In the Otago Daily Times Adrian Seconi talks to Suzie Bates, who was recently named captain on New Zealand's women's cricket team. Bates represented New Zealand in basketball at the 2008 Olympics but thinks her elevation to leadership means she'll have lesser time for basketball.

"I knew saying yes would mean I couldn't just flitter off to play basketball like I have in the past," Bates said.

"That did come into consideration. Also whether I was ready or not was part of the decision process. But it was too good an opportunity to say no and we'll have to see what happens with basketball."

Claire Taylor, who announced her retirement from international cricket on Friday, did a great deal, through her mixture of intellect and application, to raise the standards of her team and of women's cricket in general, writes Mike Selvey in The Guardian.

Taylor's personal story is an interesting tale of how she used her hyperintelligence to plan a path to the top of her game. She is 35 now, and says she is creaking a bit. The gym is used more for rehab than training and her body, as much as a recognition that there is a future career to plan as well, has told her it is time to go. When she was 21, though, her cricket lay before her. She was a high-flying Oxford maths graduate, singled out for a lucrative career in IT. Instead, as a fine hockey player, but a batsman of no great distinction and a sometime wicketkeeper, she announced her intention to transform her game.

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says Taylor was so good she changed the perception of her sport.

Writing in the Guardian, Huma Qureshi introduces us to player and coach Salma Bi. Pakistan-born Bi, who has been recruiting teenage girls and young women from Birmingham's Asian community into her weekly coaching sessions and has played on a men’s team, is determined to see more British-Asian girls play the game.

Twelve young women turn up to Bi's weekly sessions. It is just about enough to put a team together, but she is constantly looking for more girls to join. “The youngest in my coaching session is 14, the oldest is 33. Some are married, some have kids, but most have never played cricket before, though they know the game from watching it at home, in the way Pakistani families do…”

Bi understands how difficult it is to convince [Asian] parents to let their daughters play – last year, she convinced a men's team to take her on as their only female player, but did not tell her family. “I knew my dad wouldn't approve … I asked to join the team because I wanted to set myself a challenge. At the beginning, I could tell the other guys on the team didn't take me seriously, but once I started to play, the men started to respect me and they treated me no differently. I ended up playing for them all season.”

Andrew Strauss may have secured the Ashes home and away but there is another England captain who can add to that the World Cup and the World Twenty20. While England may have lost the Ashes in a one-Test series at Sydney on Tuesday, Charlotte Edwards remains one of the leading lights in the game. Andy Bull, in his weekly Spin newsletter in the Guardian, profiles England's best captain and takes a wider look at women's cricket.

"Lottie," says Connor, "is a once-in-a-generation player." That much was clear when she made her Test debut aged just 16. At the time that made her the youngest woman to play for England, a record since broken by Holly Colvin. In her first Test Edwards opened the batting against New Zealand and made 34 and 39. "She always had terrific talent," remembers Connor. "The game came very naturally to her because she grew up watching her dad playing at Ramsey cricket club, like a little boy almost, living and breathing club cricket."

Edwards was such a gifted young player that she captained Huntingdonshire's county Under-16 boys team. Which is a hell of a thing to do when, as Edwards says, you have 16-year-old fast bowlers whanging down beamers at your head to try and prove a point. "Because she had been tested in boys county cricket, she broke into the senior women's game with quite a fanfare," remembers Taylor. That's no word of a lie. Among her first six ODI innings, all played before she turned 18, Edwards scored 102 against South Africa and 173 not out against Ireland.

In the next two years, Ellyse Perry could tick off a list of accomplishments that includes playing in the soccer World Cup, the Olympic Games, an Ashes series and winning the Twenty20 World Cup. But for Perry, a star player in both the national cricket and soccer teams, the prospect is amazingly real, writes Nicole Jeffery in the Australian.

Conventional wisdom says that Perry will eventually have to choose between her two sports, but she will not countenance that idea and, remarkably, neither sport is prepared to give her an ultimatum. In a day when the major sports are getting down and dirty to fight for the best male talent in the land, cricket and soccer have been remarkably co-operative when it comes to the talented Perry.

Legspinners at the international level have been a rarity for South Africa. But a special talent has been unearthed in the women's circuit in the form of Dane van Niekerk, who, only 16, starred against West Indies women in Paarl, taking 3 for 25 in ten overs, and helped South Africa win by seven wickets. Rodney Hartman, on the Independent Online website, has more.

