One-day cricket is the real future of the women’s game

One-day cricket is the real future of the women’s game.”It’s what all our training is geared towards,” said Connor. “We don’t have any four-day cricket outside Test matches because there isn’t the time and there are other constraints against the longer game. England went behind 2-0, came back to 2-2, starting with a two-run win. In another unbearably tense finale on Thursday they lost the match, and therefore the series, by four runs. They were naturally upset, not least Connor, who went for a big hit early in the final over, when nudged singles might have been more advisable.Still, until this summer, England had not defeated Australia in a one-dayer for 23 matches covering the past 12 years. Like the men we have a young side who are growing together and have many more years’ cricket ahead of them, whereas the Australians have a fair number of long-serving, although brilliant players who are coming to the end of their career.

In turn we have upset some of their plans with our brand of cricket and we have worked extremely hard on getting our strategy right.”

The result has been that the Ashes – the female version of them – were won by England for the first time in 42 years. Their nerve-tingling victory in the Second and final Test as they chased a small target also had comparisons elsewhere.The one-day series has been just as tight. On two fronts this summer, England have been engaged in titanic struggles with their oldest adversary The parallels have been almost eerie. As Clare Connor, captain of the England women’s team, said: “As with the men, Australia have been dominant for the last 10 years, winning two World Cups and reaching the final of another and becoming extremely hard to beat.

This was a letter from Chelmsford, and its main message was that its author would be back, and often.. Bopara’s hundred, which took 184 balls, was less spectacular but barely less effective.Cook’s namesake, Alistair Cook, broadcast Letter From America for half a century. It was all so terribly un-Australian.Nothing, but nothing, should be taken for granted with this great, waning force, but if they do not win the toss on Thursday, thus allowing Warne to bowl in the last innings, they are likely to experience the worst feeling of their cricketing lives.Cook’s innings was splendid. Since the match is over two days it is not designated as first-class but his innings, lasting a mere 238 balls with 30 fours and a six, was first-class in every other respect He hit shots all round the wicket and was unsparing. At least three balls went through hands or legs, or a combination of both, to the boundary. Brett Lee, whose game, competitive spirit has illuminated the summer, whistled one past Jefferson’s bat with the first ball but was regularly struck to the boundary thereafter The ground fielding was suspect throughout. The arena and the date are booked, though Warren vows: “It won’t happen.”Hatton will be in the Shef-field ring on Friday, as corner- man to his younger brother Matthew, who has pulled out of a Warren-promoted charity tournament in which he would have met Alan Minter’s son Ross, to box on the undercard of Clinton Woods’s first defence of his IBF light-heavyweight title against a Mexican challenger, Julio Gonzalez, a fight to be screened by Sky.So the Hattons are now a family at war with Warren, with Ricky apparently listening to boxing’s ear-benders on both sides of the Atlantic.