The Analysis: Mady Villiers offers timely reminder of England credentials

NICK FRIEND AT LORD'S: It's coming up to a year since Villiers last played for England, so her four-wicket haul in front of the injured national-team captain could hardly have been better timed

If a good game is a fast game, then this was an excellent game. If your definition is more nuanced than that, however, then a good game this was not. A mismatch between one team playing near its peak, with the confidence of having won The Hundred on this ground only a year ago, and another that could scarcely have been further from it.

The more you watch London Spirit, the harder it is to escape the Heather Knight-shaped hole in the middle of a team crying out for a world-class batter to dovetail with Beth Mooney.

Instead, such is the nature of the beast, when the England captain was forced to withdraw from the competition a week out from its start-date, she was replaced by Chloe Brewer, the 20-year-old South East Stars batter yet to make her Hundred debut.

Brewer has done nothing wrong, of course, but it is a reminder of the situation in which Spirit find themselves, where they are weaker in their English core than last summer. Naomi Dattani admitted the obvious at the close, that Knight's withdrawal had hit the group hard.

It's easily forgotten that Knight's absence wasn't even the first blow to hit her team since the end of last year's tournament: Tammy Beaumont left for Welsh Fire and wasn't adequately replaced, while Aylish Cranstone – one of the domestic circuit's form players in 2022 – moved on to Oval Invincibles.

^{Megan Schutt didn't have many runs to play with (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)}

It has left plenty of pressure on the shoulders of Beth Mooney, one of the leading T20 players in the world but not a magician. And once she was the second wicket to fall, chipping Mady Villiers to extra cover for her second of four victims, having already watched Dani Gibson sky the same bowler to mid-off, the writing felt as though it was on the wall.

Only the partnership between Amelia Kerr and Charlie Dean, who made 31 and 18 respectively, prevented the ignominy of recording The Hundred's lowest score.

Oval Invincibles, on the other hand, are well drilled to the point of not missing Marizanne Kapp, still suffering from the same discomfort that ruled the South African allrounder out of a similarly convincing win over Birmingham Phoenix. It was noticeable how disciplined they were as a pack: there were two no-balls but not a single wide in the 97 deliveries it took to run through their hosts.

For Villiers, it was a particularly positive afternoon on the day after she turned 24: the England off-spinner has endured a curious year – it will be 12 months next Sunday since she last represented her country, having emerged two summers earlier as the likely second spinner for the foreseeable future.

Since then, Charlie Dean – her opposite number at Lord's – has usurped her in the general pecking order, while the combination of Bryony Smith and Alice Capsey provide off-spin options for the T20 side, along with Sarah Glenn and Sophie Ecclestone.

^{Lauren Winfield-Hill knocked off the runs with a minimum of fuss (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)}

It has meant the closing up of opportunities for Villiers, who on the face of it has done little wrong. She is yet to play an ODI for England, the format in which Dean has become most established: they are different off-spinners, with Dean more traditionally over-the-top in her action than Villiers' slightly lower arm.

These were her best figures in The Hundred and the first time she has claimed more than two wickets in an innings. Knight, conveniently, was watching on from Spirit's dressing room.

As well as Mooney and Gibson, she bowled Naomi Dattani and Grace Scrivens – the former beaten by one that skidded through as she looked to cut, the latter – of similar profile to Villiers as a young off-spinning allrounder – played over the top of a full ball. Those latter wickets, she said afterwards, were the result of a conscious effort to bowl straighter and keep her craft as simple as possible.

That was the end of her day, not required for the simplest of run-chases, instead left to the kind of top order that London Spirit – officially out following this defeat – can only dream of.