Dane is South Africa's legspin prodigy. She is a shade over 16 years old and she can bowl the leg break, the wrong 'un and the flipper. That's probably more than Shane Warne could do at a similar age.

In a runaway seven-wicket victory over the West Indies yesterday, she took three wickets for 25 runs in 10 overs. That's as economical as you can get, particularly since legspinners are often quite expensive.

	England can thank Charlotte Edwards that she picked cricket over serving tea © Getty Images

English cricket is riding a tide of success, but it's the women, not the men, taking home the trophies. Captain Charlotte Edwards welcomes the challenge - and the long overdue recognition. The Guardian's Emine Saner meets her:

This 29-year-old batsman (batswoman sounds weird, doesn't it?) can't remember cricket ever not being a part of her life. Her father, a potato farmer, and her uncle both played for clubs in Cambridgeshire, where she grew up, and she remembers watching at the boundary edge with her brother when she was three. "My mum would be there making the teas, and the choice was either help make the tea or play cricket. Cricket became my life." She practised in the garden with her brother and father, and was encouraged to play at primary school. She was lucky that her secondary school took cricket so seriously, a rarity in state schools; she was the only girl on the team and became captain. "Those days were brilliant. The boys had grown up with me and I was treated like one of them. I didn't get any special treatment."

The England women's team - Ashes winners, 50-over World Cup winners and now World Twenty20 winners - are, undoubtedly, the alpha females of their sport, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

... when it comes to skills as opposed to power or speed, the women could teach the men a thing or two. Katherine Brunt was able to control the swinging ball under pressure on a finals day at Lord's in a way that has not always been apparent in men's finals, as Scott Boswell, of Leicestershire, who got the yips in the 2001 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy final, would testify. Sarah Taylor, the England wicketkeeper, could pass on a tip or two to Matt Prior about soft hands (her stumping in the opening over of the final would have pleased James Foster) and I cannot remember a better chasing innings in a Twenty20 match than the one played by Claire Taylor against Australia.

According to Mike Selvey in the Guardian Claire Taylor is not only a very fine pugnacious batsman but has incredible drive, a cricket brain to die for, and a rounded view of life.

For England, expansion is the game now. Clare Connor, the former captain now in charge of women's cricket in this country, is adamant that the nettle has to be grasped on the back of the current achievements, the game promoted aggressively, the players too. These women should be English sporting icons as much as any of our celebrated female athletes. Already, women's cricket is said to be the fastest growing women's team sport in the country. There are now more than 450 clubs with women's and girls' sections. Participation has increased by 49 per cent in the last 18 months. Think what hammering home the current success will do.

Noting the influence of coaching contracts that allow the England women's team to play full-time, Andy Bull writes in the Guardian that England, for once, are leading the world in the way they run and play a sport.

When Gordon Brown sidles up to you, perhaps seeking to cadge a little reflected glory, you can be sure you are ­making the right kind of impression on the public.

In the Sunday Times, Lawrence Booth says that though England start as favourites, concerns remain over the fragility of their batting, especially if the top three flop.

Scyld Berry points out in the Sunday Telegraph that if England women defeat New Zealand in the final, they will become the first international team of either gender to be world champions in all three formats simultaneously.

That the final between the two best sides in women's cricket is being held as a curtain- raiser to the men's final is not simply a gimmick, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

Of all the initiatives begun by the England and Wales Cricket Board in the past decade or so – and they are legion – the promotion of the women's game has been among the more significant and praiseworthy. The aim has been twofold: get them playing and so get them watching. Some of the participation figures supplied by the ECB take some believing but there has been a discernible rise in the number of players and in time that may lead to a more dramatic shift in the composition of audiences. It was still a bold step by the International Cricket Council to run the two world tournaments in tandem but it has worked beautifully. The women's group matches have been held at Taunton, where they have caused quite a stir, and the two competitions came together at the semi-final stage. It may be that a template for the future has been laid out.

It's not often that you find a current cricketer writing poems, so head over here to see New Zealand women's allrounder Sarah Tsukigawa's light-hearted verse about their World Twenty20 campaign. Among the highlights is her take on New Zealand's group games:

The Windies proved that they could swing a bat
But Suz and Dools showed them where its at

Next were the South Africans, and they played some good cricket
Fielding through the rain and thunder didn't do much for the wicket

Women cricketers compete against men on the field to improve their skills and to handle pressure better. But is there a case where they can compete with men in off-field activities? In the IOL website, Rodney Hartman looks at the changing face of Women’s cricket.

