Series of success broken: DCB women manage 4th place in World Cup qualification

The German women's national cricket team missed out on a place in the second qualifying round for the 2023 T20 World Cup in South Africa in La Manga, Spain. In the European group, the team of national coach Michael Thewlis ended up in a fourth place out of five participating teams. Turkey had withdrawn its participation at short notice.

"This is just a setback after a long period of success and great development of the players and the whole team. It will help us to be able to re-evaluate what is important to continue this process. I know there's still a lot of potentials there," Thewlis said after one win from the four matches against France, Netherlands, Scotland, and Ireland. Betting on sports is very common in Germany, especially betting sites for cricket.

Ireland live up to their role as favorites

The qualifiers began with a clear defeat to Ireland. The German women opted to bowl first after winning the coin toss. So it was up to the Irish women to score runs with the batting right. And they succeeded quite well. 196 points with two out of ten possible batswomen were on the scoreboard when Germany around team captain Anuradha Doddaballapur had delivered the maximum number of 120 balls in 20 overs - one over equals six balls thrown - towards the Irish batswoman. In the second innings, the Germans scored just 32 at bat on three wickets, batswomen removed from the game by the opposition.

"It was a difficult game against one of the world's best women's teams. In this, it never really looked like they would be able to take us out of the game early when we were batting and so we held on until the end. I was really taken with our dedication, enthusiasm and attitude," Thewlis said after the opening duel, which also snapped a previous streak of 14 straight unbeaten games. Vice-captain Christina Gough was Germany's best batswoman with 14 runs off 58 balls.

However, this defeat should not break the morale, the anticipation for the further tasks in summer temperatures towards 30 degrees was great. Germany won the second game clearly against France. The French women had already been guests at the federal base in Krefeld at the beginning of July and lost out in all five comparisons. This time they decided to bat first. After 15 overs all ten batswomen were out, the score was 45. The Germans reached target 46 after 9.3 of 20 overs. Only one batswoman had to leave the field. Best German was Bianca Maes Loch, who took three wickets in four overs and conceded twelve runs to the opposition. Doddaballapur took two wickets - dropping the wooden structure protected by the batsman - in one over.

Last Friday's defeat against the Dutch women, who were also slight favorites, was the second loss in the third match and thus the last hope of advancing was gone. The German women finished on 71 after 20 overs - four batswomen would still have been ready for action. Once again, the best batswoman was Gough from Hamburg, who managed to convert 47 balls into 34 runs. With five six-ball overs to go, the team from the neighboring country reached target 72 and won the match early.

No jitters against the Netherlands, but not enough runs

"It was a long, hot day for us with two matches at once, but the team showed a good performance. The match against the Netherlands was important because we understood how we have developed as a team in the last two years. The nervousness we showed then was not there this time," said the English coach of the Germans. But his players were neatly disappointed not to have scored more points to put greater pressure on their opponents, he said. "However, the opposition also bowled well and accurately, making it difficult for us to score early via runs," the 51-year-old cricket coach from Newcastle said.

The bowling and tactical alignment on the field (fielding) were "really good." In addition, he said, the team succeeded in taking wickets early. Thewlis: "The team was happy about that, but disappointed with the final result, of course." The Golden Eagles also suffered another resounding defeat in their final match against Scotland. Though they lasted the complete distance of 20 overs, they could only score 36 runs. Karthika Vijayaraghavan was the best German with seven runs. Scotland ended the match early and trumped the German haul with the opening duo after 4.5 overs. "We had a really bad day. They bowled well, and we didn't bat like we're supposed to," Thewlis said. That's just what happens in cricket, he said, citing India's performance against England as an example. The team from the island defeated the clear favorites by a completely surprising 76-run margin.

"The players are very upset about this performance because actually much more is possible. But now it's all over. Video of the match can be viewed at mstrapshooting.org.

It was a difficult game against good opponents," the coach summed up. The Golden Eagles had set their sights high and had secretly hoped to qualify for the next round and compete in next year's Global Qualifier. To do so, however, the team would have had to finish first. "It's important now how we deal with this and react to it in our upcoming training sessions and our games," said the German coach.