England Shocked by West Indies in WT20 World Cup Upset

Markus Conneely on 1 November 2024

The West Indies’ comprehensive six-wicket win against England was Women’s Cricket’s biggest upset of the year and saw one of the favourites dumped out of the WT20 World Cup in the UAE. The final group game served as a de facto quarter-final, with England’s first innings score of 141 made to look diminutive by powerful West Indian hitting.

England, a major powerhouse on and off the pitch, were perfect across the last home summer, accumulating 13 wins from 13 completed games. Typically, bilateral series are where they play their best cricket, too often unable to manage the intense scrutiny of knockout matches. Their group stage exit in this year’s edition follows semi-final heartbreak at the last WT20 World Cup, the 2022 Commonwealth Games, as well as a crushing 50-over World Cup final loss against Australia in 2022.

England dropping five catches against the West Indies was indicative of a team feeling the pressure, conscious of their recent past. Windies opener Qiana Joseph, promoted to the top of the order despite a batting average of 14, took advantage of England’s mediocrity and rose to the most significant occasion of her sporting career. The Saint Lucian smeared England’s attack to all corners on the way to a career-best 52. In conjunction with Deandra Dottin, the team’s talisman, they exhibited the brute force that exists across the Caribbean, to which England had no answer.

The West Indies’ achievement is even more impressive when considering the economic disparity between the two teams. England will have eight entirely professional regional women’s teams by 2025, whilst the West Indies can only afford a skeletal system that supports a small number of centrally contracted players.

Grenadian Leg spinner Afy Fletcher, who stung England through the middle overs and claimed the best figures of the match (3/21), is isolated from the sparse coaching in the Caribbean for most of the year. Rather than spending her days in a high-performance centre, she predominantly trains independently with her partner, a local club cricketer.

In contrast, England’s domestic pathway has been transformed since the pandemic. Only Australia, who have dominated women’s cricket for a decade, has similar opportunities and resources available to female cricketers.

England enjoy comparisons to the all-conquering Australian Women’s side, but in the recent past, they haven’t won the trophies to justify them. Failure to qualify from the group stages was made all the more painful when Australia went on to be knocked out by South Africa in the semi-finals; England have missed a golden opportunity to make up ground on the old enemy. Fortunately, 2025 is another World Cup year, and they’ll be given every opportunity to banish their tournament demons.

Words by Markus Conneely

England’s Yorkshire stars take centre stage in Pakistan (Updated Version)

Freddie Waterland on 31 October 2024

Sitting here in Harry Brook and Joe Root’s native Yorkshire as the rain lashes at the windows, one could be forgiven for thinking Multan (Pakistan) was on a different planet, such was the sweltering heat and aridity on show over the past two weeks. Yet in truth the pair, cruising to England’s record test partnership as they set the team up for victory in the first test produced an archetype for subcontinent batting, and seemed more at home than their Pakistani counterparts.

This Pakistan side continue to be a source of deep confusion. A side containing two high class fast bowlers in Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi and batters (including the talismanic Babar Azam and Mo Rizwan) who are surely capable of scoring big runs, collapsed in the first test, resulting in a dramatic overhaul of some of many of its star names – including Babar and Shaheen.  

Make no mistake about it, England needed the win. Just as Multan appeared worlds apart from Yorkshire, this iteration of Bazball appears a long way from the halcyon days of 2022, with a shock defeat to Sri Lanka and a battering in India leaving McCollum not without his critics. This display, then, could be seen as a model for a more refined, considered ‘Bazball’. At its core remains an emphasis on player freedom and expression, but without the recklessness  they have sometimes been accused of playing with. 

It is a damning indictment on a side so full of talent, that Pakistan’s best option for success in the 2nd test was to roll the dice: craft a raging turner and hope they win the toss, and England’s batters fail more spectacularly than their own.  

