1 Can anyone stop Australia?<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s sunshine-clad, steely-eyed women\u2019s cricket team are one of the most successful sporting XIs in history. They know how to win tournaments \u2013 they are seven-time ODI World Cup winners (and six-time T20 champions) \u2013 and they do it well, \ufeffoften a leap\ufeff ahead of their rivals\ufeff. This year looks no different. The\ufeffre\u2019s the emergence of batter Phoebe Litchfield and all-rounder Annabel Sutherland\ufeff. They have lost only \ufefffour ODI games since crushing England\u2019s dreams in 2022, and just smashed more than 400 (against India) for only the second time in their women\u2019s one-day history. The first side since 1988 to defend their ODI title? You betcha.<\/p>\n
2 Charlotte Edwards\u2019s\ufeff first big Test<\/p>\n
After the horror-film Ashes defeat of last winter, a 16-0 catch-dropping steamrollering which \ufeffcost both head coach Jon Lewis and captain Heather Knight their jobs, the summer passed relatively calmly. The selectors bowed to the inevitable and appointed all-time great Charlotte Edwards as head coach and best player Nat Sciver-Brunt as captain.\ufeff Edwards has favoured brains over biffing, stressed the importance of fitness and fielding, and brutally culled Kate Cross from the World Cup squad, while retaining the experience of Knight, who has recovered from injury, and bringing back Danni Wyatt-Hodge. And, more than anything, she expects that \u201cif we play our best, we can beat any team\u201d.<\/p>\n
3 Hokey-cokey finally starts<\/p>\n
A revised schedule was announced in late August, which included the wholesale switching of games, much to the frustration of travelling and local fans. The all-important opening match moved to Guwahati after original host Bengaluru was struck off \ufefffollowing the stampede that led to 11 deaths during RCB\u2019s IPL victory celebrations. Navi Mumbai became the late call-up fourth venue and will host the semi-final and, potentially, the final if Pakistan don\u2019t reach the final two. Pakistan will play all their matches in co-host Sri Lanka\u2019s capital Colombo due to on\ufeffgoing geo\ufeffpolitical tensions. The big question is if the fanbase for women\u2019s cricket outside India\u2019s big cricket centres is established enough to make up for all the hokey-cokey.<\/p>\n
4 Ecclestone on the comeback trail<\/p>\n
As far as most England fans were concerned, Sophie Ecclestone walked on water. She was Heather Knight\u2019s blonde ponytailed trump card, who rattled through the opposition and put the brakes on their scoring. Until, that is, last winter\u2019s Ashes, when she finished as England\u2019s leading wicket-taker but refused an interview with the BBC\u2019s Alex Hartley after a row over the England team\u2019s fitness. The incident blew up and Ecclestone was heavily criticised for the first time in her career\ufeff. Ecclestone took a break from cricket \ufeffand, left out of the one-day side against the West Indies, considered quitting. Happily for England, she stayed and travels \ufeffkeen for both wickets and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
5 Light shone on fossil-fuel sponsorship<\/p>\n
The ICC\u2019s \u201cglobal partner\u201d deal with fossil-fuel giant \ufeffAramco means that its sponsorship will be everywhere at the World Cup, despite a number of women\u2019s cricketers expressing dismay at previous tournaments. Air pollution from burning fossil fuels has been shown to disproportionately affect women, \ufeffincreasing the risk of developing breast cancer and heart disease as well as proving particularly dangerous during pregnancy. \ufeff\ufeffIt is impossible to see how the sponsorship goes hand in hand with the ICC\u2019s promise to support women in cricket.<\/p>\n
6 Equality, of sorts<\/p>\n
England\u2019s Enid Bakewell sold homegrown potatoes from a decorating table at the top of her drive to raise funds to play in the first Women\u2019s World Cup. Fifty-two years later, there is a \u00a310.26m prize pot, a four-fold increase from the 2022 competition. The winners will take home \u00a33.3m \u2013 more than Australia\u2019s men got for the equivalent competition in 2023\ufeff. \ufeffAnd yet, some things remain the same. The ICC board is still completely male after Indra Nooyi\u2019s term ended last year. And the ICC\u2019s proud announcement that the competition would be presided over by an all-female umpiring panel for the first time drew the wrath of historian Raf Nicholson, who pointed out that the 1973 event was also entirely umpired by women.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s World Cup games<\/p>\n
3 Oct v South Africa, Guwahati, 10.30am<\/p>\n
7 Oct v Bangladesh, Guwahati, 10.30am<\/p>\n
11 Oct v Sri Lanka, Colombo, 10.30am<\/p>\n
15 Oct v Pakistan, Colombo, 10.30am<\/p>\n
19 Oct v India, Indore, 10.30am<\/p>\n
22 Oct v Australia, Indore, 10.30am<\/p>\n
26 Oct v New Zealand, Visakhapatnam, 5.30am<\/p>\n
All games live on Sky Sports<\/p>\n
Photograph by Philip Brown\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1 Can anyone stop Australia? Australia\u2019s sunshine-clad, steely-eyed women\u2019s cricket team are one of the most successful sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-173023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}