I received an e-mail from Carly Baldwin this week who is studying a journalism course at Uni and recently interviewed England women’s cricketer Sarah Taylor. Below is the article as written by Carly.

As England’s male cricketers are left to reflect on their Stanford Twenty20 humiliation, one of their female counterparts has made a plea for her team not to be ignored as they prepare for a crucial year.

Sarah Taylor, the world’s fourth best batter in the ICC rankings, says that next year’s World Cup and Ashes series, along with the Twenty20 World Cup, could signal the start of a successful run for England’s women.

“Realistically we have a great chance to win the World Cup,” she says. ” We have a strong side full of enthusiasm and belief, and though we are a young side we have a lot of experience.”

England travel to Australia in March to compete in the tournament, and Taylor believes they will encounter some familiar foes: “New Zealand and Australia are definately the teams to beat, and home advantage will help them.”

Australia will then head for English soil to compete in the Twenty20 World Cup and the Ashes, which, after a period of Australian dominance, have been in English hands since 2005.

Taylor says that home advantage for both competitions should benefit her side: “Having the Twenty20 World Cup on home soil should be a definite advantage, yet there will be that added pressure of high expectations,” she admits. “I am confident that we can deal with it and that our supporters will be behind us.”

With the three biggest prizes in cricket up for grabs in such a short space of time, Taylor believes that the women’s team have never had such an opportunity to gain recognition.

“To have three major events in one year can only be good for the women’s game. I’m sure it will raise the profile of women’s cricket and we hope that there will be bigger crowds for all the games.”

The Sussex wicketkeeper, first called into the international fold in 2006 aged just 17, says that the team are hoping the Twenty20 tournament, where the women’s matches will be curtain raisers to the men’s games, will provide a platform to showcase their talents. “Playing before the men’s games will make people aware of us and we hope to impress,” she says. ” Recognition is important for the women’s game and success is what we are working hard to achieve.”

Big news in the world of cricket equipment and sponsorship today as news that Pietersen and Flintoff have left their Woodworm sponsorship contracts has led to speculation that the company is soon to go to the wall in the tough current business environment. Both of the players were understood to have life time deals with the company, so for them to be allowed to break these agreements must mean that something is happening, even if no concrete news about Woodworm’s future is currently available.

Woodworm seemed to be quite a good marketing company, and I remember reading about how successful they had been a few years back (especially in the junior market), but I guess the profit margins just weren’t as high as they needed to be to survive the quieter months of the year when they were buying in the equipment from Hunts County. They are still essentially a UK brand, and the cricket market has a few too many “quiet” months in it, that I can imagine how it might be difficult if the summer doesn’t work out that well and enough money isn’t brought in.

I noticed their website about a week ago had a holding page which suggested they were about to build a new site, but maybe it was the other way round and it was the start of the decline. If they don’t manage to come out of this at all it’ll be a real shame as they have managed to build a brand in a short space of time, and with the Ashes next summer they would have been a lot of interest around them. Cricket is a good market to be in at the moment with all the growth in money available (for the players), and as a result press exposure (for everyone).

As we already knew, Adidas were releasing some cricket equipment soon, and KP becoming available now is probably the best timing they could have hoped for. Sign up the England captain and watch the sales fly in, it will happen..

Over the weekend we were entertained by KP, and you will have no doubt heard about his cross hand shot which he hit maximum’s with twice, but there are mumblings that the MCC will be looking at the shot, and commentators such as Michael Holding saying it isn’t a fair shot.

I understand the need for debate, but the main thing I can’t get over is the people who want to stop this type of innovation. Why call it unfair just because the batsman has the skill to hit a great shot with his wrong hands – it is entertaining and makes for a more intriguing game. Yes, we need to clarify the rules of lbw etc for everyone’s benefit, but don’t stop players trying new things or the game won’t move forward which it obviously is at the moment. Bowlers don’t have to tell the batsman when they are about to bowl a slower ball, bouncer, yorker etc, so why shouldn’t the batsman be able to change his approach at the same time?

I’m off to Edgbaston tomorrow and (weather permitting), I hope the shot makes an appearance – with KP currently in good form there is every chance!

I was kindly sent a copy of “The Annual” last week – the launch copy of a magazine written on behalf of MCC and Lords, and as it isn’t the sort of thing you might not know about I thought it would be of interest to give it a bit of publicity.

Available from Lords itself or their shop at www.lords.org, it is an interesting publication which reads a bit like an in depth program you might buy at an international game – and it is the same sort of size which is pretty handy – means it doesn’t take up much room in my cricket bag! It is entirely based (unsurprisingly) around Lords, and through things like interviews with players and ground workers it helps give a real insight as to how the “home of cricket” is felt by players (Sidebottom, Broad, Dimi etc), and how it all functions on the big days.

One part I really liked was “How to play Lords” which gave tips on how to react to the slope etc. Now, given that I’m never likely to play at Lords I don’t know why I found this interesting but I think as it has such a mystique about it, it is nice to know how sportsmen and women approach it!

There are good previews of the England, Kiwi and South African squads for the summer’s cricket – which if you pick it up later in the summer will be a bit out of date, but it gives enough info without boring you if this was the case. It is difficult to try and put up to date info in annual publications like this, but they seem to do it quite well and you don’t get the feeling that its particularly lacking in this area.