In effect, that is what happened. In an unprecedented decision in test match cricket the surface on which the first test had been played was re-used for the second match of the series. This resulted in a hugely eroded, weathered surface and the Pakistani spinners Noman Ali and Sajid Khan combined to take all 20 of the England wickets and see them to victory. Whilst the series is level at 1-1, the nature of the pitch makes it tough to assess where the teams are in relation to one another. A debut hundred for Kamran Ghulam and the continued success of Agha Salman are certainly big positives for Pakistan though, whilst England have surely unearthed a key bowler for their Ashes prospects in Brydon Carse, and Ben Duckett’s 4th Test Hundred has solidified his spot at the top of the order for the foreseeable future. 

The focus though is rightly on Brook and Root, who will be central to England’s chances of winning the series next week. It would be unfair on Root to describe this series as a ‘changing of the guard’ moment – he is simply the best batter in the world right now – but it has demonstrated for all to see, that just as Yorkshire has produced stars of England’s past and present, in Brook they may just have done so for the future as well. 

Words by Freddie Waterland

Culture shock: How a different country’s autumn traditions compare to those in the UK

Jacqueline Wong on 31 October 2024

As we welcome the autumn chills and falling maroon leaves, the landscape in the UK transforms into a scene straight out of painting.

What does autumn remind you of?

Warm scented candles, pumpkins, light rain and perhaps the smell of damp earth?

While the elements of autumn mentioned above spring to mind, the mesmerising full moon on the Mid-Autumn Festival symbolises harvest, prosperity, and good fortune, which means more to me as I grew up in Hong Kong. For many, autumn is always a time for family and friends to gather.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is widely celebrated in East Asia. It has varied cultural connotations, but its central theme is family, reunion, and thankfulness for the harvest. The story of Chang’e is a Chinese myth closely related to the celebration of the festival. Chang’e was the wife of Hou Yi, a heroic archer who was given an elixir of immortality by the gods. The gods granted him this elixir as a reward for shooting down nine out of ten suns and sparing people from dying from extreme heat. Chang’e was threatened by Hou Yi’s apprentice, Fengmeng, to give out the elixir to him while Hou Yi was away. She took the elixir herself rather than giving it to Fengmeng. She then flew upward, past the heavens, choosing the Moon to be her immortal residence as she loved Hou Yi and wished to live near him. The legend is commemorated yearly through moon gazing and sharing mooncakes, which symbolises the moon and family unity.

Mooncakes / Image Credit: Eat Cho Food

In Hong Kong, where I grew up, the festival is marked by meeting families and friends under the glow of lanterns and moonlight to share mooncakes (a treat filled with lotus seed paste or red bean). In my hazy memories of childhood, my cousins and I roamed the streets with brightly coloured lanterns, which were often shaped like animals or symbols of good luck, representing the hope for prosperity and the guiding light of family and friends. As I grew older, the lights gave way to pleasant evening walks with my family along the promenade, where we could take a break from the fast pace of life.

People launch Kongming lanterns for the Mid-Autumn Festival / Image Credit: The Independent

In contrast, autumn customs in the UK emphasise different festivities such as Halloween and Bonfire Night. Halloween originated in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. It was a time when people believed that the line between the living and the dead was blurred, leading to the tradition of dressing up to ward off spirits.

Halloween originated in Ireland over 1000 years ago / Image Credit: Moriarty’s

In modern times, this has transformed into homes and streets decorated with pumpkins, while children dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating. Bonfire Night is observed on November 5th, commemorating the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, with bonfires and fireworks lighting up the sky as a tribute to the event. These festivals carry a sense of excitement and festivity but are less focused on the themes of family and reunion central to the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Yet, when it comes to commemorating the harvest season, the two cultures share certain commonalities. Whether it is by spending time with loved ones or remembering historical events, both festivals provide an opportunity for reflection. Autumn is a time to recognise the value of custom, community, and thankfulness — whether it is celebrated with the crackle of fireworks over the British Isles or the soft glow of lanterns lighting up the streets of Hong Kong. Despite having distinct beginnings and meanings, both customs encapsulate the spirit of autumn with parties, festivities, and a strong bond between the past and present.

If you are like me and have a different cultural background than the British locals, why not share your autumnal traditions with the new friends you met at university? Engage in some UK autumn customs, giving yourself a fresh UK autumn experience.

