Posted by 
The correct number of left-arm finger spinners is three. That’s England’s position and they really should stick to it.
They fielded Linsey Smith, Kirstie Gordon and Sophie Ecclestone against Bangladesh and restricted them to 76-9 off 20 overs. They won.
They fielded all three against South Africa as well and bowled them out for 85. Again, they won.
Clearly having three left-arm finger spinners is the way to go. We can all see this. You wouldn’t let the fact that six of the South African wickets fell to the two seamers influence your team selection would you? (And another one was a run-out.)
England did. Or maybe did. We’re not actually 100 per cent on how the team ended up being selected. All we know is that Linsey Smith didn’t play against the West Indies. She was replaced by Dani Hazell. Dani Hazell bowls finger spin with – get this – her right arm.
As you’d imagine, England lost. Hazell conceded 39 off her four overs and didn’t at any point think to switch to using her left.
Despite this defeat, England are into the semi-finals. They play India at midnight on Friday (like, the very start of Friday, not the very end) and Mithali Raj will make a bunch of runs.
West Indies play Australia in the other match tomorrow. Alyssa Healy will get a bunch of runs and Deandra Dottin will do *something* extraordinary with bat, ball or even just her hands.
KC — Some American kid has hacked into your site. I know this because your site instructs me to not miss out on getting updates (via email, twitter, and facebook) which in itself is not suspicious except this is preceded by “YO!” (in caps, like that). You better get to the bottom of this or pretty soon all of us would be wondering how many RBI Chris Gayle actually has in his career.
We wondering what we’d have to do to get people to notice that section and sign up to stuff. A month of YO! and one person has eventually noticed it. Success.
I think some of us noticed it, but worried it might be the early stages of a mid-life crisis, so kept quiet in case it transpired that the author was now writing all posts whilst wearing a backwards baseball cap and ‘pretty seriously looking into getting a motorcycle’.
What is the correct number of left-arm finger spinners?
At least one more, Miss Swann, as always.
11
The answer to a selection conundrum is always 11
One less than the amount of wicket-keepers the Test side needs?
One fewer:
https://i.imgur.com/LsvVVnj.jpg
Ha ha.
I watched most of that match between the West Indies Women and England Women.
The issue, in my view, is that the women’s game is professionalising so rapidly that players and techniques can get left behind. Danni Hazell has been playing international cricket for best part of a decade and has to some extent been carried by that wave of professionalism. But the younger players coming through – especially some of the young spinners, look, to me, to be in a completely different (by which I mean much higher quality) league.
I’ve not yet seen Lindsey Smith play, but Gordon and Ecclestone look like seriously class acts to me.
Meanwhile, KC, phrases such as “YO!” and “We wondering…” do set me wondering too.