Lasses come last

Just a couple of points before we get back to the more serious business of the Ashes.

* The best piece of cricket in either T20 tournament came from Claire Taylor for her semi-final innings. I cannot remember any man looking so much better than his contemporaries than she did that day. Perhaps Brian Lara in the mid-1990s.

* Sadly, the conventional men of the media did not get it. England women won their world title and now hold the Ashes and the one-day world titles. Yet they were placed second in the news lists of - just as a for instance - CricInfo, BBC's Ceefax and ITV's Teletext. Natural home prejudice ought to have given their success pride of place. Or is England now so multi-cultural that we must offer Pakistan to spot for winning the men's title?

* What did the Aussies make of it all, secure in their Leicester dug-out? We will not find out how they have coped until July 8 - 17 days to go