It's not often that men's and women's cricket teams play one another but this seems to be gaining in popularity and value. There is even talk in England of top women players being drafted into traditional all-male sides to play on the regular first-class circuit. It is being said that those best likely to qualify would be wicketkeepers or spin bowlers.

Claire Taylor, the first woman to find a place in Wisden, speaks to Gautam Sheth from Daily News & Analysis on why she chose cricket over hockey or a well-paid MNC job and the secret behind England's World Cup success.

What about your post-retirement plan?

A good job to get me a bigger house with a bigger garden so that I can have a puppy! In all seriousness, I'd like to find myself a new challenge, one that will offer me the chance to meet as many good people and visit as many beautiful places. It will be really hard to replace the buzz from the team environment but I'm sure I'll enjoy finding out how.

The world's attitude to women's sport is changing, but the process is, like a glacier, slow and inexorable rather than, like a flash flood, altering everything in an instant of time, writes Simon Barnes in the Times.

Women are not athletically inferior to men. In most sports, women operate to different kinds — different standards if you must — of performance. But it is a physiological fact that in many ways women are physically superior to men. When it comes to extreme endurance, tolerance of pain, coping with extremes of temperature and sense of balance, women beat men every time. But most sporting events - being invented by men - are not tough enough to reach the point at which female superiority kicks in.

After 120 years a woman is named in Wisden's cricketers of the year – heralding a new era for the women's game. Finally the fact that these ladies can play a bit has been recognised, writes Carrie Dunn in the Guardian.

Wisden has been naming cricketers of the year since 1889, and Claire Taylor is the first woman to be included on that roll of honour – even though the women's team has been playing Tests since 1934. One can attribute today's award to Taylor's brilliance – obviously – but also to the England women's raised media profile.

Wisden ought to be applauded for anointing Claire Taylor as one of its five Cricketers of the Year but will it make a world of difference to women's cricket in England? Not much, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

The ECB has received little recognition for its investment in cricket outside the professional game. The desperate need for funding to support the likes of Claire Taylor explains the reason why it has tried to maximise its income by fighting the supremacy of the parasitic IPL, rashly thrown itself into the arms of the rogue businessman Sir Allen Stanford and other dodgy moments besides. That then is what this Wisden award is; one of the best excuses the ECB has ever had.

We spent last night celebrating our victory. Drinks in the hotel bar with the management before heading out to a local pub for a few more drinks and a dance. Members of the other teams were out as well and there was a great spirit among all the players. I called it a day at about 2am and walked back to the hotel to call friends and family; completely exhausted but elated, writes Claire Taylor in the Telegraph.

England's World Cup winning cricketers follow in the footsteps of Myrtle Maclagan, pioneer of the women's game, writes Frank Keating in the Guardian.

England's 22-year old luminary on that first unbeaten Australian adventure was, happily, to become a friend and neighbour of mine in the last couple of decades of her life. Myrtle Maclagan was both opening bat and demon spin bowler. In the first Test at Brisbane, she scored 72 and took seven for 10. In the second at Sydney she made 119, the first Test century by a woman. England's men had lost their Ashes that summer of 1934, so Myrtle's feats had the Morning Post crowing back home

At the risk of creating the impression that I lead an empty and idle life, I admit that I did watch Sky's highlights of the England women's victory over New Zealand. I soon realised why the vast North Sydney Oval was almost deserted. The standard seemed little higher than that of a good club cricket game, of the sort which is played in villages up and down the country every weekend in summer; but no one except for friends and families would actually think of going along to watch such matches – let alone pay to get through a turnstile, writes Dominic Lawson in the Independent.

Andy Burnham, writing in the Independent after England Women won the World Cup final against New Zealand Women, tries to explain the reasons behind the lack of publicity for the women's game in England.

One of the arguments that comes back from the media is that the interest in women's sport is simply not there. I don't buy this. It's a self-serving argument. There will be no interest if broadcasters do not work to build it. History shows that the British public have the appetite to become absorbed in any sport if it is promoted in the right way. It wasn't long since we were all fascinated by curling. Activity at the grassroots shows there is real interest out there.