Along with some commentary on England’s preparation towards next year’s Ashes and a review and preview of the games at Lords for this year and last, and a couple of other stories there is also a promotional bit for their shop and conference facilities, which is fair enough – it might make me visit their shop over a lunch break in the cricket if I was there watching a game!

I think overall this is a decent publication, well written and with a ‘quality’ feel, it is something I could definitely see myself buying if I was at Lords on a match day for something to pass the quieter periods of a game. I don’t know if it holds as much appeal for someone who isn’t there – it isn’t quite “deep” enough to keep you busy for hours, but as something to drift in and out of it was perfect. In fact I read some of it whilst i was waiting to bat at the weekend, it is perfect for that situation. At 5 quid it might seem expensive compared to a magazine such as All Out Cricket, but compared to match programmes I think it’s acceptable and well worth a shout if you find yourself at Lords this year, or if reading about the greatest cricket ground in England is up your street! Buy from the Lords online shop here.

Severe lack of posting this week – busy-ness finishing off an online cricket shop for a friend and the lack of cricket on tv to get me excited meant not much action here, but seeing as twenty20 time is around the corner expect more to happen now!

Despite my recommendations in my last post about making some changes to my Telegraph Fantasy Cricket Team, I never got round to it and my position is being affected badly because of it. I thought in the end I might as well hold off and make the changes next week once all the twenty20 players have turned up and I can get some specialists into the side!

Speaking of Twenty20, it starts on the 11th June (next weds), and I’m looking forward to seeing some hopefully dry weather and good cricket. Last year’s tournament was decimated by the rain, and the way things have been recently I think we’re going to have to cross our fingers for some good weather. I havn’t had a chance to find a decent preview of the competition yet, no doubt they’ll appear in the weekend papers and I’ll link to one when I find it.

One player who might take Twenty20 by storm this year is Ravi Bopara. He’s in England’s one day squad so he might not play that much for Essex in the competition, but Ravi Bop scored an incredible 201* in the Friends Provident Trophy yesterday in 150 something balls I think it was. Well played Ravi, but you better watch out as that type of form might get you picked for England!

Over the the WIndies, Australia are continuing their good run of Test victories, but not quite as convincingly on the pitch as they used to. Things that have happened over there – ‘Punter’ Ponting recently passed 10,00 runs which is a hell of an achievement, and Stuart MacGill announced his retirement after taking a bit of stick from the WIndies batsmen and realising that he couldn’t continue. He was unlucky in the sense he was born in the Shane Warne era and never had the chance to properly stake his claim, but he was always prone to bowling a long hop an over, but boy he could turn the ball a bloody mile! It’ll be interesting to see the replacement for MacGill, as with the Ashes starting next summer the spinner won’t have that much time to get used to the international scene before taking us on. He’ll be rubbish of course and we’ll claim back the Ashes! Hmm…

Right, I’m off to watch the highlights of us attempt to screw up the first day of the Test Match against NZ. Until next time..

We’re a month or two in to this season’s fantasy cricket season, and it’s time to take a look and see how I’m doing, and which players we should have chosen!

I started off the season like a rocket, miles ahead for a good few weeks, but then I stopped paying attention and things quickly went downhill. I think 3 of my 4 bowlers were out injured, and coupled with other team’s players coming into form I’ve hit mid table mediocrity very quickly! So time for a bit of surgery, although not as much as one of my mates who’s used more than half of his transfers in the first month!

Top Batsmen (at time of writing)
U Afzaal – a player I have! woohoo!
HD Ackerman – always seems to do well, no different this year but wasn’t on my list for this season, maybe i need to re-think.
M Di Venuto – ditto.
M Butcher – a bit of a surprise to me, but a double ton helped! Not playing for Surrey today so maybe pacing himself for the season?
J Gallian – a special mention seeing as he was only rated a 2, he’s had a storming season so far.

Keepers
hmmm.. Luke Sutton has done nothing so far for my team, so looks pretty close to the chop, but for who?
P Nixon – the old man continues to score well (but he’s expensive!)
C Read – the young man continues to score well (but he’s expensive!)
N O’Brien – A surprise from Northants where he wasn’t even first choice but seems to be doing well
M Prior – Scoring a lot in the Championship but just called into the one day squad will hurt his points here.

All Rounders
Sickeningly, the top two so far are two players I talked about before the season but didn’t choose, how stupid am I?!
P Trego – taking good wickets so far this season
R McLaren – I really should have picked him
N Boje – Finally, another player in my team (time to make him captain I think)
R Ten Doeschate – another player I talked about pre-season, I hope somebody took my tips as I didn’t!

Bowlers
T Bresnan – has found wickets and runs a plenty so far in the season, will it continue?
J Allenby – Who?! Seriously, I have no idea who this is…
Y Arafat – Woohoo, another player of mine from the start, class!
D Pattinson – making the most of a starting spot at Notts with Broad and Sidebottom out of the equation
C Langeveldt – I brought him in for Mahmood a week or two back as his stats were looking pretty good.

So how am I going to get out of my mid table position having looked at the stats above? I think I need to cut some dead wood in M North (Batsman, Skipper), L Sutton (mentioned above), A Mahmood (seems to take wickets but the points aren’t enough), S Mushtaq (maybe I’ll hold on to him), and look at bringing possibly a name or two from above. Then hopefully see myself return back to the position I deserve at the top of the tree!!