No matter where you are from, we wish you a lovely autumn.

How are local groups preparing to help people this winter?

Archie Sykes on 29 October 2024

The famous line from Game of Thrones ‘Winter is Coming’ is more and more becoming an appropriate description of how the United Kingdom must prepare every year. Within my lifetime it has become commonplace for every winter to see the headline ‘NHS in Crisis’ and read that the pressures of winter diseases and colder weather will push the service over the brink.

Meanwhile, across the country, people are struggling to cope not just on a seasonal basis, but on a weekly basis. Inflation, affecting both food and energy, is creating new and bigger challenges for everyone. Food prices are now 20% higher than they were in May 2021 meaning people are paying more for the same, whilst wages, and importantly benefits for those struggling the most, have lagged behind these rapid increases in prices.

Recent inflation trends have gone hand in hand with longer trends that have seen growing levels of poverty and even reports by the Resolution Foundation of destitution across the country. This poverty problem has been demonstrated in the rise in parents (now ¼) struggling to put food on the table and an estimated 3 million children struggling to get sufficient food.

Longer-term trends in the levels of poverty mean that despite inflation being brought down and being ‘back to normal’ (as Rishi Sunak claimed during the election) planned rises in the energy price cap are going to be the third nail in the economic coffin that drives more people into crisis.

The multi-faceted nature of the economic pressures on people means that people from all across society are having to seek help from the community. Warm Spaces (and their accompanying Community Shop) run by Hyde Park Methodist Church in Leeds, has people from babies (and their parents) coming, to homeschooling families, and people in their 80s.

With this economic situation developing and no major government intervention being planned (or implemented in previous years), many communities have sought their own solutions to these growing problems and to mitigate the impact of winter. These have manifested themselves in the development of food banks and, in more recent times, warm banks.

Food banks have become an icon of the community filling in where the state has failed. Although for people of my generation, it may seem hard to believe, food banks are a relatively new concept being largely unheard of before 2010. However, since 2010, the food bank has slowly developed into an almost integral part of the British social security system. This growth has not slowed and in the last 5 years, the Trussell Trust (the biggest foodbank provider in the UK) has reported a 94% increase in the number of emergency food parcels they had to deliver. Here in Yorkshire, the increase has been even more rapid with there being an increase of 157% meaning the area has the second fastest-growing food bank sector in the country behind London.

Meanwhile, in more recent years the UK has moved on from just needing food banks and has begun to move into the warm bank sector as well. These new institutions have developed as a community solution to deal with rising energy prices and therefore the increasing problems in keeping homes warm. With the supply of a warm room and often warm drinks and food, these sites have become important for people struggling particularly in winter. Today there are over 3,000 warm banks across the UK according to the World Economic Forum with them being run by councils and community groups alike.

However, warm banks are evolving to do more than simply meet the needs of those who can’t afford to heat their own homes all day. A growing crisis across the UK has been the rise in loneliness particularly among elderly people, but among all generations as well. According to one of the leading charities providing warm banks 7% of the population suffer from chronic loneliness and this has been replicated in the reason for people coming. Warm Welcome have reported that the main reason for people coming to warm banks is because of loneliness.

This is something that the Warm Space has also noticed, Sharon (one of the people helping run the service) described how “As months have gone people have started sitting together” showing how the service is helping people make friends and find a new community. This impact has been so great that the church has rebranded the site a Welcome Space recognising it’s “not just a space for people to be warm, but also for social interaction”.

Warm banks are fast evolving in the new social environment to meet changes in demand. No longer are they hubs just to help keep people warm, these community spaces are now helping tackle other problems in the loneliness epidemic.

Across the UK major economic and now social issues are beginning to be countered by community groups. In areas where state support has failed to keep people properly afloat, it is the charitable work of people within our community which is helping to tackle hunger, cold and loneliness across our communities. And with budgets in government departments being squeezed and large increases in benefits a long way off, it may be fair to say that the UK is now a society dependent on the community.

Words by Archie Sykes