The achievement of England's women in lifting the World Cup goes beyond the mere winning of a big final, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

England women will be looking for their third World Cup win when they take on New Zealand in Sydney on Sunday. Andy Bull previews the game in the Guardian:

For the England team this final is the culmination of a run that began by retaining the Ashes in Australia last winter. "Last year was a massive turning point for the team, coming to Australia and being so successful gave us a real belief. Since then we've overcome all the challenges that are being put up against us, which is the true test of any team. I'm not surprised we're here in the final because over the last year we've played some really good cricket. But, if you'd asked me what our chances were two years ago, I wouldn't have imagined we would be here.

In the Times Patrick Kidd does a 60-second interview with England captain Charlotte Edwards.

In the same paper, Jenny Roesler draws up a cheat sheet that you can use to impress friends with trivia from the 2009 World Cup.

Also read Will Luke's interview with Edwards' on cricinfo.com.

Peter Bartlett, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, laments the poor reception for the Women's World Cup though the tournament witnessed some great cricket.

What is it about women's cricket? This is, after all, the game's showcase. It can only be the poor public perception and, alas, perception is everything. It is entertaining but try telling that to anyone, let alone convincing them to come along.
.......
In women's sport, various codes have been unfairly branded as enclaves of hard-nosed lesbians. My first response to that is: who cares? However, it simply doesn't apply. Just as we tell our kids not to generalise with nations, the same applies to sporting codes. Maybe women's cricket still suffers from a lingering element of that perception. Good on Cricket Australia and Cricket NSW for using the likes of Ellyse Perry to try to break that stereotype. The women deserve more respect.

Jenny Roesler, Cricinfo's former assistant editor, in a guest blog in the Times, writes the Women's World Cup has compared favourably to the men's version in 2007 in West Indies, and thinks England have the edge going into Sunday's final against New Zealand

England batsman Claire Taylor has been picked for the International Registered Testing Pool to be monitored for drug use. She explains what the protocol includes, how she worries she might mess it up, and why it is a burden for women cricketers, who need to take time off from work to turn up for tests and account for their whereabouts.

... for three months at a time, supply information to a central body with the following compulsory facts for each day:

a) Where I will be sleeping that night
b) What is my appointed hour for that day
c) Where I will be during the appointed hour.

Then I have to supply information about all my competition time; every England game, every club, county and MCC game. Then more information about my training time. They even asked me to supply information for all significant periods of time (who decides what's significant?) just in case they decide to visit me outside the appointed hour or outside training or competition time, which they are entitled to do.

The lady who explained all this to me said that the players' unions had been consulted. I don't belong to any union! She said that I could nominate someone with agent rights to load up all the information to the database for me. An agent? That sounds suspiciously like something someone who actually earned money from the sport would have!

India women have left for the World Cup in Australia and a win this time - they reached the final in 2005 - could do the women's game as much good as the 1983 win did for the men. In the Indian Express Bharat Sundaresan traces the development of women's cricket in India.

Even in the late 70s and early 80s, when the Indian men’s team were starting to come into their own, cricket was popular amongst women, insists Behroze. But England captain Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, who averaged 45 and 58 in Tests and ODIs respectively, was the only real woman superstar to idolise. “We would pounce onto whatever records were available and hear tales about her achievements. Men’s cricket was always a fascination and we used to get complementary passes to go watch them play at the CCI or at Wankhede,” Behroze says. Politicians played a part in the development of women’s cricket, and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was regarded as a promoter of the sport. “She told us that we were lucky to be among the top 11 cricketers to represent the country and that we should really value the India cap and blazer,” Behroze says about Gandhi.

Anjum Chopra, the Indian batsman, is set to become only the third women's cricketer to play in four World Cups. She chats with rediff.com's Bikash Mohapatra about the team's preparations for the tournament and the state of women's cricket in India.

This is also the first time the women's World Cup will be televised live. How does it feel?
... if a hundred countries get to watch women play internationally and if they get to watch a good standard, globally the game gets better. So I would, rather my team would, look at it as a plus point. Something that doesn't put pressure on us but something that encourages us to take the sport forward and get global recognition for women's cricket.

	Charlotte Edwards poses with her trophy for the Women's Player of the Year ©Getty Images

With the Women's World Cup about to get underway in Australia next month, England captain Charlotte Edwards talks about her foray into cricket, playing against male opponents and her opinion on women striking revealing poses to promote the sport.

