The swifts have gone, and the last few swallows and house martins are ready to make their long flight south. The cricket season is ending too, though there’s still a third test match, England v South Africa, to decide a wildly fluctuating series (S Africa won the first game by an innings, England won the second by a similar margin).
The Hundred franchise is concluding, without much interest from me. The men’s version is fine, no doubt, for those who want to see every other ball slogged for six, but even that can become tedious. Smashing a cricket ball into the crowd has already ended in tears; one of these days it will surely end in intensive care… or worse.
The women’s Hundred is at least offering women the opportunity to play cricket for a living, and in front of big crowds. The penultimate match in the competition is this afternoon, to see who plays in tomorrow’s final at Lords. Without a team to support, I’m happy to get behind Smriti Mandhana, my ‘cricketing crush’, who opens the batting for the Southern Braves.
Licenced today: the Carnegie Pavilion at Headingley Cricket Ground…
