The Analysis: Southern Brave get tactics spot on as Oval Invincibles drop captain

NICK FRIEND: Oval Invincibles are hardly alone in having to fit four quality overseas players into three slots – indeed, Birmingham Phoenix left out Deepti Sharma on Saturday

Nick Friend | 14/08/2022 at 17:34

Ordinarily, you wouldn't drop the captain who had led your team to a title only two games earlier. But in a competition that has attracted the best female players from around the world but only allows three to feature at once, that was the dilemma facing Oval Invincibles, who left Dane van Niekerk out of a game in which they were ultimately soundly beaten.

The South African allrounder was the player of the tournament in 2021, but her side's comprehensive win over Northern Superchargers in their opener last Thursday marked her first appearance for nine months, dating back to the Women's Big Bash last November. Soon afterwards, at the start of 2022, she slipped at home and suffered an ankle injury that kept her out of the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games.

So, while she has returned to fitness and was able to roll through 15 balls of leg-spin in her comeback appearance, she has none of the recent form of her wife, Marizanne Kapp, or fellow overseas players Shabnim Ismail and Suzie Bates to fall back upon.

It is an awkward balance for the team's thinktank, of which van Niekerk was such a key part in 2021. Her captaincy was lauded for her treatment of a group of youngsters, typified during the trophy presentation when she quickly stepped aside for the likes of Alice Capsey – missing on Sunday with stiffness in her ankle – to bask in the limelight, while no one scored more runs across the competition.

But in her absence through the first half of 2022, Kapp found form with the bat during South Africa's tour of England, while Bates made runs during the Commonwealth Games and is such an experienced captain that it softened the blow of missing van Niekerk.

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^{Suzie Bates was at the helm for Oval Invincibles in the absence of Dane van Niekerk (Julian Finney/Getty Images)}

Still, though, placing Bates in temporary charge meant handing responsibility to someone who hadn't been involved in the victorious campaign of 2021 and whose experience of the competition extended only to a single straightforward win a matter of days ago.

It will make for an intriguing dynamic going forward, with Invincibles hardly alone in having to fit four quality overseas players into three slots – indeed, Birmingham Phoenix left out Deepti Sharma on Saturday. On a dry Kia Oval pitch, the decision left Invincibles at least one spinner light, without van Niekerk's leggies and Capsey's batting replaced with Aylish Cranstone but not her off-spin.

Sophia Smale was the best bowler on either side – a tall 17-year-old left-arm spinner of tremendous promise – but Mady Villiers was expensive. They accounted for 40 balls of the innings, with the other 60 left to the seamers, who were taken down in the powerplay by Smriti Mandhana, who set the tone for Southern Vipers to dominate.

Her demise was followed by a lull, only arrested when Freya Kemp – who wasn't required to bowl, highlighting the full extent of options at Anya Shrubsole's disposal – swung away four fours in a late blitz that turned a middling score into something more substantial.

Kemp was a spectator in the field; Shrubsole used herself, Lauren Bell and Tahlia McGrath for 45 deliveries but otherwise went with spin, even getting 15 balls out of Sophia Dunkley and Danni Wyatt, neither of whom have bowled in international cricket for some time.

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^{Oval Invincibles were a spinner short, with neither van Niekerk nor Capsey available to Bates (Julian Finney/Getty Images)}

Georgia Adams' improving off-spin accounted for both Kapp and Lauren Winfield-Hill, the latter with what she later described as "one of the best balls I've ever bowled", conceding just 16 runs in the process.

Interestingly, she explained afterwards that Shrubsole had said upon joining Southern Vipers ahead of the regional season that she would want her to bowl for Brave. Her low-arm off-breaks were perfect on a surface that spun and also occasionally skidded on with the arm.

Of course, Adams was on the other side of the fence in 2021, part of the Invincibles side that overcame Brave in the final.

But having moved over to join many of her regular-season teammates, this was revenge of sorts against the reigning champions, who have an intriguing predicament to solve.