England v Ireland: Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup 2026 – live

Key events

20m ago

Rain

32m ago

Preamble

Rain

The weather is not currently playing ball. “Full covers on,” says Raf. “The crowd has retreated under shelter.Should pass fairly quickly but we may get a delayed start.”

Raf is in position at Southampton – though she has provided no reports of any fancy cheescake yet. “Hello! I’m currently watching the end of a fascinating NZ v Sri Lanka contest. The ground is about half full at the moment - they’re expecting almost 10,000 people in for the England game.”

And in fact Sri Lanka have just won a thriller by five wickets, with two balls to spare.

Preamble

Good evening! Let’s get stuck in – England’s second match of the tournament after their dicing of Sri Lanka, and Ireland’s second after losing rather disappointingly to Scotland by 40 runs. They’ll be keen to give England a run from their money today, with much depending on Orla Prendergast, the talented all rounder who plays as the overseas for the Blaze , especially as former captain Laura Delany is missing the whole tournament through injury.

The toss is at 6pm – do send me a message if you’re at Southampton, or if you’ve got any thoughts on what’s going on – I’d love to hear from you.