James will be here shortly. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from Mike Selvey on how the England team rose to dominance:

For the England women's cricket team, the beginning of the slog to the summit can probably be traced back to 5 May 2010, a disastrous day on St Kitts, when they played Australia in a group match of the World Twenty20, Murphy's Law kicked in, and anything that could go wrong did, and did so in spades. The result was the tightest imaginable, with scores finishing level, a super-over eliminator doing likewise, and Australia deemed winners on countback because of the single six struck earlier in the match by their batsman Jess Cameron.

It does not however tell the story of the complete mess England made of that match, in which Clare Taylor, the world's leading female batsman, was run out without facing a ball and then unaccountably flagged through to the wicketkeeper the first ball of the super over. Nor does it tell of the England captain Charlotte Edwards, not a regular bowler, deciding to bowl the last over of the match herself, with eight runs needed, sending down a high full toss first ball, which was dispatched to the boundary.

It was an appallingly executed match by a team who held the World Cup and the World T20 titles and were strong favourites to retain the latter. Having lost that match, and deflated by the performance, they then lost to West Indies and were eliminated from the competition having not even reached the semi-finals.

Since then, progress in T20 cricket, the best format for women's cricket, has been little short of astonishing. In July of that year, they twice were beaten at home by New Zealand, but since then, they have lost only twice – to Australia in Canberra last year, and to West Indies in their last home game of last summer – in 33 matches.