Recap

Some brief thoughts on occurrences today:

The England men collapsed from 129-0 to 176 all out. It was pretty spectacular, even by English ODI standards, but there is little to be said about the match that has not been said on the tour already. The loss hands England a 0-5 whitewash. England can try to salvage a bit of face in a one off T20 before having two months off preceding the series against Pakistan in the UAE.

England were on the good side of a whitewash in South Africa though, as the women beat South Africa by five wickets to secure a 3-0 whitewash. A good bowling performance ensured that they only had to chase 182 to win and despite the early losses of Charlotte Edwards and Danni Wyatt they got home with a full seven overs to spare. Lydia Greenway top scored with 63, (and won Player of the Series) and Heather Knight won Player of the Match for her unbeaten 55 with the bat and 2-15 with the ball. England now have a three match T20 series to conclude the tour.

Bangladesh drew their rain ruined Test against the West Indies in Chittagong. There was never going to be a result, although the Windies were bowled out for 244 (a deficit of 106). Bangladesh were the better side and will take heart from debutant Elias Sunny who took 6-94 in the first innings. Two full days were lost to rain, although it was all overnight rain. The groundstaff could not get the outfield dry and days two and three were completely lost. It was something of a farce and should not happen on a test match ground, even in Bangladesh. The Windies have not had a great tour thus far; they won the ODI series 2-1, but were bowled out for 61 in the last match and this performance was a pretty poor one. There is one match left in the series and they will need to up their game considerably to avoid a humiliating defeat.

Zimbabwe won a historic victory against New Zealand. They chased down 329 to win by just one wicket and with one ball to spare. It was their highest ever successful run chase. Malcolm Waller won a deserving Man of the Match after scoring an unbeaten 99 off 74 deliveries and hitting the winning runs (though he was dropped twice in the last over). The Kiwis still won the series 2-1, but this does add something (I’m not sure what, exactly, probably some sort of spice) to the one off test match next week. Hopefully it will be a good match.

Not today, but on Sunday South Africa (men) levelled their series against Australia, inflicting an 80 run defeat on the tourists. Australia won the first match by 93 runs (D/L) so it’s been a pair of hammerings, but in opposite directions. The ODI series concludes on Friday and I am not even going to try to predict how that will go. A tie would probably be most fitting.