How far has the women’s game come on in your time?
Leaps and bounds. The media profile has improved and we are now taken seriously. When I first represented England we still wore skirts on the field! Adidas has designed kit for us and that reflects what we are - professional athletes. We don’t have central contracts but are paid by the Chance to Shine charity to promote the game.

I live in the real world and know that women’s cricket needs all the publicity it can get. So in theory I don’t have any objection to something that achieves that. I would need to know exactly what it was I was being asked to reveal before I signed up to anything!

Read on in the Times.

In the Dawn, Shazia Hasan looks back at the year that was for the Pakistan women's team. Hasan summarises the fortune of the team at the international and domestic levels, as well as what happened on the administration front.

	Claire Taylor: Scoring hundreds when you are chasing mean more to me © Getty Images

After becoming only the fourth England woman cricketer to play 100 ODIs, Claire Taylor says she is still motivated as there are a few personal goals as well as some big team goals to achieve before she retires. On the England board's website, she talks about how she was unprepared for international cricket when she made her debut in 1998, her dazzling 156 not out two years ago (the highest individual score made in a one-dayer at Lord's), and the strong England side she's playing in.

We need 11 match-winners and it’s brilliant that so many people have put their hands up this summer – we have had seven different players of the match.

“It’s the first time in my time with England that we are selecting teams based on conditions. If we need another swing bowler, we have one. If we need another batsman, we’ve got another batsman. If we need a spinner, a quick bowler – they are all tapping on the door.

In the middle of a major Test series it's a fine effort for women's cricket to earn a double-page spread in the Age's sports section. Chloe Saltau spend some time with the Victoria women's team, the Spirit, and their coach Cathryn Fitzpatrick.

Earlier in the year she asked each member of the team to research a player, so they could understand better what it means to represent their state. There is a secret players' code known as "The Wilson", after the legendary former all-rounder Betty Wilson. Attempts to discover the meaning of The Wilson are met with silence, but it is safe to say the forthright 86-year-old who still attends every game in Melbourne embodies the hardness and determination to which the Spirit players aspire.

Rachael Heyhoe-Flint’s name will be forever synonymous with women’s cricket. She’s in Australia at the moment to follow the Ashes, but although England have lost the series she is
still her cheerful self, and full of her usual anecdotes. Mike Coward caught up with her and profiled her for The Australian newspaper.

There are mountains and there are molehills and The Surfer suspects that the latter is about to turn into the former with the news that a private text allegedly sent by the chairman of Leicestershire, Neil Davidson, has caused much indignation at Somerset, who have lodged a complaint with the ECB. And it’s about girls. Read the sorry saga, as reported in The Times here.

	Rosalie Birch: diplomat © Getty Images

A tour to the subcontinent involves anticipating dry-as-dust pitches and noise pollution that would scandalise the EC. Rosalie Birch would however want to go a step further and broaden her palette as well to prepare for the England women’s team’s forthcoming tour of India for the quadrangular world series. Towards this end the chillies she gamely chewed on was obviously more than she could swallow though her primitive tastes was equally evident in what she wrote in her online diary.

Commenting on the recently-concluded series against India’s women’s side, Birch trotted out more clichés about curries and hot food in one column that an entire series of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.

“We found it hilarious how the Indians added their own curry paste and pickles because they found the food too mild … but our players will not be laughing when their mouths are burning up in India.”

Wonder which universe Birch is living in? The ECB should make it mandatory to have its cricketers savour the delights of London’s Curry Mile, if only for the likes of Birch to sample how cumin combines with parsley and Rose Mary overlays cardamom to make curry something much more than just a masala-mix.

As England women take on India at Lord's today in the first of their five one-dayers, a storm is raging on the other side of the world. In Australia, The Age are asking do women sports stars deserve media coverage?

Greg Baum kicked off the debate a few weeks ago, with the rather contentious line: “If women insist on playing sport at all, it should be beach volleyball.” And a week later, his colleague Natalie Craig regretfully finds herself agreeing.

The debate came about because of a public inquiry in Sydney which, as ABC Sport reports, is considering the suggestion
that the media could be compelled to carry regular coverage of women's sport.

What do you think? Email us with your thoughts.

Thanks to Dan Roesler for the links

Isa Guha writes in the Bucks Free Press about her ambitions, on playing against Australia and her forthcoming trip to Lord's to face India

England's women international, Isa Guha, recently returned to her roots on the tour of India and Sri Lanka, and tells the Ealing Times about a hot, noisy, daunting but exhilarating experience.