England victory over Ireland comes at a cost

England (119/6) beat Ireland (118/9) by 4 wickets with 15 balls to spare

• Ireland restricted to 118/9 despite late flurry from Louise Little

• England wobble at 35/3 before Knight and Sciver-Brunt steady the ship

• Sciver-Brunt retires out in 16^th over with a tight calf and will miss at least the next two games

After an easy opening game against Sri Lanka, England needed to struggle to defeat an Ireland side who were stubborn in the field but lacked the batting skills to truly challenge England with a substantial total. 

Pivotal to this was Ireland’s batters’ inability to run twos – they managed to do this on only four occasions in their entire innings, whilst England had the confidence and guile to turn ones into twos with match-winning regularity.

Another stark difference between England and Ireland was the quality that lies beneath the team’s superstars. Gaby Lewis and Orla Prendergast are exceptional players. Amy Hunter is a very decent wicket-keeper batter, but once Prendergast has bowled her overs, once she and Lewis have been dismissed when batting, who can continue their work? 

Whereas England know that they have potential match-winners sprinkled throughout their squad of 15, even against the strongest teams in the competition. Ireland can only dream of such resources, and it is difficult to see a day when Ireland could field a squad of 15 with the depth of experience of high quality, competitive domestic cricket that England have at their disposal. Unless of course a change in the rules gives Irish cricketers the access to English domestic cricket enjoyed by the Scotland players.

The silver lining on a cloudy evening for Ireland was the late flourish of Louise Little with the bat. The Dubliner, a late call up to the starting 11 following Ava Canning’s injury, which we now know has ended her tournament, clobbered Lauren Bell for four boundaries from her final over to raise Ireland’s total to a much more respectable level. 

So, what have we learned from this match? England’s batting can be fragile. Nat Sciver-Brunt, who fielded energetically and then batted for 11 overs, sprinting lots of twos, is also physically fragile and yesterday her body reminded her of this. Whether we see her complete the tournament is still an unknown, but potentially this is a great opportunity for Sophia Dunkley and Charlie Dean to step up and demonstrate their batting and captaincy credentials in the next two games.