#glovework

Can we talk about how good this is for a second?

Sarah Taylor's catch off a Jodie Fields reverse-sweep in the Women's Ashes series is simply incredible. Dani Hazell is a very talented spinner, and at 48.2mph in that delivery, is on par with Steven Smith for pace (to provide some context for those who only follow the men's game).

Taylor has anticipated the shot, moved her feet well (still managing to stay low and rise with the ball, despite the movements she needed to make) to give her a base from which to spring explosively to her right, throwing her hand at the ball to hope it sticks. It is a ludicrously good piece of wicketkeeping.

In the past, women's cricket has often been maligned for being of a lower standard than the men's game. It pains me to say it, but often that criticism has been deserved - the women's game is chronically underfunded almost everywhere bar Australia, New Zealand and England, and it has resulted in remarkably one-sided, boring cricket contests over time. 

But Sarah Taylor, alongside Ellyse Perry, is arguably the poster-girl of the more professional era in which Women's Cricket now sits. Her glovework is cleaner, more refined and more technically-correct than any male Test cricketer's (only Prasanna Jayawardene, of contemporary players, can run her close). She moves her feet well (in a way the super-talented AB de Villiers cannot), isn't over-reliant on the dive (like Brad Haddin is) and gloves the ball extremely cleanly (putting Matthew Wade to shame).