to Orla Prendergast’s 63. Footage of the team belting out Ireland’s Call in the dressing room afterwards showed just how much it meant.
Biggest surprise
Sophie Molineux’s captaincy. Pretty much everyone questioned her suitability for the role. Could she stay fit? Would she be able to bowl or would the team have to carry her as dead weight? Even Molinuex had her doubts, after being forced out of her first series as captain in February due to a back injury. “It made me feel like it might not work out,” she said on Sunday. “I was a bit messy at the start.”
Instead she finished the tournament as Australia’s leading wicket-taker, ensured they finished the tournament undefeated and made everybody laugh along the way with what Perry described as her unique style of captaincy. We have truly entered the Molineux Era.
Most poignant farewell
The reigning champions, New Zealand, were knocked out before the semi-finals, unable to deliver a fairytale ending for their three legends – Suzie Bates, Sophie Devine and Lea Tahuhu. But the guard of honour organised by the England head coach, Charlotte Edwards, after her charges beat New Zealand at the Oval provided a moment to appreciate the trio. This is the last-gasp of the amateur generation who went into the game for love, not money; we will not see their like again. Excuse me – I think I’ve got something in my eye.
How do teams bridge the gap to Australia?
The perennial question. A good start would be a redistribution of the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s revenue. Forty per cent of the global governing body’s earnings ends up in the hands of the Indian board, compared with just over 4% for the West Indies, whose captain, Hayley Matthews, made a public plea to the powers-that-be after her side’s one-sided semi-final loss to Australia. “It makes it really hard for us to compete when we don’t have pathway programmes in place, and then teams like Australia have the greatest pathway system where they’re pushing out Phoebe Litchfields from 15 years old every single year,” she said. “You need a lot of money to do a lot of these things. Within the West Indies, we don’t always have the funds required.”
The ICC are due to meet in Edinburgh this week – let’s hope redistribution is somewhere on the agenda, because as long as only Australia, England and India have enough money to fund domestic professionalism, we are going to end up back here asking the same question again and again and again.
Was the tournament as a whole a success?
In short: yes. England’s standing with the public, in the doldrums since their miserable Ashes showing 18 months ago, has been fully restored as shown by the record total attendance of circa 245,000. Women’s cricket has quietly sneaked its way into mainstream UK culture for the past three weeks, featuring on The Archers, Bargain Hunt, Antiques Roadshow and in the pages of Vogue.
Whether the tournament can deliver on its longer-term aim of creating “a movement, not a moment”, well, we’ll need a bit longer to figure that one out. It does, however, feel slightly concerning that Beth Barrett-Wild, the tournament director and driving force behind its legacy plans, is about to leave the ECB.
